ABS weirdness question: found a great local source of ABS filament in Velleman’s. What a love affair… after about 4 kilograms of unimaginable crap, to find a filament that’s consistent in size and chemistry, that does not contain too much moisture and prints - perfectly, I must admit. Especially at my low speeds.
But never mind - the love affair ended quickly, and I can’t begin to imagine why. Suddenly the plastic became brittle and prone to crack for really no reason, and also it has started to - not exactly jam, but require significantly more force to flow through my E3D…
So I am disassembling the hotend to give the nozzle a little acetone bath and cleanup, but wanted to ask you dear colleagues - what do you think? Could the increase of surrounding temperature change its behavior that much? (It has actually been very hot here lately, close to +30C which is about 5-6 degrees hotter than before, inside). Could it have suffered from humidity? Not that there is much of that - anyway I thought moisture usually ruined your print in other ways. Still, am prepared to toss the roll into my warm box and have it spent the night there at +60C.
ANy other suggestions?
Are you running your E3D with the fan? Or not?
Would not think of running it without! The standard buzzing little fan…
Usually, moisture hasn’t caused a problem for me at all, with ABS or otherwise. My hackerspace has all sorts of filament out in the middle of an un airconditioned warehouse, in Florida where the humidity is off the charts. The UltiMaker, LulzBot, MakerGear Prusa, all print fine with basically whatever garbage we throw at them.