So here we are in Chapter 3 with our introduction into ABS filament. When you get your filament, your first roll of filament, you'll notice there's a sticker on the top and it's got some information about your filament there. ABS is one of the most popular filament materials that we see with 3D printers, but it does have some peculiarities when printing with it. I'd call it an intermediate printing material and we'll take a look at why. ABS stands for acrylonitrile butadiene styrene and refers to a compound of fossil fuel derivatives. ABS print temperature is generally seen as 220 to 250-degrees Celsius. This one's 230 to 250 and most 3D printers can generally handle those sorts of temperatures.

We recommend using a heated bed for ABS because it helps with warping issues that are really commonplace with ABS. We'll go into warping in the next chapter, but for now, we just know that a heated bed will help with it and we usually keep the heated bed at around 110-degrees to keep the warping down. ABS is also soluble in acetone or nail polish remover. If you get some nail polish remover, you can actually smooth the surface of your prints or alternatively, you could snip a bit of filament off and dissolve it in acetone, and then you've got some glue for the ABS prints. ABS also gives off some nasty fumes when you print with it. It's not safe so we don't recommend that you print in enclosed areas without some sort of ventilation system, especially in an office or something where there might be multiple people. Just keep it safe and use a ventilation system.

Finally, because ABS is a fossil fuel derivative, it's obviously not biodegradable. Now that's a really good thing when you're trying to print something that's going to last the test of time. It could also be a bad thing if you're printing a lot of something you don't want to fill up landfill with parts that will never break down. All negatives aside, I actually like ABS. Once we got a heated enclosure for our 3D printers, we were able to get really good quality ABS prints just by bypassing those warping issues. If I'm looking for a solid part that can withstand high temperatures and also a lot of mechanical stresses, ABS is definitely my go-to filament choice.