I’ve printed probably 5 kilos worth of prints with a lot of success, but exclusively PLA. I’d like to branch out to a new material. Should I start with ABS or TPU?
You must log in or register to comment.
I would try PETG. It doesn’t need an enclosure.
ABS needs an enclosure for anything above around 10 layers. Even a room closed with it warm and no one inside is not enough to save an ABS print. Just the air from the moving tool head and the bed are enough to disturb a print and cause layer separation. An IKEA Lack table and a garbage bag over it is enough of an enclosure to count and get most prints alright. It stinks though.
TPU will have holes and look terrible unless you print out of a filament drier. You can dry the stuff a lot and print for around 45 minutes with it in open air before it will absorb enough moisture to start expanding steam in the melt zone and blowing holes in your print layers.
I personally would start with TPU(after PETG) - the different shore grades provide a large usability for a lot of things and it print comparably well once you find the right calibration. Especially with a A1 as you mentioned you have one.
To be honest I would skip ABS totally in an A1 unless you have an external enclosure with a good filtering and exhaust solution. Be aware of the noxious fumes ABS will produce that have a potential to intoxicate you and are suspected to cause cancer depending on the additives. (Among others ABS produces hydrogen cyanide when printed - which is often better known under it’s former German brand name: Zyklon B…)
ASA nowadays provides a far less problematic (but not unproblematic) solution and while it’s a little bit more complicated to print it’s still manageable depending on the filament manufacturer. But you will need a temperature stabilised enclosure for both anyway, while ASA is a bit more sensitivitie,it doesn’t really matter that much for me.
Within ASA I personally found a far larger bandwidth of printability between the manufacturers. The major manufacturers for PLA often suck - especially Bambu Lab ASA is hideous to print. If you are in Europe I cannot recommend the Black Forest Filament ASA enough, their stuff is not comparable to any other ASA I printed. Alternatively material4print. If you need a filament that is available worldwide Filamentum Apollo X is a solid choice, so is Polymaker,but both to a lesser extend.
In theory PMMA, PCTG and CPE are also worth a consideration, but besides CPE all of them are far more difficult to print.
BTW: All variants need to be printed very dry, ideally out of a warm dry box.
