Is your extruder motor, the motor with the gears that pushes the filament, located ON the moving toolhead? Or is it mounted to the printer someplace remotely, and pushes the filament through a long PTFE tube that then goes into the hotend? If the answer is the long remote tube...you poor soul you.
The extruded motor is over the Z axis motor. So the filament is pushed through a tube. it’s an Ender 3. Can I go with an all metal hot end? Or do I need to upgrade to a better printer for ABS. Creality claims this printer can do ABS. I got about 6 good prints out of it. If I have any prints longer than about 4 hours in the enclosure that’s when I have problems.
So I dont have an Ender 3, I know that older Vorons and such were tailored to ABS printing using Bowden extruders (bowden means the extruder motor is remotely mounted and feeds the filament through that long tube you have) and they didnt have issues. But the overwhelming majority of my experience with 3d printers has been with printers that have direct-drive extruders. If you have a PTFE lined hotend, aka the stock Ender 3 hotend, that is going to eventually fail when printing ABS temperatures. The PTFE can't withstand the heat. If you go to an all-metal style hotend, that will prevent jamming down by the nozzle/heat break. Ultimately Ender 3's are like a "get your toes wet" kind of experience with 3d printing. I would weigh your options vs just upgrading the whole machine, or you could easily end up spending the cost of the machine again on upgrade parts.
The stock ender platforms can produce decent prints, but they are definitely produced to a price point. The stock plastic extruders are known to be a weak point. The stock bowden tube and fittings are also a weak point. The tube has wide tolerances so the filament isn't that well captured. The stock fittings are also known to slip and let the bowden tube move. This gives inexact extrusion as the overall length can change dynamically between the nozzle and the extruder.. Second issue is the bit of PTFE tube that lives inside the stock hotend. PTFE isn't the nicest material when it off gasses due to heat. Getting away from that item if you want to print higher temps is a very good idea. On my 5+, I replaced the stock extruder and hotend with a microswiss all metal version. Mine is the older microswiss model which has too much mass up high, so I have to slow my prints down or I get a lot of Y axis ringing even with a lightweight stepper motor. The newer revisions are much more compact and help fix that issue. Converting my printer to linear rails would also help.
I have no problem printing with a Bowden extruder in a heated (50C) enclosure. I use an all metal hotend and I cool it with external air. I have an external fan which sends the cooling air through a length of CPAP tubing to the hotend.
Stock Ender3 hot end is no good for ABS. Swap out the heat break for an all metal one and you are good to go. That is what I used up until buying my X1 in October last year. She printed a lot of ABS. This is what I swapped to: 2pcs All Metal Ender 3 https://a.co/d/3ASacjF
I actually just bought a better printer for ABS too. Just picked up the all metal hot end too. Did you monitor your enclosure temperature?
I sure didnt! I had it in a HEAVY thick gauge steel server rack that I lined with insulation foam. Under the shelf the printer was bolted to lived a space heater. Cranked it to the highest heat setting and let it go. When I say the chamber was HOT i mean you could hear the plexi front panel (¼” plexi) popping from the temperature expansion. It was easily north of 100* in the chamber. Residual chamber heat kept the bed over 50c after the print was done.
I use a temperature-controlled switch to turn on/off my printer's space heater. The probe is inside the enclosure, and the heater is right on the side. Based on experience, I added a baffle in front to slow down the airflow so the cold (relative to freshly extruded plastic) air doesn't cause uneven cooling. https://amzn.to/45vnsKv
