heated bed and ABS

I'm currently keeping the heated bed on for the duration of the print. I've read you can turn it off, or turn it down after the first few layers.

Does anyone have practical experience of this? Any tips?

Thanks
Ian

Within Cura there is a plugin that I use, within Slic3r there is the option to set the bed temperature for the first layer and for the rest of the print. In Slic3r in the same page, there is the option to set the hotend temp for first layer and adjacent ones.

With ABS, I used to print the first layer hotter than the other ones and have the heated bed a bit hotter for better adhesion to the Kapton tape.

Nowadays I only print with PLA, first layer bed temp: 60º and the rest on 50º. This works perfect and I have great adhesion.

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http://www.marinusdebeer.nl/

Pla is really well behaved, but i need abs for some parts at the moment so I'm printing with it for the first time. It's going really well, I get fantastic prints, but I do leave the bed on.

I might experiment tomorrow, I just hate wasting my currently limited print time :/

110 all the time. Don't turned off. You might experiment with lowering it a bit, but may risk delamination. I keep it not only at 110, but also add a 200 watts bulb close to the part I'm printing, I had never suffered from warping or delamination. My 2 cents.

The bulb idea is quite neat, I might think about that. Clever idea.

If you stay at 110C for the whole print, you will get in-curved vertical walls. Set it forget it temp of 80C for the whole print with hairspray, or first layer at 110 then drop it to 80 for the rest of the print.

If you are printing tall prints, an enclosed chamber for your printer is your best bet to avoid delamination.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/16/2014 08:56PM by Dirty Steve.

I'm planning a cabinet for printer v2. It's going to be a fairly sturdy cube so I can store things on top, but I did have an eye to abs when I was thinking about it. I'll experiment dropping to 80 tonight. I had no time yesterday.

See attached picture, 110 all the time with 200 watts bulb.

Nice print