3D Print Tips – Printing ABS/ASA

Preparation:

  • Do your e-steps, temp-, flow- and retraction towers. Starting with a good dialed-in printer makes a real difference. A decent PLA dialed-in printer is not neccessarily a good setup for ABS, but it`s a good start.
  • Make sure your filament has no moisture in it.
  • Check your filament brand for temperatures. Most filaments print with 260c nozzle and 100c bedtemp.
  • Use a (heated) enclosure with a constant temperature around 55c. Drafts and temperature changes will make your print fail.
  • Have an air purifier or better, a exhaust to the outside. The fumes of styrene filaments are toxic!

Print settings:

  • Print the first layer a little thicker. (eg. 0.28mm if you print with a 0.20mm layerheight).
  • Reduce fan speed. No fan for first 10 layers, then go for maximum 30-40% fanspeed.
  • Use an adhesive (like Magigoo Glue) as a release agent. ABS prints can be difficult to get off your bed.
  • Use PEI sheet for best results, also with an adhesive.
  • Lower your flowrate a bit.
  • Print your first layers slowly, like 20mm/s, with rest on 40mm/s. Then try to speedup and up your nozzle temp, flowrate and fanspeed a bit.
  • Standard is 4 walls, for stronger prints you can go to 6 or 8 walls.
  • Let the bed/chamber cool down to room temperature slowly. When cooling to fast, layers will split. Most of the time the print will popoff at room temperature (when using an adhesive as release agent)
  • Heat up the bed to the right temperature, but wait about 15 minutes before you start printing. That way the heat can reach the whole plate.
  • Make sure your chamber temperature is constant around 55-60c, before you start your print.

Some common issues

Some issues that you can run into are:

  • Stringing
  • Warping
  • Layer splitting:
    Constant temperature and an enclosure with constant high internal temperature and low part cooling are really important to prevent layer splitting.
    Try a higher nozzle temp when you get layer splitting and reduce your printspeed.
    When designing, make sure you have used fillets. 90degrees corners can give you headaches.
    Let your print cool down SLOWLY. Annoying? Yes! But if you cool it to quickly, layers will split (or at least give you a bad layerconnection, making the whole model very weak. And that will end in splits or broken pieces like when you bolt a nut on it.

There are possibly more things to look at, but with this you should get started.

Also check out this really complete article about printing with ASA.