printing on glass with ABS Juice or sugar coating

I had astonishing success with ABS juice, in fact ABS juice is sticky.... so sticky that sometime the printed part come with chipped glass part of the glass surface!!!! I don't know if it's because a chemical reaction between abs juice and the kind of glass that i'm using, but it became a real problem since I had to change the glass support too often.

Then i discover this thread : [forums.reprap.org] that talk about Sugar coating on glass. and I decided to give it a try.

At first it's was a total failure. The extruded ABS did not stick to the sugar coated glass. and now it works flawlessly. I'm sharing with you my experiment results and Technics.

Experiment #1
Bed Temp 100°C
3 tea spoon of brown sugar in 1/2 cup of water. Applied with piece of cotton tissue. Applying the coating was hard because the liquid tend to form small isles which left part of the glass uncoated.
Result: ABS do not stick well

Experiment #2
Bed Temp 100°C
3 tea spoon of brown sugar in 1/2 cup of 99% alcohol. Trying to dissolve the sugar it took me 30 seconds to remember my chemistry school course... Sugar do not dissolved in alcohol .
Result: Failed at the beginning

Experiment #3
Bed Temp 100°C
6 tea spoon of brown sugar in 1/2 cup of Water. Applied with piece of cotton tissue. the liquid still forming islands, it is easier to applied because the sugar is more concentrate. I kept scrubbing until the water evaporate, that left a nice evently coated surface.
Result: ABS do not stick well!!! is this due to the too much sugar concentration or the brown sugar???

Experiment #4
Bed Temp 95°C
1 tea spoon of white sugar in 1/2 cup of Water. Applied with small brush. the liquid still forming islands, it is hard to applied, the water take time to evaporate. I kept scrubbing until the water evaporate, that left a nice evently coated surface.
Result: Success!!!, ABS stick berry well!!! Removing the part is a charm, for the few parts that i printed, the sugar layer stayed on the glass, so no need the reapply.


... to be continue

Interesting. I'll have to give it a try when my printer comes on line. The less acetone in the air the better as far as I'm concerned, whether I'm breathing it or venting it to the atmosphere. Thanks

In my limited experience, ABS juice gets sticky because of trace amounts of dissolved ABS from the plate or other uses (welding pieces, etc.). As to the glass plate chipping, no clue until I print enough that I gain some personal insight into the mechanism at work.

brown vs white? Not sure, but it might be the leftover molasses in the brown sugar, or it could just the small sample size of your tests, idk... (ie, it might have just been a fluke that it didn't work for brown sugar or the concentration was too high or you didn't wait long enough, or...???)

... you can try with malt-beer - some of the additives (beside of shugar) seems to help too

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

Bit off topic but have you tried hairspray? I have been getting pretty good adhesion with PLA using this.
I'm using 3mm glass, wipe surface with meths, heat bed to approx 60 deg C then apply a couple of coats of spray.
I've made a cardboard mask so I don't coat the extruder or anything else. Reducing to 55 deg after first layer.

... vent when spraying - most hair-sprays are inflammable, so can cause severe fire-hazard!

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Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

Meths is highly inflammable too, so common sense applies using all these substances.

glyn Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Bit off topic but have you tried hairspray? I have
> been getting pretty good adhesion with PLA using
> this.
> I'm using 3mm glass, wipe surface with meths, heat
> bed to approx 60 deg C then apply a couple of
> coats of spray.
> I've made a cardboard mask so I don't coat the
> extruder or anything else. Reducing to 55 deg
> after first layer.

I tried hairspray some time back,with ABS and it did not work too well.

See link: [forums.reprap.org]

If it works on PLA that's good.
Thank's for the info.

Glyn, hairspray is an aerosol. The very fact that you have to use a shield should be evidence enough in itself to realize that it presents a greater danger than using a sponge brush to wipe a bit of acetone on the heated bed.

And as far as PLA is concerned, (where I see most of the suggestions for its use) when people are reporting such good results with dilute PVA it seems pointless.

Venting *should be present for any of this anyway for health concerns, but it will not stop a fire from an over-concentration of flammable vapor, although it will help to reduce the likelihood of build up of those vapors.

I found sugar (One tablespoon raw sugar per cup of water) worked good for things less that 1" high, like a Wades big gear, but on tall things (2.5") like an X assembly end, I had a problem. The center area of the base would stay stuck, but one or more corners would lift, resulting in a distorted part.

I switched to ABS juice, which worked a little better but was not a complete fix for the corner lifting problem.

Any ideas on how to fix corner lifting?

I have no problem with tall objects with heat bed at 110°C.
I wait for the heat bed to be at around 90°C before applying the coating.

Then I apply the sugar coating with a brush and I scrub gently until the coating feels dry and not sticky. That leave the surface a little white. It take about 30 secondes to apply

That procedure is giving me the same succes than with the abs juice.

It is totaly safe, and none toxic, and way less expensive :-)

Carignan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I have no problem with tall objects with heat bed
> at 110°C.
> I wait for the heat bed to be at around 90°C
> before applying the coating.
>
> Then I apply the sugar coating with a brush and I
> scrub gently until the coating feels dry and not
> sticky. That leave the surface a little white.
> It take about 30 secondes to apply
>
> That procedure is giving me the same succes than
> with the abs juice.
>
> It is totaly safe, and none toxic, and way less
> expensive :-)

What concentration of sugar did you use for this experiment?
What where the approximate dimensions of the tall objects you managed to print?

Sounds very interesting, I'll give it a go too next time my kapton needs to be changed.

See above

Quote

Experiment #4
Bed Temp 95°C
1 tea spoon of white sugar in 1/2 cup of Water. Applied with small brush. the liquid still forming islands, it is hard to applied, the water take time to evaporate. I kept scrubbing until the water evaporate, that left a nice evently coated surface.
Result: Success!!!, ABS stick berry well!!! Removing the part is a charm, for the few parts that i printed, the sugar layer stayed on the glass, so no need the reapply.

I also have the same problem of "Applied with small brush. the liquid still forming islands", and have been thinking back to my photo film developing days, about 'Wetting Agents'. I find that LFN is still available on Ebay at $8.95 for a ten year supply.

Edwal LFN Wetting Agent is a low foam, liquid wetting agent. Just two drops of super-low-foaming, non-ionic LFN in a pint of developer

I have a bottle on order and will try adding a drop to my sugar solution to see if I get an island free coating.

I have had great succes using white sugar too, I dissolve 1mL in 50mL water, you use barely any of the solution and you have to throw it out at least every week to stop stuff growing in it, so there's no point doing any more. I can't compare it to kapton or ABS juice since I have never used either, but on big/dense items, I find that the "Brim" setting can put an end to too much warping.

I apply it at 80 degrees C with a paint brush, moving it in a circular motion ,at these low sugar concentrations a bit of overlap is better than a gap, though I try to avoid over-coating. Applying it with a circular motion should also get rid of your problem with the "islands" forming.

I think the important thing to keep in mind when using sugar is that more is not always going to make it stick better, as somone metioned before, the surface should feel sort of "dry" rather than slippery-sticky.

I have tried ABS Juice and it worked fine as long as I had tape on the glass. When trying to use glass only it didn't stick right. I am currently using hairspray on glass only and it works awesome. PLA and ABS stick great, sometimes depending on how much hairspray used to well.

Try detergent as a wetting agent and a kitchen squeegee instead of a paint brush!
My mix is caster sugar 10g:water 100ml:detergent 1 drop, but it’s “4x concentration,” so probably roughly equivalent to 4 drops of normal detergent. Temperature 90-95deg C. Use a torch or toothpick to check the coating consistency and thickness if desired.
The rest of the post just expands on my findings, so don’t bother reading if you’re just flicking through the posts.

Plain sugar works pretty well, but I found my coating was uneven. However adding a small amount of dish-washing detergent works great as a wetting agent, and doesn't seem to impair adhesion - if anything because the coating is more even, adhesion is less variable. The mix leaves a few bubbles on the glass, which disappear as the solution dries. You also don’t have to keep wiping it while it dries as I found plain sugar needed to prevent patchiness. I started with a bit of kitchen towel to smear across which works fine, but have now switched to a piece of kitchen sponge to “squeegee” the coating on the surface - just a single wipe seems to do the trick, so much less fiddling about than with a paint brush.
As noted in another post, recoating also washes any stray strands of ABS off, which seems to be the main reason for recoating, as the most of the sugar remains attached to the glass with minimal residue taken off with the print.
The down side is its very difficult to see if an area has been missed but shining a torch on the glass throws shadows onto the heating plate underneath and solves this problem. Alternatively if you drag something sharp (eg a toothpick) over the glass you can feel and see the scratch in the coating.
My bed is set around 95-100C (if my infrared thermometer is to be believed is the surface temp is 95C centrally and varies down to 80C at the far corner from the x-carriage up to 100C at the area boosted by the extruder resting spot. I’d say 80C is a bit risky as the small prints and skirts often seem to spontaneously release between 75-80.
Varying the temperature between 95C-105C and using detergent I can generally (but not always) print a single 0.5mm walled 5mm tower 60mm high. However despite trying to measure it with a little force meter I made (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:101198) , the results are erratic, and is probably highly dependent on coating thickness (I haven’t been measuring this). Pushing my tower at 55mm above the base I got readings of around 0.5-1N using sugar/water/detergent coating on my glass bed (but very wide SD, so further control of coating factors is required).

Thanks, i hope to try this sugar malarkey tomoro, it seems the cheap, non toxic solution to ABS printing. Pretty sure I;v got white sugar somewhere.. did u dissolve the sugar in boiling water before applying it or just give it a stir? I'll probably dissolve it and add a drop of washliquid. I guess applying it with a washng up sponge is quicker n easier than using a brush. unless it melts ..

I dissolved the sugar in hot water. However I have currently switched back to kapton tape as I found adhesion was more consistent with my current filament (a cheap ebay one) than either sugar water or ABS juice. Also important (and not generally mentioned) is that ABS varies dramatically from different suppliers, so if you're getting very poor adhesion may be worth trying another supplier (not all 'ABS' is created equal, and additives/colourants can make a big difference). D

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Setup: Prusa/Ramps 1.4 running Marlin v1.1.9 firmware. Hosted by XenialPup64 7.5 (Linux) running Repetier-host v2.1.3. Slicing: Cura. Design: OpenSCAD 2018.09.05, Blender, Inkscape. Mesh Repair: Meshlab, Netfab Basic.

thanks for mentioning the mesh editing software in ur signature. I was wondering how to go about fixing tiny gaps in a complex mesh

Re Mesh editing - Netfab works well and has an auto-repair. you can either upload online (with no control) or install the free version 'Basic' on Win/Lin/Mac if you want a bit more. Meshlab is very powerful, but not well documented, and still somewhat buggy. I've written a little rant about how to install it on ubuntu here: install guide. David

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Setup: Prusa/Ramps 1.4 running Marlin v1.1.9 firmware. Hosted by XenialPup64 7.5 (Linux) running Repetier-host v2.1.3. Slicing: Cura. Design: OpenSCAD 2018.09.05, Blender, Inkscape. Mesh Repair: Meshlab, Netfab Basic.

Off topic but installed both yesterday on windows7. couldnt believe how meshlab would not install 64bit version due to some visual c++ 2008 sp1 x64 error. tried to fix by extracting .exe with 7zip as reco but didnt work. had to install 32 bit versio which works fine. as its for reprap dont really care about graphics sharpness etc anyhow. cheers again.

as my reprap has currently fried the arduino mega for the second time i have nothing yet to comment on ABS for glass except to say i'm leaning away from ABS juice idea in favour of PVA maybe. i want something non harmful that will clean off the build plate. saying that i'll probably be boiling up acetone to vapor smooth parts just for the hell of it within weeks. gonna buy a lidded pan that fits on my heatbed..

Use beer for glass for ABS at 110-120C. It's better than sugar/water mix. No delamination.

What sort of beer?
Re: acetone - I like this idea best providing you've got it somewhere safe...

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Setup: Prusa/Ramps 1.4 running Marlin v1.1.9 firmware. Hosted by XenialPup64 7.5 (Linux) running Repetier-host v2.1.3. Slicing: Cura. Design: OpenSCAD 2018.09.05, Blender, Inkscape. Mesh Repair: Meshlab, Netfab Basic.

i tried waterboiled sugar on glass, kindof. (applied but no print done) didnt really like it. when applying it it seems i can only do one layer bcos the next sponge of sugar-washupliq cleans off what was there. i got a peppering of white bubble type dots. dried on and it felt sticky and dry afterward. scratching across shows there was a layer pretty evenly sitting on the glass. My main dislikes are the 'mucky' nature of it and also pretty sure leaving warm sugar lying around for a day or so accumulates bacterial growth. PVA, i trust PVA. Gonna apply some tomo.

Re unheated acetone; he has a good point that it evaps anyway. His demo pic doesnt look as good as some smoothing i've seen. why not leave it in an hour, two hours? half an hour not long enough by the looks. might try this in my bath, best place in the house for an explosion to happen. lol (no garden).

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/15/2013 01:15PM by mrPrik.

I solved my adhesion problems with ABS on glass by using a stick of 'Elmer's Washable School Glue' . I make like I'm going to mount a photo on the glass by smearing a thin coat of the glue over the area to be printed, being sure about the edge areas. I do this before each print. After the print I wait until the bed is below 50C. Then I can usually just pull the part off the glass with a twist of my hand. Clean-up is done with just a water damped rag.

No ABS or sugar mixing, and no acetone fumes.

John

Quote
dgm3333
What sort of beer?

Cheap one. Mix 1:2 isopropanol and beer for best results.

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Detlef

Excalibur Hotend

reprapclean32.png

reprapzone.blogspot.de

what does adding the 99.9% alcohol isopropanol do? surely it evapourates. how did u come across this mix? also does anyone know if more PVA is better than less PVA or does the dilution with water create a more porous surface?

It's all about temperature people. Adding anything to the glass, or sanding it, is just a crutch. The underlying problem not being addressed is one of the following.

1. ABS filament chemistry is not ideal. Some ABS will seem almost rubbery when warm, and will stick hard to bare glass at 110°C. Other ABS will seem very slick, and even brittle, and won't stick at any temperature. When this is the case, you can have a go at the beer/glue/hair spray/etc.

2. Temperature of bed is too low/high. There is a temperature window for stick on bare glass. Typically it is around 110°C, but this depends on how accurately your thermistor is tracking the glass temperature. The ABS chemistry also affects this window's position, and range.

3. The glass surface is contaminated. Contamination can be oils from fingers, moisture residue from 30% alcohol used for cleaning, other residue from paper towels used in cleaning, and even coatings given to the glass during manufacturing. If the glass seems phobic in any way to a drop of watter (ie the water beads, instead of spreading) this could be the case.

Try cleaning the glass first with WD-40 to get the water off. Then use denatured alcohol to get the WD-40 and anything else off. Use each paper towel only once.

Quote
VDX
... you can try with malt-beer - some of the additives (beside of shugar) seems to help too

don't know about adherence, but definitely helps with the mood of the printer operator!

Quote
PulsedMedia

Quote
VDX
... you can try with malt-beer - some of the additives (beside of shugar) seems to help too

don't know about adherence, but definitely helps with the mood of the printer operator!

... don't know the composition of malt-beer in your region, but here in "old Germany" there's not enough spirit included to change something in the mood

---

Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]