Which is best ABS or PLA for printed parts?

Hello everyone,

I am new to 3D printing but have been inspired to build one. I am planning on building a Prusa Mendel and am currently researching parts, suppliers and pricing etc. I live in Australia and have found a person in australia selling printed parts on ebay. The printed parts he is selling are all PLA however every other set of printed parts I have seen advertised are made from ABS with PLA bushings. Is PLA a suitable material for the printed parts of a Prusa? I understand that PLA gets soft when it gets warm (not sure what temperature specifically), would this be an issue for motor mounts etc?

Any advice would be appreciated.
Cheers,
Dane.

I only use PLA and have never had any issues.

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Depends on a lot of factors. I would personally never recommend PLA for anything attached to the motors or near the hot end. I tend to run the motors closer to their rated current (and therefore around the temperature PLA softens). If you are willing to keep the motors cool by reducing their power output, PLA is a reasonable material choice.

There are a lot of PLA repraps out there that work perfectly fine, so don't let me discourage you too much.

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Thanks for your responses. Wow, what a helpful community! I posted a question and had two responces within 4 minutes :-)
Thank you, I look forward to becoming more involved.

I'm with Andrew Diehl

I can speak for other hot end assemblies, but I don't see PLA printed parts being a problem with the Makergear Hot End Pack. Their GrooveMount keeps the hot parts a good distance away from the x-carriage and wades extruder body.

However, it's important to make sure your motors are not getting hot. You will need to tune the current flow accordingly before they warp adjacent plastic. I'm using the Kysan motors sold from Ultimachine and they barely get warm.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/01/2011 06:40PM by Pawl.

If you want to print large ABS parts then you need to put the whole machine in a heated box. The motors then get far too hot for PLA brackets.

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With a fan to cool the x carriage and the cold end of the extruder, I have no issues with printing PLA at all. PLA also doesn't smell as bad as ABS, and it's potentially nicer to the environment.

I'll still probably switch to ABS at a point though, because I can source it cheaper locally.

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The majority of my Prusa is now in PLA, the only problem I had was my x carriage got a little soft and warped. A fan fixed that no problem.


bdcannon