I’m a huge fan of exotic filament colors, so when I saw the Red Wine EasyABS on the Prusa Research shop I immediately jumped on it. Unfortunately, anything bought off Prusa Research is met with long processing times because they are almost always backed up on orders. Dropping as much cash for shipping as the actual filament, my order was in a processing status for over a week. Though, once it shipped, it flew across the pond to Washington state in three days!

Once my printer freed up, I popped open the seal to the filament and was met with the usual high quality spool and winding that you can expect from Prusa. The deep, subtle red made me giddy as I preheated and loaded the spool on the rack about my printer. I started up Simplify3D and prepped a few filament tests – first layer calibration, temperature, transparency, and retraction. My pre-tuned base settings for ABS required no change on anything. The color and quality looks exactly the same at any temperature from 230° to 260°, which is something I’ve come to expect. Once you get something dialed in, those settings will work with just about any of the same material. The transparency for this color is beautiful. 100% infills will give you something more black than red, with the deepest red most apparent at 50-75%. With a single .8mm wall, it’s just enough to see the infill pattern inside, and with 0% infill, you can easily distinguish things through the material like your own fingers.

Unfortunately, this EasyABS is not so easy on the warping. Even at 110°, I struggled with bed adhesion on everything I printed until I finally started using helper disks on corners or full-on brims, something that’s guaranteed to damage the finished print when you pick them off. It’s also not odor free. I noticed no difference in smell between this and regular ABS filaments. The “easy” part about this ABS is that it printed the same with and without an enclosure! Though I like to keep the work space walled off and warm nonetheless.

Taking account all of these factors, here are my final conclusions:

Pros:

• Beautiful, unique, exotic color
• Prints at a wide range of temperatures
• No need for an enclosure
• Good transparency
• Excellent quality packaging and spool winding, standard from Prusa Research

Cons:

• Still prone to warping and poor bed adhesion
• Emits odors like any other ABS material
• Long ship times from Prusa Research