3D Printing 101: PLA or ABS? - 2015 Video Lecture | What is 3D Printing: Basic Knowledge - IT & Software

so PLA or ABS which is better well it's
actually a little bit more complicated
than that
how's it going guys leg is here from
makers muse so if you've got an F DN 3d
printer this is a question you're going
to ask yourself which material should I
print with abs or PLA there are other
plastics but by far the most common two
will be abs and PLA and there's actually
significant differences between these
two types of plastics they each have
their own advantages and disadvantages
so knowing which to use in your printer
is actually pretty important and also
known which princelings to use is
critical so ABS stands for aqua nitrile
butadiene styrene has actually known as
a turd polymer which means it's made up
of three different monomers that is
polarizing styrene aconite roll and poly
butylene so the styrene by itself is
actually quite quite shiny and nice but
it's actually quite brittle so with the
addition of the the rubbers that
actually makes ABS quite tough and and
resilient so these properties of ABS
that makes it very attractive in
industry for use in stuff like car
bumpers and also consumable electronic
cases and things like that and also Lego
Legos made from ABS so you get a
repeatable and satisfying snap between
LEGO pieces each time that's only
possible because the ABS has a bit of
flex to it but it's also very
dimensionally stable so 3d printed ABS
paths are characteristically very tough
and make great functional prototypes and
it's due to the slightly flexible nature
of the plastic also removing support
material is actually quite easy because
the material will flex and allow support
material to pull away when you're
printing with same plastic support types
like single extruder machines like the
up person for example so it's a very
good plastic doing that abs are
generally extruded between 220 and 260
degrees C depending on the filament
brand for example the up Brad abs
actually extremes at a higher
temperature as around 260 270 degrees
because I put in a temperature modifier
but standard generic abs you're looking
at around 240 maybe
but usually 220 is a good place to start
so it's fairly high but not too high
compared to something like a nylon or
such so it's ready printing with ABS
sounds great right while to use anything
else well there's some significant
drawbacks and that's because ABS has a
fairly high shrinkage ratio so that
means when it goes from molten
two hardened and solemn cooled down
naturally shrinks on itself so if you
print a part layer by layer this
shrinkage factor can actually accumulate
over the layers you end up with the
dreaded thing that's called warping so
anyone who's had a 3d printer printing
ABS will know what warping is so the
parts start to lift up from the corners
the part starts to fail pull off the bed
all sorts of nastiness even if you get
the face to stick down well enough you
actually might get something called
delamination where the layers halfway up
the print actually physically rip apart
because those forces have become so
strong so fighting this warping is
actually quite difficult for ABS prints
so a lot of ABS printers on the sort of
low-end hobby side tend to be quite
small because there's less warping to
get any bigger you need what's called a
build oven where the entire chamber is
actually heated to around 90 degrees or
so the part is printed then the whole
chamber cools uniformly so on a low-end
hobby machine you need what's known as a
heated bed so you print on a heated bed
and if you have an enclosed chamber you
might get some passive heating but to
print anything bigger then perhaps 250
250 without an actual active heating
element inside and a proper heating
enclosure you're not going to get very
good abs prints the shrinkage on the
part is just too high in terms of
environmental concerns abs is made from
non-renewable resources as petroleum
plastic so it it isn't that great it
also has quite a sort of smell to it
when you're printing with it it's not
that pleasant so although abs is very
strong you don't really want to be
printing it in a room where a lot of
people over that sort of ventilation
because it does get quite with you it
does vary between almost unnoticeable to
oh my god evacuate the room it's so
smelly kind of thing which is some
plastic I've come across the parts and
depends on the manufacturer but yeah abs
does have a slight smell to it and it is
made from non-renewable resources it can
be recycled but because you're printing
things they're not marked it's not
marked plastics so most countries don't
have a system in place to recycle non
mark plastics you might want to make
your own filament re extruder to recycle
it but really in my line of work it
tends to just go in the bin which is
really sad but we don't have anywhere
else to put it so what about PLA PLA or
poly lactic acid is a completely
renewable
plastic made from starch so tapioca or
sugar cane so although it was invented
the 1920s not in the last 20 years or so
that's actually started to really
replace you know in our world what we
sort of call like consumable plastics so
shopping bags you know plastic cups
plates you replace a picnic cutlery
stuff like that because it's a
completely biodegradable plastic you
actually break it down completely which
is really nice and it's made from
completely renewable resources so it's
very different to the sort of
petroleum-based plastics like the ABS
and for 3d printing PLA is a perfect
beginners plastic it comes in lots of
vibrant colors even though the sort of
natural PLA has a really nice
translucent look to it and it's very
easy to print with it suffers from a
fraction of the morphing problems that
abs does needs a very very sort of cool
environment to print with you wanna cool
down quickly so you have a fan in the
ends of the print area and you don't
even need a heated bed to print with the
PLA so a lot of very low end printers
are PLA only because you don't need a
heated bed whereas with ABS you do it
extrudes at a lower temperature than abs
as well you're looking at something like
180 to 220 degrees C so that's much
lower than abs and it's also actually
pretty much a food safe and non-toxic
plastic as well
it also has a really nice smell to it
when you're printing with PLA a cheap
sort of smells like popcorn or pancakes
compared to just like chemicals that are
the sort of petroleum-based plastic
smell like when you're extruding them
but here the downsides PLA is very
brittle and I'm talking very brittle in
some cases and so when you're printing
with PLA and you're doing say material
support so PLA supports as well
sometimes it can be very difficult to
remove these supports because it's no
flex in the join between the support and
the main body of the part also when
you're moving these supports it can be
very dangerous sometimes because if it's
shatters that you can break off ping
into people's eyes and leave very sharp
edges that can actually cut you so PLA
can actually be quite dangerous in that
regard so this isn't the whole story of
course there are modified PL A's on the
market now so stuff like poly Maxx is a
PLA with a sort of strength modifier in
it so it's actually stronger than ABS
but it just doesn't defeat my one pet
peeve about PLA and that is it has a
very low glass transition temperature
what it means is PLA will soften
quite a quite a low temperature you know
you're looking at sort of in your boot
car-boot on a hot summer day your PLA
prints will start to soften the form and
sometimes melt because it just cannot
withstand those temperatures so in terms
of printing things for outdoor use or
use in hot environments like hot water
contact PLA just isn't going to cut it
even the modified PLA s will still
soften the very low temperature and
start to deform lose their shape on the
other end the spectrum as well when
parts get very cold PLA becomes even
more brittle to the point where it can
actually shatter violently and it also
will slowly degrade in contact with air
and UV light and such so if you have an
appeal a roll
you need to use it fairly quickly
because loves or moisture become very
brittle and will become so brittle in
some cases it'll actually start snapping
off the rolls it feeds into the printer
which is not what you want so as I said
printing with PLA is very easy you just
need to stick it down and cool it very
quickly so something like build tackler
platform doesn't even need to be heated
if it is heated you're looking at 40
degrees C as a max I reckon and you want
to cool the parts quickly so it's like
the opposite of pit of abs you want to
just cool ABS slowly whereas PLA you
want to call it quickly so in terms of
print definition you can actually get
sharper lines with a twith PLA prints
compared to ABS prints but the strength
isn't going to be as high so after all
that I'm going to test here I've got one
shot printed and abs and one shot credit
in PLA and the two different colors red
and green and when PLA and abs are set
up properly in your printer that should
be very hard to tell the two apart
so PLA you tend to get more stringing
between parts so you might see a bit
more string because stopping the
extrusion can be a bit harder with PLA
ABS you might see less definition or
sharp edges because it tends to round
them over whereas PLA can leave quite
well-defined edges but without actually
feeling the part it can be quite
difficult to tell alright so say you
have a roll of plastic you don't know if
it's abs or PLA the way you want to test
it initially is just to grab some and
see if it breaks and see how it breaks
so that broke fairly easily although to
be fair it broke along where the look
gears had grabbed its a break a bit
further back okay so PLA will break very
quickly if it's cool and you just snap
it and it goes crack especially three
mil three mil PLA filament if it goes
snap
you know it's it's you know it's PLA
rares what this filament just did is
it's doing what's called a ductile
failure it's basically the plastics
crazing and weakening each time I bend
it to the point where it's actually very
hard to break and you have to go around
a couple of times and trying to work it
off and that that broke but it was very
difficult so I will bet my money on this
being abs because abs has more strength
and flexibility to it compared to PLA so
it's not the full story it may be poly
Maxx for example you might have poly
Maxx so the one sure way you can test it
is get some acetone so you get a little
little cup of acetone and drop some of
the filament into the acetone so if I
drop this in and it dissolves then it's
abs abs dissolves completely into
acetone if I drop it in and it doesn't
dissolve then it's PLA PLA is completely
unaffected by acetone so it's a really
really conclusive test to see if it is
abs or PLA and just to throw another
spanner in the works it may be a
different plastic like PE T or nylon or
it may be sold as ABS but actually have
something else in it so it might not
completely dissolve into acetone these
are just some cases that I've come
across in the past but generally if it
does dissolve its abs so you're pretty
safe for that test and then you can go
on to do your printing parameters
accordingly so there you have it guys
hopefully have clarified a few things
about printing and abs on PLA let me
know in the comments which one you think
is abs and which one you think is PLA so
I'm going to grab it closer is this
shark and here's this one
I think with the lighter that pretty
much just gave it away don't worry about
the bases well you can print PLA and abs
on to build tag so don't use that as
your reasoning and thanks for watching
guys and looking for to seeing you here
again see Andrew makers Muse if you
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you