• 👍Maximum Derek👍@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 year ago

    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.

      • 👍Maximum Derek👍@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 year ago

        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.

        • AFK BRB Chocolate@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          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.

    • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I would suggest you can get all the same benefits as abs out of ASA with the advantage it has less shrinkage and warping

    • 👍Maximum Derek👍@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 year ago

      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.