Printing ABS to plastic sheet? [NO!!!] (See updated post)

[Demolishun]

I was going to post in troubleshooting, but I was not sure if that was the correct place.

Anyway, I am making some modular enclosures and they are turning out to be just a flat piece of plastic with features printed onto the major pieces. The bottom, sides, and top are all separate pieces. I was thinking if I could print on some pre-manufactured plastic sheets I could speed up the build time on these enclosures. I looked at one plastic company, but they do not sell ABS sheets. They have a ton of other plastics just not ABS.

So does anyone know of a plastic you could print onto that would easily melt to ABS? Obviously I need to be careful what kind of plastic I use because of off gassing. So I am pretty much planning on staying away from PVC.

Here are some plastics I know I can get from one supplier:
Acetal
Acrylic
Fiberglass (probably will not melt)
PEEK (ABS temp probably too low)
Nylon (if it will melt)
Phenolic
Polycarbonate
Polyethylene
Polypropylene
Polystyrene
Polyurethane
PTFE
FEP
Vinyl

Anyway, if anyone has experimented with this that would awesome to hear about.

BTW, Lego is planning on providing blank Legos that stick to Legos that can be printed onto. So the idea is not new.

Edit:
Dang it. I searched the internet and my supplier does carry ABS sheet. It was not showing up on their little menus. So anyway, I do want to hear about people who have tried this. I am planning on doing some tests on this and see how it goes.

[Polygonhell]

Online Metals will sell you ABS sheets as will probably a number of others, that would be your best bet.
I believe ABS will bond effectively to acrylic, you'll probably have to lower your bottom layer artificially, and it's not going to be as strong as printing on ABS.

[Demolishun]

Ooh, nice idea for Online Metals. Small quantities and decent pricing;
http://www.onlinemetals.com/merchant.cf ... 777&step=4

I also need metals from time to time so that is great website.

[Demolishun]

I had some "styrene" from a hobby store I purchased a while back. I figured it would work for a good test. It is quite possibly ABS to begin with, but the packaging does not say.

The bonding of the plastic seems to be very good. I had to use ABS slurry to make the styrene stay on the heated bed. I just put it on the edges. The ends of the styrene were held down with the paper clips that come with the Rostock. You have to tell Slic3r in the Printer Settings to offset the model from the bed. Repetier host will not offset the sliced model using its settings BTW. In my case it was 0.082" as measured with a caliper. The packaging says it is 0.080". I figured that is pretty darn close.

Here is my print before:

Printed Plate

Here is my print using the styrene plate:

Styrene Plate

It is practically a night and day difference. The print to styrene looks very nice indeed. Yes, my own printed plate could look better and I am not sure why there are seams. However, the print to an existing plate takes so much less material and prints much much faster. I do have to cut out the plate, but that is just a straight edge and razor. So four cuts.

Edit:
Nooo, it is not bonding well to the styrene. I need to experiment with the first layer temperature and possibly slow it down to get the ABS to bond well to it. Darn!

[Tinyhead]

Edit:
Nooo, it is not bonding well to the styrene. I need to experiment with the first layer temperature and possibly slow it down to get the ABS to bond well to it. Darn!

I was just reading this (cool idea by the way!) and I would have thought the same thing. Maybe you could jack up the temp of that first layer a fair bit higher to get that better bond. I was going to even suggest using a lower than normal Z0 to get that extra temp onto the surface of your material.

[Demolishun]

Yeah, I was going to try hiking up the temp. I tried it 235, I think I will push 250 maybe and try going slower on the first layer. That should increase the heat on that layer and make it "linger" to melt the styrene. I love the idea of dipping too low to force it to melt into the material too. Thanks. I think if this were true ABS it would have worked better, but I think it is trial and error to see what works for what material. If this can be made to work then every hobby store that carries this is potentially going to be a source for 3D printer people.

[teoman]

You could try to chemically weld it with acetone or acetone/abs slurry.

[Demolishun]

I tried a universal ABS/PVC solvent and it does not bind to the styrene. It eats the ABS though. I wonder what the heck is in this plastic. Maybe I don't want to know...

I have not tried increasing the heat, but that is next.

[teoman]

This may be stating the obvious, but could you drill small holes in to your base material and then press fit your other parts

[Demolishun]

could you drill small holes in to your base material and then press fit your other parts

That is another good option.

[Demolishun]

I finally got around to ordering some ABS sheets. I ordered 20 of the 12"x12"x0.118" I believe. I was thinking I was running into a not hot enough for the sheet, but hot enough for the ABS filament. I want to test ABS on ABS, not unknown styrene on ABS.

[teoman]

Completely taking out of my ass here but you could experiment with increasing the hot end a lot for the first layer. And then maybe lowering the Z height offset by a few hundred microns so you really push the filament in to the sheet. Also you may slow down the first layer.