For ABS Printing: Housing for the Mendel90?

Hi Guys,

did anybody ever tried to print with ABS material? As far as I heard, it's required to build a housing around the printer to the the desired temperature. Did anybody ever build such a housing? Is is available somewhere?

Still thinking about if the Mendel90 would be "my printer" :-)

Thanks, Netsrac

I put mine in the box provided by nophead with the 3 of the lid flaps holding up a large polystyrene square and a blanket on top. I close the last flap when printing ABS>

It's not pretty but it's only seen by me, so its quick, cheap and effective.

It will work until I build a nice clear case for it...

Not needed if you get the print settings right in my experience. I print ABS with a nozzle temperature of 245C and bed temperature of 130C. In the past, I had delamination problems with a lower bed temperature for some reason. My printer is in the house though and not in an unheated garage which is likely to make a difference.

Alan

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/05/2013 08:22AM by Alzibiff.

Likewise, I print ABS with my extruder between 235C and 245C (depending on filament) and my bed between 125C and 135C (~115C surface temperature) for the first layer.
Where necessary, I drop my bed temperature to just below 105C for subsequent layers, though often by the time the bed blanket has been removed and the first layer has been completed, the bed is near enough 105C anyway.

I found that the temperature across my bed was not even, so I whilst I can get away with 125C for smaller jobs that sit near the centre, the edges don't get hot enough for larger jobs so I have increase the bed to 135C to compensate (lift tends to happen at the corners).

The only reason I would have for building an enclosure is to catch and exhaust the ABS fumes, which when printing large/complex jobs can build up and become noticeable.

Okay, thanks....but you are all printing ABS successfully. This is good to know....I might not start with ABS, but I wanna have the option...

I was looking into the Felix 3.0 DIY printer when a friend pointed me to the Mendel90. The support here in the forum is quite impressive. Not only it looks like the Mendel90 has better community support, it's also cheaper and still looks pretty nice.

Thanks, Netsrac

Dibond for the side and back plus acrylic panels to slide in:

funny enough, I only have problems with the temperature of the material being to high when printing ABS.
The amount if heat being transported into the object by the layers in print is way to big, so everything gets wobbly etc.
I have to use the fan in the same way as if I where printing PLA to get some relatively good results.
Maybe some settings are not correct, as I seem to be the only one with these problems...

That only happens with small objects printed quickly for me, so I simply set a minimum layer time to avoid it. Are you sure your ABS is ABS?

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

it was sold as abs, and smells horribly while printing, but meanwhile i am not so sure anymore. i printed the fan duct with it, and the part close to the nozzle melted yesterday (at least i discovered it yesterday) and is stuck to the red silicone tape. how is that possible with abs? strange. i ordered some abs from anther dealer and will see what happens with that.

if you set a minimum layer time, will that nur make it worse? the head will just move slower and stay in contact with layers longer....

This is a common misconception. The object doesn't get much heat from the head being near it. It gets much more from having molten plastic added to it.

Very odd that an ABS fan duct would melt. It should not be touching the tape.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

Try printing two objects at the same time so they have a chance to cool down a little between layers...

I melted my fan duct a bt too since I was setting the fan speed settings a little low.

nophead:
The duct did not touch the head when I installed it. I was printed perfeclty and looked like yours. For some reason the heat coming from the nozzle must have made the "abs" wobbly and it bent and touched the silicone tape. I have already new material here and will print a new duct later and see what happens.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/08/2013 10:03AM by muelli.

I recently had to return a reel of what was supposed to be ABS to a supplier. Not sure what's going on in the filament world, but it seems to be a huge mixed bag.

@Ralph: Do you find the polystyrene base has helped reduce noise\vibration? I noticed a significant drop when using the printed 'feet' from Thingiverse, but your idea looks good also.

Tom - yes - it gives a major noise and vibration improvement.