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Is there any way to use the full build area for ABS?

Discussion in 'General Questions' started by robocad, Mar 28, 2016.

  1. robocad

    robocad Member

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    I dont have a robo yet but have read reviews which state the heated bed area is only 200mmx200mm, i was looking at the buildtak's print adhesion sheets but it seems they still require heat for ABS, is there some way to use the full 10x9" area?
     
  2. KTMDirtFace

    KTMDirtFace Well-Known Member

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    Even if the heated part actually covered the entire thing, good luck printing something in ABS that size.. it shrinks and warps a lot. There is other materials that will print on the full size without near as much hassle
     
  3. robocad

    robocad Member

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    Its really humid here all the time so i have to use ABS or it will warp even worse over time with other filaments
     
  4. Mike Kelly

    Mike Kelly Volunteer

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    Upgrading the bed heater to 228x254mm 200 W heater is a good starting point to printing on the whole bed.

    Look up what @WheresWaldo did
     
  5. daniel871

    daniel871 Well-Known Member

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    Look into hydrophobic filaments like PETG and sister-filaments like it.

    T-glase by Taulman, other manufacturers will usually just call it PET with some kind of suffix letter for their particular formula, they all have a "don't give a shit about moisture" characteristic to them though.

    You still have to consider temperature consistency while printing, but at least moisture itself isn't an issue.
     
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  6. robocad

    robocad Member

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    Hi, i cant find his post about a heatbed of that size do you have a direct link?
     
  7. robocad

    robocad Member

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    I read about how even with a strong bed adhesion large ABS prints in particular will delaminate due to it cooling too fast or at different rates, couldnt this be solved simply by throwing a few heavy blankets over it and letting it cool very slowly?
     
  8. daniel871

    daniel871 Well-Known Member

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    You'd be better served at the very minimum putting a large cardboard box over the printer to block drafts of air from hitting the ABS print.

    Blankets without anything supporting them would probably just get pulled into the print area and set on fire after getting caught up in the extruding mechanisms.
     
  9. WheresWaldo

    WheresWaldo Volunteer ( ͠° ͟ʖ ͡°)
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  10. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    I live in Central Florida. I know humid.
    Still lots of other filament materials to try many superior to ABS in terms of strength and heat tolerance.
     
  11. Dennis Messer

    Dennis Messer New Member

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    I have owned my Robo R1 plus since November and the more and more I find out about it the more disappointed I am. I am epically disappointed that the print platform isn't useable for abs over its entire length without a fairly serious mod. It feels an awful lot like false advertising since it cant hit its specified print spec. :(
    I am a networking professional, a programmer, and consider myself very technical. When I read a spec, ie heated print bed of X by Y size, I would have thought it would have been a safe assumption that it matched the spec and that the print bed was useable for all the material types listed in the FAQ for that the printer. Seems crazy to find out that a large percentage of it isn't heated.
    Sigh. . .
    Ok what are my options to salvage this other than moding the printer, are there any other materials that I could use that don't melt at such a low temperature. I have trouble with PLA melting in the Arizona environment. ABS was ideal, is there anything else I can run through the base unit for the entire platter size that wont warp off during a 20 hour print?
     
  12. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Yes and you can print them all without the downsides of ABS (i.e. needing a heated chamber):

    http://www.taulman3d.com/how-to-choose.html
     
  13. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    For example, BluPrint has better properties than ABS and yet none of the downsides.

    Alloy 910 is also a good option.
     
  14. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    I started off using nothing but ABS on my Robo a long time back (with a Beta) and now I seldom use ABS. There are very few cases where that is the right fit for me.
     
  15. Dennis Messer

    Dennis Messer New Member

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    I like the looks of both 910 and 680, reading the specs it says PVA coating on the bed. look like as long as the robo print head can hit the 255C it should be pretty good.

    I have done the "coating the bed" thing with glues for awhile on my prior printer, and it works great but is work to clean up between prints.
    Conceptually I like the idea of something similar to blue painters tape. In your experience do any of these low shrinkage materials print and hold well on tapes or should I stick with coating pva. . . It would be nice to not have to do so much cleanup between if possible, but the end goal of course is for each 20hr print to finish, lol, so I will do whats needed.

    Also ... I assume you are running stuff through the robo specifically. Ignoring other properties like strength, flexibility,etc, what higher temp material have you had the most luck with getting prints to complete. IE not having typical 3d problems of clogging, layer adhesion, warping/sticking to the printbed. etc.
     
  16. daniel871

    daniel871 Well-Known Member

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    Back on my original R1 I had the best printing luck with PET+

    It's fairly expensive though. http://shop.madesolid.com/products/madesolid-strong-filament-1-75mm-1-lbs

    I ran it at 270C on the hotend and 80C on the bed with a bed temp setting in the Ending Gcode to leave the bed at 35C until I manually turned it off. ABS settings otherwise as far as speeds/etc.

    That was on a clean glass bed, no adhesives of any kind.
     
  17. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    They work fine on (for example) painters tape, you just need to fiddle with the 1st layer settings (they work fine on glass too -- again slightly different settings).

    Yes, this is all on the Robo.

    I don't ignore any of those settings, but generally speaking if temperature resistance or strength of the material are the major factors, you can get there without going ABS. Sometimes we use full-on nylon (which is strong as heck) but flexibility of those blends do not always make it a suitable choice.

    Do we still print ABS? Yes, but rarely.

    As far as prints completing we have had no serious failures with anything. Different ones (Alloy 910 versus BluPrint for example) have different settings to tweak them in for best performance, but I can't say any of them have had failure problems. If temperature resistance is the key then I would say my go-to is BluPrint.
     
  18. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    P.S. I would not suggest painters tape for full-on nylon blends since they do tend to shrink up a bit and the tape will not hold. The sad part (IMHO) is that even then they curl/warp less badly than ABS without a heated chamber. The parts that will warp are the lower layers so a hot build plate will generally work for them.
     
  19. Dennis Messer

    Dennis Messer New Member

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    Yeah that gets back to the issue that the bed really isnt consistently heated over its surface. The heated portion is pretty good but even it bleads off noticably as you get near its edges. And of course an inch on each end really is not heated at all. So it sounds to me like PET+ would have the same "Can not print on the entire bed" issue that ABS has because of the vast heat variance across the surface of the bed.
     
  20. Dennis Messer

    Dennis Messer New Member

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    Ok so you said in one post that both 910 and 680, will print ok on tape, then in another post that they will not. (according to the website they are nylon blends).
    So which do you think? What is the best thing to make it stick to the the unheated / uneven heat of the Robo, I can use glue or tape or poop, i dont care as long as it increases my odds of success.

    My main problem at this point is that the ONLY large objects I have had success printing on this robo are in PLA, ABS always, and i mean ALWAYS warps, and most of the time pops off. Leading to failures. I am just looking for ANYTHING that can get me characteristics more similar to ABS but less prone to falling off the darn plate during the 10-20 hour print.
    My last printer didnt have these issues, but it only supported ABS. I suppose it was because it had an enclosed print chamber, and the heating element went all the way to the edges of the print surface. On that thing if i got through the first 10 layers or so it would complete without issues.
     

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