ABS filament is a versatile material that’s a great option for when you need your 3D-printed parts to be strong and heat-resistant. Learn how to print this material like a Pro in this in-depth guide.
What is ABS filament? ABS is one of the most commonly used and versatile materials available in 3D printing today. There are a few extra things to consider when printing with ABS as compared to PLA, but the extra hurdles are well worth it for the enhanced strength, post-processing capabilities, and temperature resistance of ABS.
What is ABS?
ABS or Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene is a common thermoplastic. ABS filament is one of the most popular types of 3D printing filament due to its versatility and strength, and is often used for injection molding and products like Lego, instruments, sports equipment and more.
Great projects for ABS:
- Car interior parts – phone mounts, cup holders
- Cosplay – sand perfectly smooth and acetone-weld large parts together
- Robots – strong enough to handle weight and motion
- 3D Printers – Check out the Voron, made possible with ABS parts.
Our Recommended ABS Filaments:
- MH Build Series – Low price, great for starting out.
- PRO Series – Made in the USA, industry-leading dimensional accuracy.
- Fillamentum – High quality material with incredible colors.
Choosing the Right ABS
There are many different brands, colors, and even composites made by blending other materials or additives with standard ABS resin. Depending on the specific needs of your project, the one of the following materials is probably the best option.
MH Build ABS
- Price: $18.21 in bulk
- Best Use: General purpose, great starting material for settings development, lots of color options.
PRO Series ABS
- Price: $52 per kg
- Features: Made in the USA (like all PRO Series), ±0.02mm diameter tolerance, high capacity spools available.
Ultimaker ABS
- Price: $50 per 750g spool
- Features: Great compatability with Ultimaker 3D printers via NFC chip for automatic material recognition.
- Note: Only available in 2.85mm
eSUN ABS
- Price: $23 per kg
- Features: General purpose, affordable material available in a variety of colors.
Fillamentum ABS
- Price: $45 per 750g spool
- Features: Incredible color options, premium-quality material manufactured in the Czech Republic. Only option for Translucent ABS in our catalog.
3DXTech Flame Retardant PC ABS
- Price: $68 per kg
- Features: PC is a great material, but more difficult to print with than ABS so this compound provides the best of both worlds. It’s also Flame Retardant, making this material a great choice for projects that need to explicitly resist damage from fire.
Getting that first layer right
As with all 3D printing, getting the first layer down is the most important part of the print. Everything else is built upon this (literally) and it’s where most new 3D printer users have issues honing their skills. Don’t feel bad if you’re struggling to get perfect bed leveling, everyone has to learn it. If you need help specifically on bed leveling, check out our article. Here are the key points:
- You need the print bed to be level.
- If you see some areas of your first layer are too high while others are too low, re-do your bed leveling.
- You need the extruder to be homed to the correct height from the bed. (Z-offset)
- If you entire first layer is equally too high or too low across the entire print, adjust your Z-Offset.
- You need a good adhesive to assist your ABS in sticking to the bed.
- And of course, making sure that your extruder/hotend is heated to the right temperature.
Lego bricks made from ABS
Best Bed Setup for ABS
In order to print with ABS, you need a headed bed. The recommended bed temperature for ABS is 110°C. Most modern 3D printers can reach this temperature, but if yours cannot, you should be able to get away with 90°C.
Note: If this is your first time having your print bed this hot, be careful as these temperatures can burn skin very quickly!
The best build surface for ABS is PEI, available either smooth or with a powder coated surface for extra mechanical adhesion. You can also print on glass with adhesion promoters like Magigoo or a standard glue stick.
As with all 3D printing, bed leveling and Z-Offset are crucial to success. ABS does not have any special needs for Z-Offset, so if you are using the same build plate as other materials you likely will not have to adjust this setting. Pro Tip: Your print bed will be a slightly different shape when fully heated to ABS print temperatures, so always perform your bed leveling at temperature to get the best results.
Enclose Your Printer for the Best Results
The trick to have ABS parts stay on the bed during a print and not split after being printed is to allow the printed part cool as slowly as possible, and as uniformly as possible. Here are a few things to keep in mind to achieve these goals:
- Little to no layer cooling – start with your part cooling fan completely off.
- Enclosed build area – maintain a stable and high ambient temperature around your part after it’s been printed.
There are many fully enclosed 3D printers available today, in addition to enclosures available as accessories for many machines that do not come fully enclosed. Additionally, check out our video below on building a custom, low-cost enclosure for any printer that will let you start printing with ABS right away.
If your first layer is not sticking:
- Make sure the bed is level.
- Make sure the bed is hot enough – we recommend 110°C.
- Make sure that the ambient temperature of the print environment isn’t too hot or cold (or else adjust accordingly).
- Make sure you put the adhesive on the bed.
- Make sure the print head is close enough to make a nice first layer.
- Make sure you run the extruder enough before your print starts so there is filament going onto the bed during the entire first layer. In MatterControl you can add a skirt and calibrate how much material you would like to extrude to ensure the hotend is fully primed.
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PEI is a great way to print ABS. It makes a great shiny bottom layer and the heated bed ensures that your parts stay nice and flat.
For more in depth information regarding ABS bed adhesion check out this article we wrote for more detailed guidance.
Getting the temperature right
When working with a new roll of filament for the first time, we generally like to start out printing at about 230°C and then adjusting the temperature up or down by 5 degree increments until we get the quality of the print and the strength of the part to be in good balance with each other. This temperature range is a generalization, so please reference the exact filament you have when developing your print settings.
FYI – there is a temperature tower feature build into MatterControl so you can create custom temperature towers to aid in your print setting development.
What to look for
If the temperature is too high:
You will see more strings between the separate parts of your print and you may notice that the extruder leaks out a lot of plastic while moving between separate areas of the print. If this happens you should try to incrementally lower the temperature by 5 degrees until the extruder is not leaking so much material.
ABS being printed too hot can produce a rough texture, if your parts feel and/or look rough, try lowering the temperature and see if that effect is reduced.
Sometimes you will have a material that is simply less viscous than ABS and will leak more even at lower temperatures. We recommend you review your retraction settings and possibly tune this specifically.
If the temperature is too cold:
You will either see that the filament is not sticking to the previous layer and you are getting a rough surface, or you will get a part that is not strong and can be pulled apart easily. In either case, you should increase the temperature by 5 degrees and try again until you get good line segments on every layer and have a strong part when done printing.
A print gone cold. Check your retraction and heat for clean prints.
Changing filament
When switching ABS colors:
- While the extruder is cold set the heat to 120°C and wait for it to heat up.
- When you reach 120°C remove the current filament from the extruder. You may be able to back it out by hand or you may need to reverse the extruder.
- If you are having trouble removing the filament, increase the temperature to 180°C and try again.
- Clean the extruder gear and blow out any particles from the extruder entrance.
- Increase the heat and load the new filament normally.
- Run the new color through the extruder until it runs clean and the new color is all that is coming out of the extruder. If you are switching from a dark color (such as black) to a light color (like white or natural) you may want to extrude for a few minutes to be you sure don’t have any dark contamination.
- Print something that you don’t care if it has bits of the previous color in it, or run the extruder for several minutes. It may take as much as 10 to 15 minutes of extrusion before you can have confidence that there won’t be dark material mixed with lighter material.
Note: We recommended removing the filament when soft rather than when fully melted so that there is a lower possibility of depositing melted material onto the extruder drive gear or leaving meterial high up the melt chamber entrance. Both of which can cause jamming and are hard to clean out. Soft removal also helps ensure that you get everything out of the extruder tip.
What to do if things go wrong
There are a few key things to check when your prints aren’t working. But before we look at solutions we need to have a brief description of your symptoms.
“I can’t get the first layer to stick.”
- Make sure the extruder is at the right height. Adjust the limit switch or extruder to 0 height
- Make sure the print bed is level. Level the bed.
- Make sure you’re printing at the right temperature and that your bed is the right temperature.
- Check the ambient temperature of your environment. If it’s too cold or too hot outside, your print can vary drastically!
“The part has bad internal layers and top surfaces.”
- Check the extrusion temperature (you may need to increase it by 5 degree bumps).
- Check the filament tension.
- Clean the filament drive gear.
- Decrease your speed.
- Make sure your part is properly cooled.
“The outside edges of my parts have lots of little bumps on them.”
- Make sure your printer is getting enough data. If printing from a computer, ensure that the computer is not too busy to feed the printer commands. If the printer is pausing it is usually due to the computer being too busy.
- Print from the SD card. On some printers you can try and print from the SD card. This often helps the printer have enough data to run more smoothly.
However, don’t be too quick to assume the problem is in your ABS. With the right settings and patience hobbyists have succeeded in printing all sorts of materials many of which have very low viscosity. You should be able to get usable parts even with some lower quality filament.
“Tall sections of my prints look melted or squished together.”
- Turn on “Cooling”. If your printer has a fan you should enable “Cooling” in the print settings.
- Get a small fan. If your printer does not have an integrated fan you should look into getting a small desk fan. This can help dramatically with tall sections of your print or when “bridging” (printing top layers that span gaps).
My part is curling off the bed.”
- Make sure that you have a good amount of adhesive on the bed and that you’re applying a fresh layer with every print. In addition, turn on a brim. Having a brim that extends out a bit helps give the part a large base to work with, as well as having more to adhere to.
“My printer will not extrude any material.”
- Make sure your hot end is getting hot. Check to make sure the hot end is heating at all. If it is not, you need to have your printer serviced. It is likely that you have a loose connection, or your electronics have been fried (assuming the printer is still connected and responding to your host software).
- Clean the drive gear and adjust tension. The first thing we are going to do is clean the filament touching drive gear and ensure that we have proper tension against the filament. Usually improper tension or a clogged drive gear will make the print look more like the picture we have for low temperature filament, but it sometimes does prevent extrusion all together. Clean the pinch wheel with a wire brush, and make sure your tension is good and solid (too much can also prevent extrusion and is more common with direct drives [the motor is directly connected to the drive gear] but less common with geared drives).
- Remove the current filament. It may be that you have a small particle in your extruder tip jamming the plastic. Use the change filament technique described above to pull out any particles that are in the extruder tip.
- Check for and remove jams between the extruder and hot end. This is the most extreme type of problem because now it’s time to take things apart. Sometimes heat can creep up the filament in the extruder and cause a bulge that then cools and prevents any further extrusion. This is usually at the junction between the extruder and hot end. Take off the extruder and remove all the ABS you can (you may need the hot end hot to get all the material out.) If you can’t get out all the filament by pulling, you may need to try and drive it down through the hot end. We usually use a small allen wrench. If this fails you can try and drill out the extruder or hot end but you may need to replace parts. Be sure to take precautions against being shocked or burned. If you are not qualified to do this work, find someone who is, rather than risk injury.
Thank you for reading this article!
If you have any comments, corrections, or contributions, please drop us an email or give us a call. We are always looking for tips, and best practices – and would love to hear from you.
Sincerely,
The MatterHackers Crew
