this post was submitted on 21 May 2026
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Kinda had it with ABS. Trying to do large prints and the warping and cracking is driving me nuts, that is if the print doesn’t peel off the build plate and fail altogether in the first place. I’ve done what I can as far as print settings to have the best possibility of success, but even then the prints will often split.

I print car parts and things that are exposed to heat and chemicals occasionally, so ABS has been the easy choice, but are there any filaments out there that have comparable qualities but aren’t as likely to warp?

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[–] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

Yes. And I suspect due to its low temperature resistance (this an intuitive guess; I'm not exactly a materials science engineer) it also exhibits very poor cold creep/permanent deflection characteristics. ABS is actually the best of the bunch there, probably hand in hand with ASA.

However, one thing people are often surprised to learn or discover about boring old PLA is that it actually has among the highest layer adhesion strength of the commonly available materials, I believe second only to polycarbonate, and it's also the most rigid of the commonly available (non-filled) materials. At least at room temperature, anyway. It turns out that printing the screws for e.g. my Rockhopper or Adélie in anything but PLA amounts to being a fool's errand.

It's tempting to think of the litany of plastics available in filament form to consumers as a simple linear and escalating spectrum with "cheap, flimsy, easy to print" and one end and "expensive, strong, difficult to print" at the other. In reality as you know it's not quite so simple. If anything, the hypothetical graph describing the properties of PLA, PETG, PET, ABS, ASA, Nylon, polycarbonate, etc. would have to be three dimensional.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

All makes sense, of course. If I want a “pretty” non-structural print PLA is always a top choice. Fine, smooth, easily bonded with CA glue. ABS is a lot more finicky, but strong.