I'm at the start of same journey you took with my Ender 3 S1, I bough the Creality Sonic pad but haven't installed it yet. What other changes did you make to print ABS, any recommendations?
The big two I'd recommend are an enclosure and an activated carbon filter (preferably an activated carbon+HEPA filter).
With Ender 3's, you have the option of simple tent enclosures, they're ugly, but work well. This will help keep the enclosure warm, improving the reliability of ABS printing by both reducing warping (although this also comes down to the quality of filament) and improving bed adhesion.
The activated carbon filter will keep the fumes under control. I use a Bentobox filter, which uses both activated carbon and a HEPA filter, but Nevermore filters are also very popular.
That said, if you haven't bought it already, I'd recommend considering ASA instead of ABS. I recently tried ASA for the first time, and it is so much more of a pleasant experience compared to ABS, haven't seen any warping yet and produces far less fumes.
I'm skeptical on most internal filters that include a HEPA filter. I don't think those little fans have enough CFM and static pressure that they can push enough air through both the carbon pellets and the HEPA filter so both they can effectively do their job. The thing with VOCs is you can smell them and know that the filter is or isn't doing its job. Not so with microparticles, for which you need to get a sensor to measure them. And, of course, even sealed printers leak air (I'm looking at you, default Voron split door).
My Trident has a Nevermore V5 Duo for VOCs only. I picked up a nice big Honeywell air clearer with a monster HEPA filter in it that turns over the air like crazy to deal with microparticles. As a bonus, I can use the Honeywell for those times like forest fire season when the air quality is bad.
I don't really know if the HEPA is doing its thing, but I got higher static pressure GDSTIME 5015 fans and can feel the airflow out the other end, past both the HEPA and carbon. As far as visual 'evidence', I can only go off the HEPA filter having turned pink after a printing with a lot of red filament. I mostly just keep it in because the pack of 10 filters was cheap, and the carbon is still doing its job despite the HEPA.
The HEPA probably isn't doing that much, and you're impacting the ability of the carbon to do its job and remove VOCs. I didn't want to play too fast & loose with microparticles given that they are really quite nasty little buggers.
Is there a reason you'd use HEPA instead of having a bigger MERV filter and relying on multiple passes to get the air clean? I thought MERV filters were a better fit if you're recirculating air using a small blower and HEPA does a better job if you can support the pressure drop and absolutely need the particles to be filtered on the first pass.
You can indeed take this route [0] and even DIY something with a box fan. But I think the jury is a bit out on this. Quote from that link below. You also need to move that much more air to get the multiple passes required and that can get pretty noisy.
> They claim that around 90% of particles sized 0.3 microns are larger [for a MERV] are eliminated in a single pass. That’s good, but not totally reassuring. The question is, does it remove 99% in two passes? If 90% of the particles in the ambient air were large and the filter only catches large particles, then additional passes would never get rid of the most dangerous small particles. This is why I trust HEPA filters a bit more: since they remove almost all particles in one pass, I’m confident they should remove almost all particles eventually.
Also, there is the idea that HEPA filters act like a sieve. They don't. This article from the same guy is a great read [1]. So basically, multiple passes for the win.
> Air filters easily catch both large and small particles. It’s the intermediate regime where things are hard. The size where the filter performs worst is called the Most Penetrating Particle Size (MPPS). Typically this is around 0.15 microns.
I switched to a Hemera direct drive hotend, there are better options now, but you may not need that depending on what an S1 has OOB.
The big change is the enclosure, doesn't have to be fancy, mine is a couple of IKEA LACK tables with some acrylic duct taped on and a door duct- taped on only one side.
I upgraded from Marlin to Kipper and tuned for resonance which lets you achieve much better speeds and quality than a stock E3v2
not a pro by any means but here are some pointers:
- if applicable, swap the default, white Bowden tube by one that's heat resistant (Capricorn comes often as a recommendation), that's for your health
- get a PEI sheet, ABS will have a tendency to detach/warp over long prints that PEI mitigates slightly
- draft being the main cause for warping and failed/dimensionally inaccurate ABS prints, you need an enclosure. A cardboard box is enough, but then you need to refrain from looking inside (which is difficult for complex and long prints), having a transparent side could help
- pre-hear enclosed, give it time, and tune your z offset accordingly
> - if applicable, swap the default, white Bowden tube by one that's heat resistant (Capricorn comes often as a recommendation), that's for your health
Capricorn makes great bowden tubes, but even they're quite explicit about the risks of using any PTFE tubing--theirs included--inside a hot end at ABS temperatures.[0]
The health risks come from toxic PTFE off-gassing above the normal temperatures for PLA (though it starts off-gassing in small amounts at around 200°C). It's nasty shit, and you don't want to be breathing it in. Heat resistant bowden tubing doesn't do anything about that off-gassing; it's just meant to help mitigate deformation of the tubing at higher temperatures.
You're infinitely better off just tossing the PTFE-lined hot end and upgrading to an all-metal one. That anyone--cough, cough Creality and others in the inexpensive intro printer market--is shipping them on any of their printers in 2023 is just insane.
I think it is less of a problem than it used to be, but historically PTFE-lined hot ends have been prefered for budget machines because they are more forgiving if all you want to do is print PLA.
When everything is working right there should be no difference, but when things go wrong, not having plastic stuck to the heat break makes it more likely that a beginner can fix their own problem.
