HIPS is short for High Impact Polystyrene and is very similar to ABS. The primary difference is that HIPS uses Limonene as a solvent. This means that you can use HIPS as a support material which can then easily be dissolved by placing your print in Limonene. This is a fantastic alternative to sanding away regular support material which can make your hands sore and leave you feeling frustrated.

Some people choose to print with HIPS by itself but the real magic of this filament is if you have a dual extruder and you use it as a dissolvable support material (see below).

As you can see from the picture above, HIPS allows you to print all sorts of crazy designs that would be otherwise impossible without a dissolving support material.

HIPS is as easy to print with as ABS but is much less likely to warp. HIPS is ideal for printing in conjunction with ABS because it has a similar strength and stiffness profile to ABS which means they complement each other well. It also helps that HIPS and ABS need to be printed around the same temperature. MatterHackers HIPS prints best with the bed between 90-110°C and the extrusion temp around 230°C.