Printed parts material

[Jan_26]

Hey, even tho I didn't fully finish my 2.4 yet,  I'm thinking about material choice of the printed parts. 

My current parts are bought, printed from (I suspect cheap or badly printed) ABS. I allready had some of them crack (delaminate) during assembly, luckily just cosmetic stuff, like the cable guide on the gantry and the cable chain guide

I don't really care about color, so I was thinking about printing all the parts in CF ASA or ABS. 

Usually, if I need structurally strong parts and high stiffness I used CF PETG and like the material for most of my applications. Since it's not really suited or recommend in an enclosed printer, I'd choose CF ASA for parts exposed to heat, and CF PETG for the rest. 

I know, the voron recommendation is simple, good ABS, I'm not questioning that, just looking for a better alternative. 

Any suggestions? Any other materials, that give great stiffness and strength, while being relatively easy to print? (and affordable) 

Edited May 12, 2024 by Jan_26
Typo

[JTB]

i'm partial to ASA. havent tried cf asa yet since i havent had a need to do so. You are probably already thinking this but if you are having delam issues with some parts i would suspect all parts. i've had stunning prints with cf petg and they would work well on the the non-heat related parts on the voron.

this might not be a popular statement but cf-petg would work fine on almost every part of the voron if you are not going to enclose. in a cf-petg build I think certain extruder parts would benefit from ASA/ABS.

 

[Jan_26]

The deamination is just on the accent parts, red ABS, the black parts seem to be okay. Pulled that apart by hand, after it cracked. I'd say that's printed too cold. 

 

I never had problems with CF PETG , even unter continuous load. It's sandable, never delaminates, has a bit of give, instead of breaking. Just print it hot enough and slow enough. 

 

The ASA parts I (re-) printed are really strong, but I have no experience with the CF filled stuff. They may or may not delaminate, idk. Stiffness and strength shouldn't be a problem. 

[VoronManiac]

Yikes!  - not typical... That's the problem with buying pre-printed parts from random suppliers on line.  Condolences. Just don't know what you are getting from on line suppliers (not criticizing or trying to make you feel bad).  Get a friend to print you some parts.  I've printed 5 complete sets now for buddies.

Think it but don't over think it.  Each filament manufacture seems to choose  different temperature/deflection tests, so it is hard to do an apples to apples comparison between brands.  Looking at data sheets for a given manufacturer, I don't see much difference between ASA and ABS, at least for the companies I have looked at.  ASA buys UV resistance. Stay away from low warpage ABS+ blends because of their lower temperature deflection numbers.  Yup you can print some parts in PETg-GL, but why?  I've run my chamber to 70C with no issues.

Before going to glass filled, step back as ask yourself where are you trying to add stiffness?  What problem are you trying to solve? 2020 extrusions themselves are not overly rigid so its kind of silly to beef up the printed parts without the frame and carriage extrusions.  The Voron design is well balanced. There are a few places like in TAP that might warrant some enhancement, but TAP works.  It's always easy enough to come back later and beef up some parts where there are problems.

[Jan_26]

6 hours ago, VoronManiac said:

 

Before going to glass filled, step back as ask yourself where are you trying to add stiffness?  What problem are you trying to solve? 2020 extrusions themselves are not overly rigid so its kind of silly to beef up the printed parts without the frame and carriage extrusions.  

Would not go Glas filled, too brittle, too stiff I think... You misread, I mentioned CF, not GF. 

I'm really not trying to solve a  specific problem here, just thinking about material properties. 

Like for example, the cnc aluminum parts are too stiff in some places. They don't dampen certain frequencies. Full aluminum builds should be louder and may create unwanted resonance. The parts are not intended to be that stiff by the devs, I'd suspect. 

 

But as I say, just thinking about material choice here. If PETG would be more temperature tolerant, I'd print everything out if that. It's just my favorite material, carbon filled or not.

 

[claudermilk]

PETG is not recommended for Vorons. Since they are enclosed by default, and PETGs tendency to flow at higher temps it's not a great choice. ABS is the default suggested material unless you're planning on printing very high temp (even more reason to avoid PETG). I have parts from Sparta3D, Push Plastics, and Polymaker on my Trident & V0.2 and they all print clean & strong.

If you need someone else to print parts for you and don't have anyone local you can have help, the Voron PIF program is a good choice. All those providers are vetted by the Voron team to ensure they don't have problems like you are seeing. That part wouldn't come close to being approved for PIF.

[Jan_26]

On 5/12/2024 at 5:56 PM, Jan_26 said:

 

I know, the voron recommendation is simple, good ABS, I'm not questioning that, just looking for a better alternative. 

Did my research there, im just the type to overthink stuff I'm into.  I wholeheartedly agree PETG isn't suited for any parts inside the enclosure. 

But questioning the thing "we always did that way" may be a hobby for me.... 

CF filled filament may be beneficial for pushing resonates further up the spectrum. It may be a good thing, it may not be. I'm eager to experiment here, given time and experience. 

 

6 hours ago, claudermilk said:

 

If you need someone else to print parts for you and don't have anyone local you can have help, the Voron PIF program is a good choice. All those providers are vetted by the Voron team to ensure they don't have problems like you are seeing. That part wouldn't come close to being approved for PIF.

I definitely expected much more from a reputable German seller. He had good reviews, but has no affiliation to Voron itself. One thing I checked after I got suspicious about his printed parts, was the weight compared to my remade prints. ASA and ABS have about the same density. His ABS parts for the x carriage were about 30% lighter. Mine had around 45g for one lower printed in ASA with Voron recommended settings, his has 34....so yeah, definitely not Voron spec. But, in his defense, he nowhere said so.  I'm pretty bummed anyway, that actually made me think about the materials and reprinting my own parts. 

Edited May 13, 2024 by Jan_26
Typo

[geekandi]

16 hours ago, Jan_26 said:

His ABS parts for the x carriage were about 30% lighter. Mine had around 45g for one lower printed in ASA with Voron recommended settings, his has 34....so yeah, definitely not Voron spec.

I mean, a gram or 3 differential would be okay, at most, but this is a huge difference.

Also that infill looks like gyroid (which I love most of the time) though I'm pretty sure everyone uses grid for Voron-spec-printed parts. I know I do.

[Jan_26]

I was thinking the same thing, discovering that. 

 

Gyroid is actually voron spec, according to the 2.4 build guide. 

[geekandi]

Wonder when that changed but deep down, doesn't matter, I like gyroid, I cannot lie, but the grid also does not deny!

(and I have working profiles I am not gonna change cause stubborn is as stubborn does)

[claudermilk]

17 hours ago, Jan_26 said:

But questioning the thing "we always did that way" may be a hobby for me.... 

LOL, not a bad hobby

1 hour ago, geekandi said:

though I'm pretty sure everyone uses grid for Voron-spec-printed parts. I know I do.

Nope. All mine are gyroid. Grid stacks the crossing points, so I've always avoided it.

The bits that "Voron spec" stipulates is 4 walls (the most important) and 40% infill, but not really directing what pattern.

[Jan_26]

2 hours ago, claudermilk said:

Nope. All mine are gyroid. Grid stacks the crossing points, so I've always avoided it.

I don't know wich one it is, but there's a grid variation that avoids that. 

Gyroid looks just dang cool while printing. I have one red translucent PETG, sadly it doesn't really show the infill that good. Would be cool to see the infill, gyroid or 3d honeycomb

[Dirk]

Buying printed parts from someone else to build your own printer, has always seemed a bit strange to me. I thought it was better to buy a printer that was capable of printing ABS and printing my own parts. That is what I did. I bought a Artillery Sidewinder X2 (220 euros) , built a wooden encasing and used it to print my Voron parts a year ago. PIF parts were around 200 euros for the voron 2.4. So with 2 rolls plastic added I paid 100 euros more, but was the knowledge richer, of how to print ABS and with my own parts I printed bad or good.

If you buy parts from someone else, it is quicker and less troublesome, but somehow does not feel quite alright to me...

When a part breaks or does not fit, it is my fault and no one elses...

If you find it troublesome to do it as I did,  get it from a company like Formbot. They print their parts from ABS with fiberglass. They are strong and I have seen nobody complain about them.

Even though the Voron Print It Forward program is popular and has stern selection criteria, just go check it out to see how much people still complain about parts they have received. 

Not to advertise Formbot, but they are very easy in replacing parts people are not satisfied with...

Now, after advertising for Formbot like @Buurman has been doing the last few years, let me give my opinion about the topics you guys have been discussing about. You can go with what the voron design team recommends, or what is standard for the PIF.

By the way, checking out the voron documentation (in my case Voron 2.4 assembly manual:) it dedicates a whole page for how you should print:

 

If you want to obtain a PIF approved profile for superslicer, you can get Ellis' profiles here. And indeed like found out by you guys, it IS different from the voron guidelines!

So... what to do? Take one of those two and go with it? Sure... possible.

But what I did, is to look for some scientific evidence of what is the best method of printing parts for the best strength! I wanted to know the real reason why it works like that and how! Is this not part of why we like to build our own printers?

If you look around on the web, with search terms as 'strength, printing, infill, perimeters', you always run into the CNCKitchen and Stefan. In his youtube films you can hear and see that he thinks (and says) German engineering is superior to many others, but he really does some scientific tests, which has nothing got to do with Germans, but more with science

You just need to read a few of his articles or watch a few of his youtube videos, where he prints and tests different settings, what you talked about: perimeters, layers, sorts, percentage of infill, kinds of materials. You will find for every question an answer. This one, is for example a very good one for the latest topic you guys were talking about. He usually also has an accompanying blog article about it on his website.

But eh... his conclusion.. is that you should, similar to the voron guidelines, should use 4 (2.0mm) perimeters or more, 5(2.0mm) layers or more, AN infill, not really relevant what kind, as long as you do it more than 40%, and orient your prints as such, that the forces on the part, is perpendicular on the layers you print, and a hotter than-on-the-package-temperature. 

I am not very good at explaining, he does it beautifully with his setups, own designed parts and experiments he shows. So make sure to take a look at the scientifically proven ideas and concepts. So you know how to print good and strong parts yourself.

Instead of coming here and telling each other whose toy is bigger and better

 

Edited May 14, 2024 by Dirk

[claudermilk]

21 hours ago, Jan_26 said:

I don't know wich one it is, but there's a grid variation that avoids that. 

Gyroid looks just dang cool while printing. I have one red translucent PETG, sadly it doesn't really show the infill that good. Would be cool to see the infill, gyroid or 3d honeycomb

Cubic is the one you are thinking of, it offsets each layer a little like Gyroid to avoid the stacked crossing lines. It's a bit faster than gyroid too.

[Jan_26]

 

On 5/14/2024 at 7:20 PM, Dirk said:

Instead of coming here and telling each other whose toy is bigger and better

The reason i made that topic was sharing experiences about suitable materials for Voron, maybe learning something new, not comparing sizes. Im sorry, if i did offend anyone. That wasn't my intention.

 

On 5/14/2024 at 7:20 PM, Dirk said:

Buying printed parts from someone else to build your own printer, has always seemed a bit strange to me. I thought it was better to buy a printer that was capable of printing ABS and printing my own parts. That is what I did. I bought a Artillery Sidewinder X2 (220 euros) , built a wooden encasing and used it to print my Voron parts a year ago. PIF parts were around 200 euros for the voron 2.4. So with 2 rolls plastic added I paid 100 euros more, but was the knowledge richer, of how to print ABS and with my own parts I printed bad or good.

I don't have any experience printing ABS or ASA, but it seems not to be trivial, from what I've seen. I wanted good parts, being sure my printer has the best chance to be as good as it can be.

[JTB]

@Jan_26 - i'll put my skill to the test. PM me and i'll print the parts you need. not asking for money, maybe a spool or two of good filament. 

[Dirk]

1 hour ago, Jan_26 said:

i did offend anyone. That wasn't my intention.

I believe I am the one offending everyone here by trying to crack a joke. Well.. I will stop doing that. And offer my apologies to everyone thinking that I made a bad joke, and by sounding grumpy in text. 

I wrote that whole story just to share my experience. And how I look at it. And in the process being helpful to at least someone.

Clearly you guys had some questions, I was hoping to answer them, or point you in directions that could help.

It wasn't my intention to insult anyone with big toys or with expensive nice machines.

 

[Jan_26]

I think we should stop fussing about that, I guess I got up on the wrong foot. I'm sorry of I overreacted. 

 

I actually know nearly every single one of Stefans videos, great source of information. I'll add Thomas Sanladerer ( made with layers now). 

But I don't know any channels that have any ever near scientific evidence for or against carbon filled ASA or ABS. 

I'd love to test if it's worth the trouble and possibly worse layer adhesion, but I don't have the equipment for that. 

[SamppaD]

Go with good quality ABS or ASA,don't use  ABS+. Due to time restrictions,work and my secondary printer in use i desided to purchase pif parts for my Voron build. Parts has been printed with Esun ABS+ on Voron 2.4. 
When ordering asked for ASA but got respond that ABS+is okei to use. 
When i finally found some free time i desided to print some replacment parts for my  second printer with ABS+. I used Esun ABS+ black and blue filament,same filament that pif parts are made of.
Over some month of use this is what i noticed. Black esun ABS+ has no issues ,likes hot enclosure,strong prints,no deformation,nice color. 
Blue filament is the problem,if enclosure temperature is  50C,prints will fail due to filament getting soften and extruder gears will strip 
the filament. Cool down enclosure to 40C and will print without  issues . 
Blue filament is  not so strong compared to black,also printing temperature for  my roll of filament is 265C. 
Printed parts  will fail after some time in hot enclosure. Failure is always the same,part getting soften,and part will deformed after some time in use.
My enclosure temperature doesn't go over 50C.  Esun ABS+ has glass transition temperature of 74C but in use it seems like its much less then 
that for blue filament? So i just purchased Polylite ASA to reprint all remaining plastic parts on my Voron build. Glass transition for this filament is 97.8C 
I was wandering why pif parts are allowed to be printed with ABS+ when its glass transition temperature is 74C and Voron recommendation is at least 80C. 
So ASA or good old quality ABS is the best option as printer is design to have some flexing.

Edited May 20, 2024 by SamppaD

[G_T]

Purely anecdotal here, no scientific testing. Most of the parts in my Trident are either metal or 3DXTech CF-PC, which is one of the higher temperature Polycarbonates not the EZ stuff. Printed 120C bed, 305C extruder, averaging 77.5C chamber. Surface quality is blah at best. But the parts are very tough. Layer adhesion is very strong. I've stressed a few pretty hard in my hands and they don't care. A few parts will end up being GF-PA since I want no conduction near 120V bed connections!

Before switching to CF-PC I printed some parts in Polymaker PC-ABS which definitely prints prettier parts. It also warps like a SOB and will layer separate at times during printing. I had a higher failure percentage than I'd like to admit. It probably would have been fine at the chamber temperature I'm running now, but that was then... It doesn't need as high temps to print so it can be an option if you need a few degrees above ASA for something. Good luck making large parts though! It is a little brittle compared to straight ABS.

I needed something hotter than ASA since I'm routinely running my printer approaching 80C chamber and will be going higher for some filament types, with bed more like 140C. Anything ABS or ASA in the hotter areas end up getting annealed every print even at the current temps. That does nothing positive for bolts staying tight. And loose bolts don't improve print quality. So I had no choice.

But I would expect ASA to be great for normal Voron printers. And I'm guessing most Vorons are printed in ABS of one version or another. I'm not sure I'd add fiber fill for most of the parts. A few parts could possibly benefit, perhaps, but I don't know that you'd see any difference in print quality. Some parts would actually end up weaker (at least with CF, perhaps not with GF) depending on layer orientation. Also I've found 0.4 nozzles and fiber filled plastic leads to intermittent nozzle clogs. Vorons were designed around a 0.4 nozzle it seems. Fibers prefer 0.6.

If you are concerned about ABS+ in a few places, then once your printer is dialed in, reprint those parts in ASA. But I can tell you from experience that swapping parts is more of a PITA than building it with the parts you want up front!

The places to pay the most attention to glass transition temperature, and better, to the Heat Deformation Temperature (HTD), are the places that will get the most heat. That's going to be things like a Stealthburner print head, and the A and B motor mounts. Also bed mounts. Everything else is far enough away from the hottest parts that I'd expect the parts would experience chamber temp, or a touch over at the top of the enclosure, and notably lower towards the bottom (Trident, not necessarily 2.4).

I've been making things for a very long time, but I'm pretty new to FDM. So take anything I say with a grain of salt, or as just one data point.

Gerald

[MrBean]

I have been using a lot of ASA-CF and ABS-GF lately and I must say, they surprised me. ABS-GF prints without warping issues and the layer bond is much better than normal ABS. And you get it in nice colours too. ASA-CF prints very easily too and makes very strong parts. 
ASA-CF would be my choice for printer parts. For all that need the strength as well as the temp stability. It became my material of choice for most technical parts except when I needed colour.
With a standard nozzle you can print about 1 1/2 rolls of either, then you will start to see more pronounced surface texture appear. 

I am praying for ASA-GF in colours like ABS-GF. 

 am

 

[Voroni]

I printed my original 2.4R1 using eSun ABS+ (the clear spool). 3 years in I've started reprinting some of the parts in CF ASA while upgrading to R2. Observations below.

• The original eSun ABS+ parts show very little sign of wear and tear. It held up. Small indentations around the motor mounts. No doubt from heat. 
• Print your gantry parts (AB drive units) in regular ASA. You want it to flex a little. In case you crash your nozzle. The CF ASA will snap or worst bend your extrusion because it is so stiff. 
• Z drift is almost all gone using CF ASA for the Z joints, idlers, and gear boxes.
• Printed my Galileo2 using CF ASA. It's smooth as butter and eats filament like a champ. Even when my ERCF2 slips it will pull it straight through.
• Be prepared to change up your nozzle or get a really good nozzle when printing CF ASA. It's no joke. It's an abrasive material.

Voron sourcing guide should remove the eSun ABS+ recommendation. Ever since they switched over to the black spool it is completely junk. Layer adhesion sucks and I suspect they added too much PLA into the mixture because it no longer flexes like ABS should.

 

[chrisalbertson]

Very roughly speaking the resonate frequency of a clamped bar is proportionate to the square root of (Young's modulus/density)

So those people claiming the CNC parts will cause "more resonance"  are not right, it will push the frequencies upward (which is a good thing). I would suggest the stiffest and lightest material you can afford.   Carbon Fiber composite or aluminum.    Lacking that, fiber-filled ABS would work.  And then normal ABS.

Formboit is selling Vornon parts made with Pheatus ABS-GL.    This is 10% glass-filled and not expensive.     But, I think the main reaso  is that the GL filler keeps the parts from shrinking and warping hence making the parts easier to print well.

That said we don't know the cause of Voron printers resonating.   It might be the belts or it might be the 2020 frame.  I doubt the printed parts are the main cause.

The LAST thing you want is a "springy thing" in the printer, Metal would be best, after that, the most metal-like plastic you can find.

 

 

[G_T]

I just saw that Phaetus is selling ASA-GF so I would probably consider that a prime potential option for normal Voron printers. It's also not expensive. Blue, Red, Black; I don't know about other colors. Anyway, dont take my advice; use your own judgement!

Gerald

Edited May 25, 2024 by G_T

[chrisalbertson]

2 hours ago, G_T said:

I just saw that Phaetus is selling ASA-GF so I would probably consider that a prime potential option for normal Voron printers. It's also not expensive. Blue, Red, Black; I don't know about other colors. Anyway, dont take my advice; use your own judgement!

Gerald

My V0.2. is made from Phaetus ASA-GF because I bought the printed parts from Formbot and that is what they use.

Compared to normal ABS the ABS-GL is a matt finish and is slightly more rigid.  It will break if you try and bend it whereas normal ABS will just continue to bend.    My opinion of the ABS-GL is that Paetus accurately describs it on their web site.    Their description is spot-on but also, it only has 10% glass so when they say "lass wapping" they means "very incrementally less warpping".  After all how much effect can 10% glass have?  I think you need to get tp 30% fiber before you see and night and day difference.

It is li,ke asking "Which is stronger, an aluminum or a glass beam?"    It depends how you measure.   Glass is much stronger if you memasure the amount of deflection vs the force applied.    As long as you never get near the breaking point,the glass is stronger.

 

PLA is the same way.    It is the strongest plastic you can print, until it breaks.