MakerGear Forum

A year ago I started working at a new school with an M2, and no one knew how to use it. That was my first encounter with a 3D printer, and I took it upon myself to learn how to integrate it into the classroom; a lot of that is thanks to you guys.

But now I finally have my own toy to mess around with! Thanks to JProchnow, his "old" M2 now has a new home in my basement. I don't have any of my own filament yet, but it wont be long.

seeing as i've already run the gauntlet with PLA, I might skip over ABS and just go right to PET. Any reason why I shouldn't?

There is very little need to use ABS. Any desirable mechanical properties are vastly outweighed by the difficulty of dealing with warping. The only really useful trait I can think of for ABS any more is that it is somewhat stiffer than PETG, and you can bond/vapor treat it with acetone.

Oh, and welcome to the club, for real!

every plastic has its best use. the abs warping always aggravated me to no end. pet brings is own challenges though. atleast those are all in the settings and can be worked out. i do still use abs once in awhile though. it has its place. get a spool of each.

I heard enough complaints about ABS warping, and went straight from PLA to PET+ about a year or so ago, then to PETg when it became available. I've never run ABS on my machine. The only thing I miss about ABS is the simplicity of solvent bonding with Testor's model glue, but there are solvent solutions for PETg. It just requires an online order instead of a trip down to the local arts and crafts store.

Tim, are you sure? Testor's 3502MT looks like it has methyl ethyl ketone (MEK), which The Internet seems to think will work on PETG.

I have tons of solvents around the shop. Most are loaded with mek and have no effect on pet. It might swell or soften it if left soaking for a long period of time but to melt it for gluing purposes...i dont believe so.

Been an ABS fan for a long time...but just started playing with PETG and loving life....

Seems like a no-brainer. I dont regret my 1am purchase of eSUN black PETg.

Unfortunately I won't be able to play next week, I have STEM training upstate =D. Next year I'm teaching a middle school Design and Modeling class with Autodesk. Guess who's going to be asking a lot of questions around here...

Matt_Sharkey wrote:Seems like a no-brainer. I dont regret my 1am purchase of eSUN black PETg.

Unfortunately I won't be able to play next week, I have STEM training upstate =D. Next year I'm teaching a middle school Design and Modeling class with Autodesk. Guess who's going to be asking a lot of questions around here...

Are you going to try and use TinkerCad online or 123D off line? Your students are going to eat this up, that age group once they get interested in something look out! More than lots of questions... your going to have problems getting them to leave. Was never impressed with TinkerCad to many things you can't do with it, but a darn good place to start.

I taught for 12 years in a Community college setting and I incorporated teaching AutoCAD Lt into the program 95% of the students loved working with it. A couple went on to get jobs as CAD designer or draftsman.

with this group, I actually had them on Tinkercad last year as a guest lecturer and helping hand for their stem class, some of them really put it to work, and weren't too miffed about its drawbacks. I wanted to use that as a primer to get them to think spatially and to overcome common problems with getting ideas down on "paper."

This course is actually layed out by "Project Lead The way" and from what I can tell, it will be working with autodesk a lot, but I'll be able to give you a better answer next weekend!