Hi, it's Jase here from MindKits.
I get asked pretty regularly: "what should I use when PLA just isn't cutting it?" It usually comes up when someone's printing something that has to live in a warm spot - a dash mount for the car, a bracket near a motor, a clip that sits out in the NZ sun all day. PLA starts to soften around 60°C and that's that. Not ideal.
The answer most of the time is ABS (the same plastic used in LEGOs!). It handles heat a lot better - around 80-100°C depending on the print settings - and it's got more flex before it breaks compared to PLA. Engineers have been printing with it for years for exactly that reason.
The catch has always been that ABS is a bit of a pain to print. It warps off the bed, it smells, and if your printer isn't in an enclosure you're fighting it the whole time. That's put a lot of people off.
That's the problem Pixel Hyper ABS is built to fix.
The "Hyper" in the name means a reformulated ABS compound that prints at higher speeds without the usual drama - less warping, better bed adhesion, and a cleaner result all round. We tested a few options before adding this to the Pixel range and it really does behave noticeably better than older ABS formulations. It's still ABS so an enclosure is generally required and you want ABS to be dried before use, but it's not the nightmare some people remember from the early days of desktop printing.
Right now we've got it in three colours:
- CryoFrost (white) - clean, bright white, good for functional parts that need to look tidy
- Singularity (black) - the go-to for anything mechanical
- Fog of War (grey) - sits nicely between the two, great for car and automotive stuff
Refills are $22 a kg, full spools $25. If you've already got a Bambu Lab reusable spool, the refills click straight in - no dramas. Pretty easy win if you're printing a lot.
Common uses we see for this stuff: automotive brackets and mounts, outdoor clips and fasteners, enclosure parts, anything mechanical that runs a bit warm, and gear/pulley teeth where you want some flex but not too much.
If you've been avoiding ABS because of past headaches, this is worth a second look. It's not perfect - it's still a more demanding print than PLA+ - but it's a lot more forgiving than it used to be. There is also Pixel Filament ASA the stuff that'll be in the Sun 24/7.
Grab it from the Pixel range on the website, or flick us a message if you're not sure which material is right for your project. Happy to help.
Cheers,
Jase
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