Bambu ABS snapping. I put in Sunlu S4 at 70 for 8 to 10 hours. I did 2 basic grey and a white and black that dried at the same time. Used 1 grey printed ok, and it was my first time with ABS.
Went to use grey the next day, and it was just snapping. Got the other grey one, and it was ok. A week or 2 later, 3 out the 4 are snapping. Only the white is ok. I put them in Ikea 45L box with lid and Silica trays at the bottom, like I do for all my filament.
So do they need more drying, or did I do it too long? Any info, please.
It definitely sounds like the filament was over-dried to me, brittleness is a symptom of that, but I can’t guarantee that’s the case
Is the filament “snapping” in the area that has already been feed into the printer and then retracted? I often find this is where my ABS will snap as the AMS feeder will create little “indents” in the filament which create weak points. You can physically feel the indents on this area of the filament.
No, I always check it before I use it. So bend It before I put in Ams.
I only put in for about 9 hours. It does say longer sometimes. So I do not know.
You’re right, but in my experience (granted I live in a relatively low-humidity environment) some of the basic filaments (PLA, ABS, and ASA) do not need dried unless in the most extreme circumstances. In fact, The Next Layer did some experiments and there was essentially no difference between filament fresh out of the dryer and filament that had soaked up as much moisture as possible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJJSG4dnaRA
Being that you don’t really have to dry ABS in the first place unless you’re already having problems, it seems to me like it was over-dried. Keep in mind that filament does need some moisture in it to behave correctly and as advertised, you don’t necessarily want bone-dry filament for every case.
I am new to 3D printing, and I am from England. So for most of what I read, you either take it or leave it. Like you said, it does not always need drying. I have left it in the Bambu packaging for a month. Because I was getting a log cabin built (man cave lol). Then I dried it to print a model for silica drying that fits in bamboo spools. To dry silica at 70, and I thought using ABS would be best for this. So I have 2 rolls of ABS filament that I have not dried, and you say, “Do not dry it; just use it.” I will try it next time I do an ABS print.
Thanks for the info.
In my experience this is not correct. Maybe you live in a desert or something, but if your RH is above 30, ABS is drinking it in.
8 hours of dry time is not excessive. Excessive would be leaving it in the dehydrator for a week, and thats due to thermal decomposition more than whatever is going on with the water.
I don’t know if I can add anuthing more to your brittleness problem, but on my P1S I have had to unclip and reroute the PTFE tube to not cause such strong angles in order to push the real brittle filaments thru it (ABS-GF and high-percentage CF blends).
In my experience this is not correct. Maybe you live in a desert or something, but if your RH is above 30, ABS is drinking it in.
Look at the experiments cited in the video, he is in Israel, an extremely humid country, and his testing revealed approximately no difference between dry and not-dry ABS, so maybe you live in the ocean but ABS does not typically need dried, nor does PLA or ASA. There is a small, but consistent difference in layer adhesion for sure between wet and dry filament, dry being of course stronger, but no difference in print quality or any other metric. I have yet to see someone else repeat the same experiment with any different results, so from experimental data ABS does not need to be dried unless you’re already experiencing problems with it.
Regardless, the causes are either that the filament has absorbed so much moisture from the air in an extremely short time after being dried that this stuff must be stored in a sauna, or the filament was over-dried. Since we have a lot of evidence to suggest it’s not too much moisture, the filament must then be over dried.
Let us know how it goes! I’m very curious to see what your results are with the undried filament.
I can say I’m kinda unintentionally running the same experiment in parallel with my spools of ABS that have been sitting open in my office at about 40% RH for the last week. I’ll try a print once I get home and see what the results are
I will disagree very strongly with that assertion. Stringing, Oozing, and Bubbling are aspects of print quality (to me) and at the very least are definitely “any other metric”.
OP has a good experiment to do w/ data at hand: print one of your rolls from the same batch - but the drying was not applied to. Conclusions are able to be drawn from it.
I will disagree very strongly with that assertion. Stringing, Oozing, and Bubbling are aspects of print quality (to me) and at the very least are definitely “any other metric”.
Yes, I agree with you, those are measures of print quality. It appears you still haven’t looked at the experiments I cited because NONE of that happens with ABS filament that has just been left out at even high humidity. It takes quite a while before ABS absorbs enough to cause any problems at all with print quality, it can be safely stored outside of a container without issues, especially for short terms.
I don’t know if maybe the ABS you’re using is particularly low-quality, but I can say anecdotally that even generic-brand ABS ordered from Amazon can be stored outside of a dry box for 7-8 months in 35-50% RH with no adverse effects whatsoever to print quality, I went through 3 rolls that received that exact treatment and printed about 15 spools, none of which have even a single stringing, oozing, blobbing, or bubbling issue at any point.
I would definitely like to see OP’s results trying two spools from the same batch, and it would definitely add to the already existing experimental data, but you won’t be able to draw any conclusions from testing 2 spools alone. Look at the experiment I gave you (Here again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJJSG4dnaRA), it is very in-depth with several samples of each filament type, it’ll give you a lot more information on how drying/moisture affect filament/print quality.
I am printing with one I did dry the white. But this one was ok; it did not snap or break when I was bending it. So tomorrow I will print one that I have not dried yet. Still vacuum-wrapped.
Sometimes with me being 60, it can get confusing, lol.
Plus I will put one back in the dryer for a few hours to see any change or just worse.
I used the other abs that I did not dry, and it was ok.
No problems, no snapping. But the other one that I put in the dryer—that was not snapping—does snap now after I have done a few prints with it.