MakerGear Forum

uv will degrade it but a good printed abs part should last a long time (years) outside without falling apart. the color will usually just get chalky. not sure why in your case that happened. every mfg has their own formula for plastic. could have been a problem with that spool of filament. abs is meant to carry water. the black pipes sticking out of the roof on your house are abs so the uv and elements they are exposed to far exceeds anything else.

They're also generally UV-resistant ... it's a special pigment added to the ABS.

Unless like in my new house they are white pvc....lol

I'll give them both a try. Already have the petg ordered.
(edit) I'll give both petg and epc a try. From what I've been reading about the issues with ABS, I don't think I will ever use that filament.

For a reference. I printed my License plate holder for my car out of Esun black petg about 13 months ago. It sits outside all the time. It hasn't faded or cracked yet and Its still flexible.

Hope it helps.

I was thinking about PETG for outdoor parts a couple weeks ago. I was searching the internet for things like "PETG weather resistance" and "PETG outdoors" and the internet's consensus seems to be that it's not a good outdoor material (due to lack of UV resistance) unless there's a UV-resistant additive. This wasn't s 3D-printer filament-specific search, but still.

So is it really good outside? Months is one thing, but how about 10 years?

Also, people are going to start thinking I work for the company, but I'll put in another plug for Polymaker PC-Plus in addition to ePC. It prints and feels a lot like ePC but it's more rigid, if you need rigidity. Otherwise ePC is great. I would put the most trust in any of the polycarbonate-based materials for outdoor work at this point.

I am not sure what reason ABS has to exist these days. PETG does not absorb moisture, so you can leave it out on the printer. It doesn't warp like ABS. It doesn't small bad like ABS. It is almost as temp resistant. About the only thing ABS does better is have more color choices.

I'm working on a part that would live in a car's glove compartment.

The first material I tried was Gizmo Dork's standard green PLA. It warped after only one day inside my glove compartment which didn't really surprise me. I was expecting it to warp as I've had PLA parts warp after sitting for awhile in my car.

I'm currently experimenting with ESUN's Orange PLA+ to see if it will do any better but I went ahead and ordered a roll of ESUN Yellow PETG. I'm hoping the ESUN PLA+ has a higher heat deflection temperature and will not warp inside the glove compartment of a car on a hot day because the PLA+ prints so fantastic and has such a good finish.

But like I said, I went ahead and ordered some yellow PETG just in case the PLA+ lets me down.

I read that glove compartments can get as hot as 66c.

Do you guys think PETG can survive for an entire summer in a glove compartment without warping?

There's this HTPLA stuff that you can anneal in your oven to heat treat it and make it withstand temperatures up to 120c but I really would like to avoid the hassle of heat treating it, plus the supplier says it's tricky to heat treat without deforming it.

Should be a good test of the PETG, so let us know how it does. There's also the polycarbs. (I think the PLA plus will still have some heat issues though, based on some testing that I ran it through. It gains in flexibility and strength, but not heat or humidity resistance.)

If you're looking for a material that is natively UV resistant, ASA is a good candidate. Other materials could be used and then coated with UV protectant if you're set on using one in particular. I believe Form Futura makes their own brand of ASA under the name Apollo-X. Might be worth checking out.