Flashforge ABS vs ABS Pro vs ASA - mechanical test and comparison

[@riba2233]

Hi, please don't change your content, you are the only one doing such good and thorough filament tests and we really appreciate them! Now regarding these, 1. Why is abs pro called pro, it was worse in literally every aspect lol 2. I don't get why manufacturers quote such low printing temps, 220-240 is abysmal for abs, imho it should be at least at 260. Asa at 260 got better layer adhesive ofc. Same for their petg, 240 is also on a lower end...

[@SeanCMonahan]

I suspect the low temps a lot of manufacturers list for their filaments are to try to make them seem "technically printable" on printers with PTFE-lined heatbreaks, like the stock Ender-3, Pro, and V2, which can't safely print above 240°C (235°C in truth is pushing it for safety).

[@MyTechFun]

I agree, that's why I want to do a deeper investigation with some popular ABS (or ASA) filament. Temp+part cooling => layer adhesion.

[@riba2233]

@@SeanCMonahan yeah that is also my suspicion, but they are not doing themselves any favours, not to mention that most modern printers don't have this issue.

[@riba2233]

@@MyTechFun can't wait for that :) imho you should do it on polymakers or bambu abs, those should be the best for reasonable price and availability

[@MichaelODonnell]

Please don't change anything! Your videos are incredibly well thought out and your testing has helped thousands of people make good decisions. Especially for engineering materials, which many people are not sure about. I'm sorry people aren't watching everything all the way through sometimes, but please don't let them bother you. - Love from USA

[@crashingsux]

Thank you for including shrinkage!

[@derdackel]

Ever since I built my first Voron I've been warned against printing structural parts in white filament over and over, supposedly because the amount of zinc oxide or titanium dioxide commonly needed to dye these materials from their natural off-white to pure white is terrible for impact strength and layer adhesion. I could never confirm this for myself and with the white ASA performing very well in these tests, I'm ready to throw this onto the "Busted 3D printing myths" pile.

[@SeanCMonahan]

I don't know if I'd say "busted," per se. Dye additives (and their amounts) can make a massive difference in the characteristics of a filament. I'd agree that the bright white color is not _always_ the worst. I think it depends very much on the line of filaments you're comparing, manufacturer and material. I wouldn't conclude from this one video that white filament is better because it's comparing a white ASA to different colors of ABS and ABS Pro, not other ASA filaments by Flashforge.

[@derdackel]

​@@SeanCMonahan If you start going from simple color to more advanced additives to change the appearance of the material, e.g. modifiers to achieve silk, matte, transparency (on naturally opaque plastics) etc. you are in some cases basically going far off the pure material. But I've gotting a lot of claims that white filament is particularly structurally weak, compared to other colors. I also wasn't comapring the ASA results here to the other two filaments tested, but against other results from Igor's filament test table he shares on Patreon, perhaps I should've made that more clear. If anything, the comparison the the ABS and ABS Pro shows that improperly tuned in settings (i.e. print temperatures and cooling) can compromise your material properties a lot more than a simple color choice.

[@crd7876]

This explains so much

[@ruudb72]

I view every of these videos because it learns a lot about the different vendors and types. Keep it up. Great job!

[@contrezerva9024]

Thank you for the dimensional tests! ❤ Fun fact, I was looking for some filaments tests on other channels, and I was thinking, now the creep tests, and now impact tests😅 Keep up the good work!

[@avejst]

Thanks for another great instruktive video, love it 🙂

[@Dramaican88]

The ABS pro might be modified (ABS blend) as it seemed to have better adhesion to the bed compared to the normal ABS that you took a part off while the bed was still hot. One quick way to check if ABS pro is a blend is to see how it reacts to acetone. If it is a blend it will not smooth as fast and as cleanly as pure ABS would and you might see white marks/lines appearing where the acetone evaporated. On another note I am your patreon for more than a year now and I watch all filament test videos you put out. Please don't lose motivation and keep going. Your videos are to the point and we really appreciate this, but unfortunately it is not what the engagement and entertainment algorithm wants. It is no accident that many channels no longer do much of "reviews" and technical comparissons and mostly do project based videos with also random upload schedules because they upload when the project/video is ready. Stefan's (CNC Kitchen) last pure filament review video was Prusament PC blend from 2 years ago. KZbin wants novelty, different interesting topics that grab attention. If you upload consistently and videos are very similar to each other (which is what you do), because there is no virality possibility points, youtube will not promote your channel. That is also why number of subscribers is not considered a good metric anymore and brands look at engagement and channels look at click through rate and watch time.

[@riba2233]

well said!

[@ColeBerkley]

Loved the video. Between low shrinkage and great performance i feel like asa is a real sleeper candidate.

[@GeekDetour]

I feel that you ended up testing the FlashForge Adventurer printer more than the actual filament… the way the parts broke not on the small section area suggests me the hot end is less than optimal - also the filament having a much weaker behavior than the average for ABS. I also wonder why FlashForge calls that an “ABS Pro” 🤔 My bet is that if you print subjects on your Prusa MK4 you will get theses same filament into much stronger parts. Excellent work as always Igor! So, so many hours!!! ❤

[@MyTechFun]

In the meantime I figured out, the ABS Pro is easier for 3D printing, I experienced that after the recordings, when I played more with those filaments. But it looks like they sacrifice mechanical properties.

[@petersheffield8264]

Please don’t change the content! I have binge watched all the filament testing videos since I found your channel, I’m a bit surprised about the last(and this video) not receiving more views. Thanks again for the testing you do

[@MyTechFun]

Thank you for kind words, these comments keeps me motivated.

[@BennyTygohome]

Really appreciate your tests, and it's interesting fun to watch

[@jonathanconway7256]

Keep doing what you are doing. You do the most detailed and thorough tests I have seen on this platform. Having recently gotten into printing with engineering materials I have found your content immensely helpful. Have been doing quite a bit of work with ASA recently and have been very successful thanks to you.

[@benoitthibault8621]

Thank you very much for taking the time to do this test for us. It saves us from wasting a lot of time, material, money, and above all it prevents us from making mistakes. Please continue to make this kind of video. I looked at both PETG and ABS and found them both equally interesting. I have been a subscriber since your debut and I will remain a subscriber for a very long time.

[@donr62]

Keep up the good work Igor 👍

[@baderalafghani4564]

Btw I would like to thank you for your great content and unique test. Keep up

[@vectravsix]

Thanks

[@MyTechFun]

Thank you for helping me to keep the motivation for these kind of videos :-)

[@ChrisUG]

The consistency of your tests is unparalleled on youtube, the inclusion of creep is something i dont see anyone else doing and its VITAL in a way not a lot of people appreciate unfortuantely,. Sucks to hear its not meeting the algorithm's aims but please know you're making an invaluable resource for so many people who are interested in fucntional prints

[@erikrustad5200]

You constantly put out great content and great tests. It has been really valuable for projects I have done. Thank you! One idea/question: With AMS-systems it is easy to print with multi material. Could you make parts stronger with making sandwich-prints? Example. You print a part in ASA, and every other layer is ASA with CF. It should be both strong and stiff, and adhesion should also be good as it is the same core material. A test of this nature should be fun!

[@802Garage]

Great as always. Please test the Flashforge carbon fiber ASA. I've heard it has layer adhesion issues.

[@jimjohnson3410]

Thanks!

[@crashingsux]

Something I am very interested in is the most heat resistant parts I can print on my existing printer so I am especially interested in filaments like pet-cf and pc-cf, how well they can print open air or with up to maybe a 60C chamber, and how easily they can be annealed.

[@crashingsux]

As you do more engineering type filaments it would also be nice to see chamber temps. Even on ABS I see a big difference in strength depending on my chamber temp. Some materials for example I know I would need higher chamber temps than I can currently achieve to even print (70C+).

[@sabahoudini]

I knew that the ASA would be stronger before I even saw the test. It had time to slowly cool down and release internal stresses. You said it was the next day when it had fully cooled. You need to let them all fully cool otherwise the test will not be good. In fact, it would be interesting to see if you could repeat this but print one test taking it out immediately and the other test let it cool slowly to room temp. Maybe an idea for your next video? ABS should have the biggest difference because it shrinks the most when cooled and will need to release the most internal stresses. Maybe also see if there is difference when printing it in your Qidi at 65C.

[@Jon.S]

Very thorough. I wonder if there’s a way to use a UV light to simulate “outside” conditions to test filaments against damage over time?

[@nosenseofhumor1]

I think the abs pro may need to be annealed

[@MisterEffedieffe]

I have the feeling that objects printed with Orca Slicer's Fuzzy Skin are more robust especially if made of PETG. But I could be wrong. Have you ever done a test?

[@baderalafghani4564]

I think they should sell the pro as normal and the normal as pro 😂

[@MyTechFun]

I think the biggest advantage of Pro over regular ABS is the better printability and better layer adhesion.

[@radish6691]

I’ve been saying that there is no reason to choose ABS over ASA and nothing in this video has changed my mind, plus ASA is UV-resistant. They’re both equally toxic to print so that’s a wash.

[@TurKFXI]

Are you planning to test PC-GF?

[@radish6691]

Video format: As an engineer I appreciate your content and am a subscriber but honestly I skip to the results after a couple of minutes. Your channel is called My Tech Fun but where is the fun? Most people (myself included) are not solely printing functional parts so the straight up engineering approach may be fun for you but not everyone perhaps. I watched this video because I was interested in the ASA vs ABS comparison but I don’t think many people are going to be drawn to a Flashforge filament shootout using a Flashforge X1C knockoff. Don’t get me wrong, I think your content is useful but maybe not relevant or interesting to most people who print in plastic. I don’t have a channel so I am eminently unqualified to offer advice but I think in general people want to be entertained while being informed. Your videos are certainly informative but when watching one I feel like I’m sitting through a PowerPoint presentation. Aurora Tech Channel is similarly formulaic but at least they also print some interesting models. I think you could keep your same technical approach but maybe tailor it to topics for the masses, like wet vs dry filament, does color matter, plain vs matte vs silk, glitter shootout: sparkle vs diamond vs galaxy…which gives the most bling for the buck? 😆 Or how about “I had AI design the tests…the results will astonish you! 😱”. Ok, that was a joke but ngl I would definitely click on that!

[@Turulcky100]

Honest feedback here: the content is great and insightful but KZbin is probably penalizing your videos due to low retention. I can also see why. I watch the video in 2x speed and still got a bit bored halfway through and paused the video to have some lunch (I wasn't that hungry). Maybe you can work on the storytelling, energy, and format so that it's more engaging.

[@MyTechFun]

OK, thx for the feedback.

[@letoxique]

first of all: your type of videos is very unique and it would be a shame if you would change anything, just to satisfy the almighty algorithms. So please don't. :) About the views: i can at least say from my perspective that i'm just not interested in Flashforge at all. Either the printers, or the filament. So the videos were showing up in my feed as usual, i just didn't click them because "meh. Flashforge". I'm generally interested in those material tests, but more in general behaviour, not in specific brands. Might be because some brands are just not available around here (Germany) or i just prefer another brand, but am still interested in the general (dis-)advantages of a specific filament type. Just watched a video from clough42 on ABS-GF one hour ago and the first thing that came to my mind was "there surely is another analysis of this stuff from Igor"

[@radish6691]

Flashforge makes ASA in burnt titanium which is pretty nice.

[@letoxique]

@@radish6691 indeed that sounds tempting! I only tried ASA from Extrudr until now and it was.....okayish. So perhaps i need to give another brand a try there

[@Seaofjitsu]

Great video ! Stay happy and do what you do be because its fun. Forget about views you have a good group that follows. You should to a subscriber creep test lol 😆 Have good day and ty

[@francescobarilla8669]

CNC kitchen copy...