ABS was among the very first materials used by historic personal 3D printers, as it was commonly available due to its heavy use in large-scale manufacturing. It made sense at the time.
However over time problems persisted. The main issue is, of course, thermal warping. ABS has the peculiar characteristic of shrinking around 8% in each dimension as it cools from melt temperature. This results in not only scale issues (“Hey, why doesn't fit together?”) but also failed prints (“My object keeps popping off the print bed!”)
The solution is to heat the print operation and cool it down gently all at once when the printing is completed. But most manufacturers cannot do that because the heated chamber method is patented by Stratasys.
So what do 3D printer makers do?
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