Warp-free ABS printing on the Wanhao Di3

ABS is a wonderful plastic. It’s tough. It’s paintable. You can sand it, smooth it, and you can glue it together with “solvent welding”. But the ABS fumes are horrible, and that is without adding solvent vapour on top.

Today I printed an ABS warping torture test at beautiful quality at 60mm/sec, and it came out flawless and fume-free, stuck with only glue stick and a heated bed. 2-3 years ago I would have been laughed at if I said I was going to try that on a <$500 printer, but here we are.

Check out the timelapse:

I am putting this down to my IKEA enclosure. While not a perfect seal, it keeps enough cold air from circulating that the prints come out fantastic, and zero smells. This cheap unit takes the Wanhao Di3 from being a great PLA printer (and one of my favourites) to being an excellent printer for ABS too.

I'm impressed with this cheap and cheerful printer — I’m impressed with this cheap and cheerful printer

The other upgrade that I believe helped with this are the Micro Swiss all metal upgrade (with heat block), but the enclosure was the majority of it.

Settings:

225c nozzle
100c bed
Hatchbox ABS
60mm/sec 0.2mm layers
40% infill
no support

I believe the Warpinator 500 STL belongs to Angus Deveson of MakersMuse if anyone wants to try it.

Find out more about why I like the Wanhao Di3 here.

Warp-free ABS printing on the Wanhao Di3

About Chris Garrett