ABS-PC adhesion tip

Hopefully helpful tip for those who’ve tried the widespread and ridiculous suggestion of using PVA glue, which melts at the appropriate bed temperature (≥110°C) and ensures that there will be no adhesion at all. Using PVA is about like spreading oil on the print bed.

Instead, coat the bed with a very thin solution of ABS in MEK. It’s an old trick, I know, but for some reason, not mentioned anywhere that I can find for this particular material. It seems not to bother the PEI bed surface, and the parts are easily removed after printing.

For me, ABS-PC sticks fine to the central area of the bed, but during the first layer, portions situated near the periphery of the bed let go, curl up, and get smushed around by the print head. The thin coating of ABS stops this.

Another thing is that the standard profile for ABS-PC (Proto-Pasta) doesn’t work. You have to disable the cooling fan, or at least run it at no more than 5%, and also goose all the hot end temperature settings up by 10°C.

That’s an interesting method! We used to use ABS dissolved in acetone, but moved away from that due to the damage that acetone does to the PEI print surface.

Thank you for the feedback on the profile, what printer & tool head combination were you using?

1st gen Mini, no display, original 0.5 mm nozzle on stock head. Great engineering on this puppy, aside from the lack of a display or SD card slot, which is a RAMBo board shortcoming, I guess. Newer ones have the usual conveniences, but you can still find these oldies on closeout at about half price.

Oh, one more thing – for some reason, I have to cut the flow to 80% to get a smooth result, both for the initial and subsequent layers.