Printing with ABS on a Z18

[Webca]

Is there any reason why i couldnt print with ABS with the new smart extruder?

[Jetguy]

YES, the smart extruder will extrude ABS no problem. ABS has better extrusion propeties than PLA. There is a reason we all started off with using ABS 4 years ago, it was cheap, readily available, and offered a lot more colors.

 

That said, your problem is going to be 2 things:

You will experience warping and curling

You will have problems with the print sticking to an unheated bed in many cases.

 

Also, catch 22, how to turn off the print cooling fan duct for printing in ABS or controlling that fan? No more gcode, nor more M126 M127.

[Christian Arnø]

I was thinking of buying an extra smart extruder just for testing with ABS. What temperature does the 5th gen printers print with? I read once that the temperature was set and not adjustable...

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[Ryan Carlyle]

You can adjust the printing temp by making a custom profile. I imagine you should be able to turn off the cooling blower too. What I don't know is how you set the heated build chamber temp.

With no heated bed, you should theoretically run the HBC at 70-80C. But can the rest of the bot survive that?

[Jetguy]

On a Z18, the mechanics are outside the bellows and in theory, not subject to the heated chamber.

[Christian Arnø]

The sensor in the extruder that senses the build platform is that a distance sensor? Could i in theory replace the stock build platform with a HBP of aluminium?

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[Jetguy]

Yes, the Z axis homing is in the smart extruder when the nozzle rams into the build platform, the nozzle rises inside the smart extruder and that's how homing is sensed.

 

Yes, basically, the machine has no idea that you have added extra thickness to the bed. It just senses the top surface of it..

 

Now, on a Mini, there are different homing points. First  the machine homes to the Z axis frame itself (there is a metal point it hits on the frame first) then homes to the metal pin in the bed (so the hot nozzles doesn't melt into the plastic bed.

 

Not having seen how a Z18 or the mid sized 5th gen Replicator homes, I don't know if they too  have both a homing point that is the bed surface and maybe one not on the bed itself but off the print area that needs to be accounted for?

 

Again, on one hand, it might work no problem, but at least on the mini, I had to account for the initial and external to the print area homing point and it's relationship height wise to the main print bed area.

 

Just observe a normal homing sequence. Mark the spots with a marker where the nozzle touched the z axis at any point. Ensure that your solution mimics those homing points.

[Christian Arnø]

Thanks Jetguy. You are truly a vast source of information:) 

[James McCracken]

It's a "bump" sensor.  The smart extruder itself is mounted in a flexible manner... The sensor measures the deflection of the extruder.

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[Ryan Carlyle]

It still has a lot of structural plastic inside the chamber, even if the mechanics are outside. Plain-Jane injection-molded ABS under load won't survive long in an 80C chamber. I've heard the 5th gen uses PC-ABS for temp resistance but I don't know the grade and can't confirm the max safe working temp.

[Enginwiz]

The Stratasys Mojo and uPrint are ABS printers that have a heated build chamber and no heated build plate.

Recently there was a post stating a print chamber temperature of 80 degrees Celsius for the Mojo.

Any news about the Z18 build chamber heating kicking in during printing? Theoretically the Z18

should be able to provide the same hot printing environment for ABS as the Mojo and uPrint.

The question is, wether all the parts in the heated build chamber of the Z18 can actually withstand heat.

This may sound ridiculous, but the "cult of done" sometimes leads to strange printer designs at Makerbot.

Both Mojo and uPrint print ABS on unheated single use ABS build plates, that can be reused by sanding down.

The real big difference to the Z18 is the dissolvable support material printed by a second extruder.

In the Mojo at the beginning of a print the ABS extruder fuses a kind of raft layer onto the ABS build plate.

Then a layer of dissolvable support material gets printed on top of the ABS raft followed by the ABS print.

At the end of the print the build plate and the print are submerged in a heated ultrasonic cleaning unit

and the support material gets dissolved. This elegantly removes the printed part from the build plate.

The Z18 is a single head printer. No dissolvable support material. The question is, wether hairspray

or gluestick will work on a glass plate in a heated build chamber as well as on a heated build plate.

Ideally the glass plate would heat up in the heated build chamber like on top of a heated build plate

and the ABS print would stick very well to a thin layer of hairspray or glue stick or ABS slurry.

After the end of the print the removable glass build plate of the Z18 could be frozen together

with the ABS print in the fridge and the different thermal shrink rates of ABS and glass would

lead to the ABS print popping off the glass plate in the fridge.

To reduce risk the fridge removal could be tested with PLA. But first somebody will have to find out

how the heater in the heated build chamber of the Z18 can be switched ON.