Best general-purpose high(er) temp filament

[finite skiff]

As my Bambulab X1C has arrived now, I am in the possession of a printer that can print higher temp materials for the first time.
I have to admit I didn't look into them that much. I'm generally looking at filament that can handle 100°C and above.
ABS comes to mind first, but with that, also ASA which I often hear is better than ABS? The manual of the X1C often mentions additional maintenance and cleaning is required when printing ABS due to residue from its fumes. Does that also apply to ASA?
What about PC, how difficult or easy is it to print and when does it make sense?

I would love to hear what are your favourite/most used filaments that can resist at least 100°C!

[halcyon lichen]

I have avoided ABS/ASA due to the fume concerns though many seem to be happy with it. I've had no issues with PC in my X1C though I do take some steps to help ensure that. I've yet to try Polymaker PC though I plan to try it when I need another roll. Right now I'm using Inland Tough PC, which I've heard rumored to be made by Playmaker but even if true it doesn't mean that it is the same thing.

For "general purpose" use I still tend to use PLA or PETG simply due to cost. It is also nice to be able to just grab the build plate as soon as it is done without gloves. I don't think I'd try that at 110C.

Steps I take with PC include a few profile tweaks (less fan, higher first layer temps), and letting the printer enclosure warm up a bit before starting a print. (I just set the bed to 110C and let it sit for a little while.)

Usually one of the main issues with PC is warping so getting a solid first layer and not letting the rest cool too much during printing are ways to manage this.

Disclaimer: I'm very new to 3D printing but got this printer mainly to do functional stuff and dove in the deep end ...

[midnight sonnet]

ASA and a X1C is a match made in heaven. I'm presently printing out parts for my Voron 2.4r2 and it works incredibly well.

I suggest about 20-35% cooling fan, 265 first layer, 260 all others and for large prints the bed at 110 first layer and 105 all others, for ones with less surface area, 95/90 is what I do. also slow it down, 40mm/sec outside walls, 80mm/sec inside walls, 120mm/sec infill

I do recommend the use of a brim if the bottom surface area is large

I had the OG Covid back in 2020, and lost most of my sense of smell. I cannot comment on the odor of either. I can say this much. ASA smells less than ABS but I can't say if it's a bad smell or not

I'm also using the Textured PEI Sheet on my X1C for these prints

[halcyon lichen]

I have zero concerns about whether I can smell decomposing ASA. I'm more concerned about what the fumes do to the printer and my lungs. 😂

Bad smells are a good thing really as it tells me not to be in the area.

[simple snow]

I print Polymaker ASA at 260/270 C and indeed my fan shroud got some colour from the fumes.

When you think about ABS as general purpose, keep in mind that 1 kg prints 20% more than 1 kg of PLA, so adapt the prices and considerations accordingly...

[finite skiff]

@halcyon lichen @midnight sonnet @simple snow thanks for your comments, that has been quite insightful. I think I'll give both ASA as well as PC a try. If I want to go cheap and simple, I'll still go for PLA and PETG. I don't have a project that requires temperature resistant parts yet but I wanted to be informed should that ever happen or when someone requests it.
Of course, further comments are still appreciated if someone sees this thread and hasn't replied yet 😄

A bit off topic, but I saw people on the bambulab subreddit claiming the X1C barely prevents VOCs and fumes from leaving the printer. Another user claimed it does work well. Multiple people said that when printing ABS, the chamber fan isn't on by default.
So I was wondering if it's actually a problem or if you could just turn on the chamber fan a little bit to create negative pressure and have the exhaust air exit through the filter and not e.g. the gap in the door. Did anyone put some more thoughts into this?
Generally I feel like the Bambu Lab subreddit is a weird place. In just a few posts I saw so many people assuming they know it all while being clearly inexperienced.

[sharp delta]

It seems all materials release VOC's, including PLA. Smells though, ABS and ASA are more noticeable than PLA. Polymakers ABS and ASA smell less than other brands. Reading a few studies, ti seemed the higher your printing temperature, I think there's more VOC's.

When printing those materials the key it keeping them hot for as long as possible. If the layer cools quickly it will hold stress and then warp. If you have a chamber fan on that blows air, it might increase the cooling of the material, resulting in more stress and warping?

I tend to recommend keeping the printer fully enclosed, keeping the printer hot but having the machine in its own room and having a window open to give airflow.

[simple snow]

Printing abs is cheaper than printing PLA or PETG, for example Amazon basics abs (which is not bad) is 29/kg and you won't find easily good pla at 16/kg.

About fumes: the ones that stick to the printer are not the ones that go into the lungs.
And those which get into the lungs are an issue only if the room has no ventilation at all or you stick your nose to the printer the whole time.
Usually, not a worry.

[halcyon lichen]

The filter on the printer doesn't do all that much. I'm sure it helps a little.

[halcyon lichen]

Everything emits both VOCs and particulates. Some smell more obnoxious than others. Some are more toxic than others.

My concern isn't with smells. It is with toxicity. My understanding is that ASA/ABS are more problematic for this.

I do what I can to mitigate this, but part of that is avoiding the problem in the first place. If ASA fumes are more toxic than PC fumes then I don't see why I'd choose ASA over PC if the printer is fine with both.

I haven't needed to print with CF yet but I'd definitely watch out for particulates there. I doubt you'd smell a thing but you don't want that in your lungs. It is better than glass fibers as I understand though.

Again, disclaimer: I'm completely new to 3D printing, but do have a chemistry background. I haven't dug too deep into the ASA situation, but I'd go look up the primary literature before just "trusting my nose." If you want to know if air is toxic or not over the long term you really need specialized equipment to analyze it.

Not surprised that forums are full of people new to printing. I'm sure many got the printer for the same reason I did: it works and I've yet to calibrate a layer height or pull out calipers with a cube to try to make it, well, a cube. 🙂

[simple snow]

The articles I found show that in/near the printer concentrations are just above thresholds.
If not sticking the face there to monitor the printer all the time, or if a normal, nothing exceptional ventilation is present (if not, other bigger issues arise!), everything is within safe levels.
From my research it's a not a problem.

[halcyon lichen]

Thresholds for what? VOCs? Or the specific toxic substances present? Some poisonous substances can make you drop dead long before reaching an unsafe concentration for VOCs.

Styrene PEL is 100ppm. Apparently printing ABS/ASA releases about 1.8% of its mass as styrene (ie, 18g per 1kg roll).

So if you print 100g of filament it will release 1.8g of styrene.

Ok, that needs some adjustment.

TLV-TWA for styrene is 10ppm. Also, the definition they're using for ppm looks like the limit is about 43 micrograms per liter.

So, that 1.8g of styrene needs to be diluted in 42,000 liters of air to be 10ppm.

That's 42 m^3 of air exchange per 100g of filament printed, which is quite a bit of air.

Unit conversion source: https://www3.epa.gov/ceampubl/learn2model/part-two/onsite/ia_unit_conversion.html

If you're just printing a few hundred grams of material in a moderate sized room you'd still be under that limit, but more than that would require ventillation to keep up with the printing rate.

Really outgassing 1.8% of the mass of the filament seems like quite a bit.

(air purifiers are another way to go. Activated carbon should absorb styrene. I'm using the Bento Box filter in my X1C, though it could use a fan upgrade.)

[simple snow]

I think it was PM and VOCs since the substances that make you drop dead are unlikely to be present in consumer filaments, isn't it?

[simple snow]

Seems a lot to me but that's beyond my knowledge of the matter

[halcyon lichen]

Mostly. Styrene though is one of the nastier ones which is why ASA/ABS have a bit of a reputation. I'd have to check but there are a few others that can decompose at higher temps and produce nasty stuff.

Among the common stuff though I think styrene is the main compound that is of particular note. After that it is mostly just VOCs and particulates, especially with glass/carbon-filled filament.

[simple snow]

In winter I have mechanical ventilation continuously running to extract air from the house and in summer I have windows open... As many people also have.
That was also why I regard the VOCs issue as overblown: normal environments already take care of avoiding dangerous concentrations

[simple snow]

Polymaker ABS is said to smell much less. We should ask @rustic dust (if I remember correctly) to give us hints about their abs releasing less styrene than the competition

[halcyon lichen]

Got that figure from here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9229569/

[sharp drum]

In those tests, ASA had less than a quarter the styrene emission that ABS did. I'm still trying to figure out where the 1.8% came from, one graph shows a peak of nearly 1800 micrograms per gram, but that would be 0.18% so either there is a math error or there is something I am not finding

[halcyon lichen]

Good catch. Maybe we're overlooking something but that could be a math error. If so my figures are high by a factor of 10, and you'd only need 4 m^3 of air per 100g of filament.

The TGA decomposition profile is way too small to be sure, but it doesn't seem like it really dips too much at printing temps. Granted, on that scale 1.8% might just not be obvious. If you get up over 300C though you can see it really losing mass.

[sharp drum]

I guess you could do a sanity test if you are using ABS, weigh before and after printing, including any support material, purge, etc. If you printed a whole 1 kg roll, 1.8% lost in total to styrene and other VOCs would be an 18 g difference, 0.18% would be 1.8g

[halcyon lichen]

I suspect that would be hard to pull off in practice, but I guess it would work. If you're at a university maybe bring a snip of filament to a physical chemistry professor and ask them to stick it in a TGA. That should give you a very accurate figure in no time, for total loss to gaseous decomposition. Just look at the loss up to typical printing temps.

[finite skiff]

I find this really interesting. If ASA actually has less emissions, that further justifies the slightly higher price.

I don't really see the reason for ABS when ASA seems to be better in pretty much everything, or am I missing something? 😁

[sharp drum]

At a small scale, yeah, you need lab equipment to test, but I have an amazon basics kitchen scale that goes up to 5 kg with 1 g resolution. I don't print in ABS though. get someone who's printing voron parts or something, have them weigh the spools before and after, and also weigh all the printed parts and waste together, and see if the difference is in the 20 g range or the 2 g range. 20g seems like an awful lot. Would quickly overwhelm any kind of filtration, and would leave a lot more than a fog on the acrylic. 20g of ABS is 8 meters of filament

[simple snow]

It's better to use a 200 g scale with 0.01 g resolution and extrude 100 g abs in a single go.

[halcyon lichen]

Oh, it is certainly possible to test at home, at least to rule out 1.8%. However, I think in practice you'd have issues. If you try to do it with regular printing then you need to meticulously track filament over a large amount of time, and I wouldn't be surprised if you lost a fair bit in little scraps, etc. If you want to do a smaller dedicated test I'm not sure how accurate a kitchen scale that purports to read to the 0.01g precision. You'd want to do calibration/etc. And you'd need to be careful with gloves and your methods. I think going small is probably still better because you can just do a dedicated test. You could tare a container and just extrude 100g of filament directly into it, eliminating most error due to loss/transfer/etc. Of course you can do that with 1kg too, but that is a lot of waste since you can't print anything that way. Just make sure you extrude at a realistic rate and not the max speed to get it over with - that would reduce time in the nozzle.

However, it is definitely possible.

A TGA would take very little effort to give much more precise figures and most universities probably have one not getting a lot of use.

[simple snow]

I bought a set of calibration weights and the cheap 0-200g/0.01g scale got all of them pretty well, I think the issue was that it doesn't start that low and you need at least 0.05 g to get anything meaningful but then it was quite good.
Ruling out the 1.8% is surely possible with cheap tools.

[halcyon lichen]

I agree if you're careful.

[sharp drum]

If someone chimes in and says they are taking a sample in to a university to test, it would be over, but no one's offered.

[simple snow]

You can also take a 1kg spool and extrude it fully. 20 euro/dollars and any kitchen scale with 1 g resolution will tell you. Likely cheaper than going to a university considering that the university won't magically get the result but they'll need the extruded blob as well.