ABS is one of the most heat resistant plastics you can use in a hobby grade printer. A lot of the people I know who use it do so for automotive stuff. Though I see them going more and more with PC these days.
Another benefit to ABS is acetone smoothing. It produces a smooth shiny surface on the print but chemically melting it just a little. It’s all on the toxic side of hobby endeavors. Neither ABS or Acetone produce health friendly fumes. You can also do a similar smoothing affect with PVB filament and IPA.
Do you just wipe it down when it’s done printing, or is that part of the printing process in a higher end printer?
If you’re asking about smoothing you need to build a fume chamber. You want the print bathed in a low steady steam bath of acetone (for ABS) or IPA (for PVB). A sufficient fume chamber isn’t difficult to build, you can find instruction all over. But, again, vaporized acetone is hazardous.
Depending on the amount of detail you need to keep, you really can just paint a little acetone straight into the print. You wouldn’t want to do that on, say, the face of a figurine, but for flat uniform surfaces is great, and much faster.
I would suggest you can get all the same benefits as abs out of ASA with the advantage it has less shrinkage and warping
I prefer it because my prints are more durable and ABS just seems to have a better quality than the PLA prints I’ve made. I’ve made stuff for outdoor use and PLA is biodegradable, whereas ABS is not to the same level. One of my prints has been buried in the ground for over 2 years now and still going strong, made from ABS.
My printer is enclosed so it handles ABS fairly well. A lot of consumer printers are open so ABS isn’t well suited for them so most people still stick with PLA partially for that reason.
Also abs gives off poisonous styrine vapours you must vent the fumes outside.
Another good point. My printer is in a corner near some windows for that reason as well. Good ventilation when done printing and away from everything else in the house.
PLA is biodegradable over several hundred years. The main reason to avoid using it outside is because bright sunlight makes it brittle. That will happen in just a few.
Different materials have different properties and printability.
Thanks cowboy
