Love ABS but keep breaking parts or glass when cooled

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swbluto
Posts: 215
Joined: Mon May 25, 2015 7:09 pm

Re: Love ABS but keep breaking parts or glass when cooled

Post by swbluto » Thu Nov 26, 2015 9:51 am

BigBadBry wrote:Gaaaah, ABS Juice on Glass keeps doing this to me' probably 1 out of 3 prints. Sometimes when it breaks free it actually tears a chuck out of my glass, which makes me even more aggrivated!.

Aside from ABS juice (acetone and filament) directly on glass; is there another setup you guys have had good luck with when printing ABS parts that have broad contact surfaces on glass? The bed temp is 110, nozzle 150 and I'm using Makergear Black filament.
2015-11-16 23.23.46.jpg
I print directly on glass. No need to replace expensive Kapton, no need to deal with messy ABS slurry, and the bottom has a perfectly mirror like shine - ABS prints usually easily come off below 90C. But, it requires a VERY SPECIFIC cleaning method to get reliable results.

It goes like this.

Heat bed up to at least 50-60C.
Using a cotton ball soaked in isopropyl alcohol (Or use acetone if you've been using some nasty filament like Esun's black ABS filament), apply downward strokes across the bed going from left to right and back at least 2 x.
Using a very damp/moist cloth(The wetter the better), apply downward strokes across the length of the bed at least twice.
Using a dry towel, apply downward strokes across the length of the bed at least twice.

The harder you press, the better the results. Light strokes won't do it.
Also, using downward strokes is VERY important. Just using circle motions won't (effectively) remove the contaminants from the bed, though you might get lucky sometimes.

Doing that, ABS should stick to bare glass no problem (Assuming you're not using really slippery ABS like black ABS seems to be. I assume they just add oil to color the plastic black or something. You can get black ABS to stick, but nothing will stick after that, unless you wash it down with acetone using the above method.). Assuming you've got the perfect bed level height, that is. That's a whole nother science. My bed leveling techniques have evolved far beyond the inconsistent results of "paper" or "card" based methods - They have become standardized such that ALL MY PRINTERS are at the same exact perfect height with less than .05 mm discrepancy, and I've achieved a repeatable method to obtaining such a bed leveling state of perfection. That said, I personally haven't found the makergear M2 amenable to obtaining the same level of perfection like my other printers, since marking the screws direction/position is hard and it's not as easy getting the fine gradated control with such a tiny screw head (Wing nuts are great at getting better precision.).
Last edited by swbluto on Thu Nov 26, 2015 10:06 am, edited 3 times in total.

swbluto
Posts: 215
Joined: Mon May 25, 2015 7:09 pm

Re: Love ABS but keep breaking parts or glass when cooled

Post by swbluto » Thu Nov 26, 2015 9:57 am

innkeeper wrote:i'm a big fan of kapton tape for ABS, just keep it clean between prints with some acetone and it seems to work well for me.
What do you do about the air bubbles that form underneath the Kapton after using the printer? Or is that a problem that I only I've had with Kapton?

swbluto
Posts: 215
Joined: Mon May 25, 2015 7:09 pm

Re: Love ABS but keep breaking parts or glass when cooled

Post by swbluto » Thu Nov 26, 2015 5:30 pm

Also, just a warning about Black ABS. All black ABS that I've seen on the market exhibit a high shrink rate, so even if you get it to stick using the above method, it will curl at the corners like a mofo (Also the one I tried (Esuns) contaminates the bed with nasty residue that seems to require acetone to clean). The solution is to use a different less shrinky color.

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