Help a newbie print with HIPS

[Tobus 6]

I have been using my Ultimaker 2 Extended for a couple of months now, printing only with PLA, and I'm not overly knowledgeable on using custom materials or settings.  I just use the settings that are in the machine by choosing PLA as the material when I load the filament.

I purchased a spool of HIPS that I want to try out, but I'm uncertain how I tell the machine what temperature to set on the extruder and heated bed.  There isn't a HIPS option when I load the material.  From what I read, the older machines would control this through Cura but the UM2 series is controlled by the firmware.  Is there a firmware update that has additional material options?  Or is there a process for adding new material settings/options into the firmware?

Or, is this something I set in Cura when I'm doing my slicing operation (I just downloaded Cura 15.06.03), and it will override the default PLA settings?  If so, do I just choose PLA on the machine when I load the HIPS filament, and hope that the Gcode settings from Cura will do the trick?

Sorry if the question seems overly newbie-ish.  This is all very confusing to a new user, and the documentation doesn't do much in the way of explaining how to do anything beyond the basics.

[gr5 2,067]

I've never used hips but I hear it's quite difficult to work with. It wil clog your nozzle if you don't keep it moving constantly. You don't want it to stay hot for more than a small number of seconds: 10? 20? I would avoid it. Did you buy limonene to disolve it if you get a clog in the nozzle?

Hips is a great material but PLA is much nicer in most ways. HIPS is now very popular as a dissolvable support structure. But you would need dual nozzles and you would have to be very careful about not letting it stay hot for too long.

Maybe someone else on the forum has used it.

[Tobus 6]

I appreciate the input, and since my machine has only one nozzle, it would be printing HIPS the whole time, not sitting idle with HIPS in the hot nozzle. I don't intend to use it as a support structure, but as the structure itself.

I chose HIPS to experiment with because I have read that it gives a smoother edge and is actually pretty easy to work with, in terms of not being prone to issues like ABS, etc. Supposedly, it has strength closer to ABS but without the warping issues, and without the fragility of PLA. Since I have a spool of HIPS, I at least want to try it out.

Anyway, my question wasn't whether I should use HIPS. My question was how to set the temperatures for it at the hot end and the heated bed. Since my UM2-Extended only has factory defaults for PLA, ABS, and UPET, how do I tell the machine that I'm loading HIPS?

When I go to the "change material" menu and it heats up the nozzle to remove the PLA, then I load HIPS, the nozzle won't be hot enough to even allow it to push the material through. I do see an option for "customize", as well as an option to import a material from the SD card. But I don't know how or what file type the material settings are stored, if I wanted to create a custom material.

So basically my question is this: Should I just use the "customize" setting on the machine to set the temperatures I need for printing HIPS, or should I leave that alone and use the material settings in Cura to dictate the nozzle/bed temps? Does one override the other?

[xeno 108]

on this site they recommend ± 235°C

http://www.formfutura.com/285mm-limosolve-hips.html

And make sure that you don't use the latest Cura, it's still a bit beta and misses "some" features,

changing the temp in Cura is simple, just switch to expert menu, and change the temp value.

you probably have to experiment to get the perfect temp, just like all filament, the need a certain temp to print a certain way

I look forward to your results, I am also interested in printing with HIPS,

just take care to keep the room well ventilated.

Edited August 13, 2015 by Guest

[Tobus 6]

OK, I've learned a couple of important lessons this morning.

I did try to set the temperature in Cura, but it did not affect the settings when I tried to print. I had to manually tune the settings after it started printing. That's disappointing. (I was using Cura 15.06.03 - I should probably try it again with the old version.)

Once I got the nozzle temperature up, HIPS extrudes very nicely. It does provide a smoother wall surface than I was getting with PLA. Unfortunately, as I learned the hard way, the heated bed on the UM2E will only go up to 100C, which is not quite hot enough to keep the bottom stuck to the build plate (it seems 110-115C is recommended). My first print got knocked over pretty quickly after the fans turned on, because it warped the bottom of my print. It made a nice crackling noise as it curled up from the plate.

So apparently HIPS does have some warping issues. Maybe not as bad as ABS, but certainly much worse than PLA. I never had problems with this print when using PLA. I guess I'll have to experiment with tape, glue, etc., to see if I can make HIPS prints stick to the bed when it only goes up to 100C.

Last lesson learned is that yes, the fumes coming off this material are not pleasant. I was leaning in front of the machine, watching the extrusion process, and after a few minutes my eyes were burning. I'm starting to get a headache, too.

[gr5 2,067]

Okay - many points...

1) Even if you are printing HIPS continuously I am told it is very very easy to get a clog. Unless you print fast. Even just the act of heating up the nozzle to 235C can possibly get it to clog but more likely to happen on a long print especially with thin layers such as .1mm where you are extruding more slowly. But again, I am just repeating what I've heard - no experience.

2) You can create a hips material a few ways. The simplest is to go to MATERIAL CUSTOMIZE, then change bed/nozzle temp then save it and choose new or custom. It will create a CUSTOM1. The better way is to save settings to SD card, put SD card in computer and rename CUSTOM1 to HIPS or just create a fresh material - it's very easy in a text editor. Then put SD card back into UM2 and load your material settings from SD.

3) You can get the bed hotter than 100C if you enclose the machine somewhat. Put some saran wrap on the front of the machine. Put a paper copier box (that used to hold 10 reams) upside down on top of the machine - it will block some air and let some out - you dont' want the air temp to exceed 50C or your servos might die but 50C is safe enough.

4) For hips you probably want fans off - you can set that in material settings also.

[Tobus 6]

Hmm, I didn't have any problems with clogs. I had manually adjusted nozzle temp to 235C, and bed temp to 115C while it was preparing to print. It stayed there for more than 5 minutes with the nozzle hot, and never would print because it couldn't get the bed up to temp. It was actually starting to puff smoke out of the nozzle from the HIPS burning in there. Only after I brought the bed temp setting down to 100C did it start printing. But it didn't clog the nozzle.

I tried several prints, all of which I had to abort due to the silly thing getting knocked off the bed from lack of adhesion. Even with glue and a big brim, it wouldn't stick. Only thing I haven't tried yet is blue tape.

Anyway, I did end up manually tuning several things during the print. I brought the nozzle temp up to 245C in the hopes that it would help the layers bond better. Despite what I've read elsewhere, I have found that HIPS is actually pretty weak stuff because the layers don't bond too well. I can snap my prints much more easily than PLA due to this weak inter-layer bond. I was hoping that increasing the temperature and lowering my fan speed would help, but it didn't. You may be right that turning the fans off completely would be the best route. As well as enclosing the cabinet.

But to be honest, if I wanted to go to all this trouble, I'd just print ABS. I'm not seeing any advantage to HIPS here. I was under the impression that it was as easy to print as PLA (just using higher temps), but had the strength advantages of ABS. Both those claims seem to erroneous in my case. And the fact that it stunk up the entire office (other people started complaining about the melted plastic smell) means that I'm pretty much done with it.

[superace 2]

First of all I would just say I do not use a UM printer but I have printed lots of HIPS in the machines I have.

I find HIPS gives an amazing print quality, at least with the brand I am using. It is a bit less prone to warping than ABS but still warps if it gets the chance so it is not a golden fix for this problem. It is building up static electrisity very easily and because of this attracts any eventual dust in the work area. I feed the filament true a sponge with a tiny hole before it enters the head. This removes the dust and I do not get jams anymore. My personal opinion is that HIPS is less prone to pick up water, at least compared to ABS. I never get bubbles printing HIPS but if I am not careful and keeping the ABS rolls in a sealed box with silica gel they always bubble on me.

When it comes to temp I print at 215 degrees with the bed at 100. But that is just the numbers on my machine, what they are in reality? Somewhere close in that area I guess but probably not exactly that temp. From what I understand UM machines also has a variation from "set temp" and "actual temp".

When it comes to smell and stink..... The HIPS I am using prints without any smell at all, even if you would stick your head over the printer. Of course I have ventilation and such but that is just plain common sense regardless of what material I have loaded in the printer.

So why do I use HIPS? First of all I have found material that prints exactly the same regardless of colour. Black, White, Neon Yellow and Red all print at the same temp and printer settings. Secondly, all printing I make is enclosures or engineering parts and HIPS really meets the strength requirements I have.

[Tobus 6]

When it comes to temp I print at 215 degrees with the bed at 100. But that is just the numbers on my machine, what they are in reality? Somewhere close in that area I guess but probably not exactly that temp. From what I understand UM machines also has a variation from "set temp" and "actual temp".

Just for posterity, the UM2-Extended does have the ability to monitor actual bed and nozzle temps in the menu for tuning the current print. When I go to adjust either of these temperatures, I can roll the knob up to my desired temp, and it will show the actual temperature rising to meet it (or falling, as the case may be). I've noticed that the bed temperature is very slow to come up compared to the nozzle temperature (which makes sense: more mass to heat). But it's actually a very handy tool that I've been using lately, fine-tuning the temperatures during a print and watching how it affects the extrusion.

FWIW, I can also adjust fan speed, material flow, print speed, and other settings on the fly. I'm not sure if this is common for other machines or not, but it really makes it easy to experiment with different settings and instantaneously see the results, without having to start another print.

[Ollienor 0]

I've been playing with HIPS on my UM2 and found everything you say to be absolutely the case. The main problem is layer adhesion, which means the print is terribly weak. It warps much more than expected, I would actually say quite a bit more than abs. I haven't found a reliable way to get it to stick to the bed, the blue tape works to some degree but only ever on the first go, you can't print more than one print on the same bit of blue tape without replacing.

I think this material is far too troublesome to be worthwhile. It's also worth noting that I printed quite a thick piece and was able to completely destroy it with very little effort just using my hands. It's pretty useless material.

[Ollienor 0]

Tobus - while the um2 does give nozzle and bed temperature feedback, this is through two thermocouples which do have an adequate resolution for this purpose, but in order to be completely accurate they would need to be individually calibrated which I'm sure they are not. Relying on the manufacturers data for the thermocouples is sure to introduce some degree of error. That being said, it's probably perfectly fine/negligible.

[superace 2]

Problems may also exsist in the material. Not all HIPS is created equal there is, as I understand, no real standard and I when I have tested material from different suppliers the results are different. Layer adhesion is mostly temperature dependent.

For really big prints in HIPS I use Kapton tape on a heated bed. Before printing I use a sand paper to make the Kapton surface less shiny. Then clean it with Acetone. Before I started doing this my prints warped but now I am really happy with the results.

[Ollienor 0]

Problems may also exsist in the material. Not all HIPS is created equal :)there is, as I understand, no real standard and I when I have tested material from different suppliers the results are different. Layer adhesion is mostly temperature dependent.

For really big prints in HIPS I use Kapton tape on a heated bed. Before printing I use a sand paper to make the Kapton surface less shiny. Then clean it with Acetone. Before I started doing this my prints warped but now I am really happy with the results.

 

Thanks I will try that.