HATCHBOX ABS 3D Printer Filament, Dimensional Accuracy +/- 0.03 mm, 1 kg Spool, 1.75 mm, Orange

Very happy with the color and performance of this filament. I am new to 3D printing and this is first time I printed with ABS so I can offer no comparison to other filaments at this point - only actual performance vs expectations. Very good. No tangles. No bad spots.I used most of this spool to print an RC model ship 28" long and 6.5" wide, in multiple pieces. Each piece took about 10 to 14 hrs so it took about a week printing a piece or 2 each day. It rained 2 of those days but didn't seem real humid to me. Printer was Prusa MK2S kit built. The room temp was 61 degrees F, I had a thin foamboard box around my printer 24" square, no bottom. I used Prusa Control software to slice and changed no settings from the default for generic ABS - 255 degrees C hotend and 100 degrees for the heatbed. I used glue stick on the bare bed, no cleaning between prints but did add some glue each time - parts stuck extremely well. I thought this might be too hot a temp but it worked real well and the ABS is pretty solid - you can twist & bend it but it doesn't come apart at the layers. Pretty smooth finish at 150 microns, looks about the same as the PLA I used and was able to do some overhangs I thought not possible with such hot material. So on the second to last print, 4th day of printing, I could see a minor change in the surface appearance, not quite as smooth looking. Then the final print on friday looked like it had a rough finish. On close inspection I believe this to be the result of accumulated moisture absorbed by the ABS finally showing its effect. It was very minor and smoothed out easily enough.Very good results gluing/chemical welding the parts together with some of the scrap ABS (power went out on one piece and so it became scrap, I mean glue ingredient). So when my glue had finally gotten to the right consistency for me, it had been sitting for a couple of days and had enough ABS to Acetone ration so it was like melted ice cream. No clamps, just brush on each piece, hold for a few seconds, move on to the next piece, let dry completely overnight and it won't come apart but sands easily.Am going to buy some more of this brand ABS in other colors for other RC projects.

I've been printing with PLA this entire time until I gave ABS printing a try. My motivation was that you're able to acetone smoothing with ABS filament. With ABS, even prior to the acetone treatment, there is a noticeable quality improvement with the print out compared to PLA+. I think it is because you're printing at a higher temp (220, bed temp 90) with ABS, and it makes the plastic blend in better. A few brush strokes of acetone and the surface became smooth (it didn't take long, and don't use too much acetone). After a coat of primer, it was even smoother to the point where I don't need to sand it. I will never go back to PLA again. I don't know if the other ABS brands will work as well as Hatchbox, so I will try them next time.

Before I dive into the negatives, it's worth pointing out the goods in the product and why I like it. ABS is hard to print with, Hatchbox ABS is usually pretty strong and very good for the price. If you are looking to build durable materials and are willing to do some filament testing and stress tests you can absolutely get this to print beautiful parts that hold up to abuse, but you have to test the material.Being ABS, this suffers the same level of warping and shrinking as any other ABS material in 3d printing. You need a solid heat bed that can get to 100°C to even consider printing this and cold spots in your heat bed or lack of warm air during a print can cause shrinking, recommend having an enclosure around your printer as well as a decent heat bed to even consider printing ABS. That aside, this specific color does appear to be a little more difficult to work with than the black, grey, and white ABS that I've had from the same company. Temperature tolerances are much lower on this specific color and so printing above 210°C has caused printing quality issues as well as burned filament. Occasionally I'll just have blobs or streaks of brown as if the filament had been sitting in the hot end too long but never had the same issue with the white filament.I did some serious dial-in testing with my prints (photos included to show progress) because out of the box I struggled to get any form of decent bridging or overhang. For some reason this material oozed like hell and was especially apparent when trying to bridge even small gaps. It's not consistent with flow rate and actually had worse blob issues with decreased flow rate. I have my finalized settings below, but after about 30-40 extreme bridging tests I was able to understand the tolerances of this material. Unfortunately I had some issues with first layer adhesion as well and I'm not sure if this is related to the color and dye used or not, but using a brim of 2mm has almost entirely eliminated all first layer issues. Settings I landed on are below, your mileage may vary so I recommend doing temperature and bridge tests if you have issues.Slicer: PrusaSlicer 2.3.0Printer: Prusa Mini (DIY, not official)Enclosure: YesFirst layer temperature: 235°CEvery other layer temperature: 210°CHeatbed: 100°C (All Layers)Bridge fan speed: 75%Normal cooling fan: 25% (always on)Bridge print speed: 25mm/sBridge flow rate: 0.75

Hatchbox Filament are pretty good and reliable. It prints better than many filaments that claim to have +/- 0.02mm dimensional accuracy. I bought it in the color "Brown", but it is such a dark shade of brown that it looks black. For other colors, I never had any issue.

Works great! This one is prefered by my boyfriend and makes great products!