apologies if this has been asked before but, what is the current meta in terms of 3d printing chassis in the antweight class? ive been using ABS a couple uears back and getting newer parts ordered in it, but is it still a viable material now? i know people use TPU but in terms of less flexable materials, what does everybody use?
i unfortunately do not own a 3d printer of my own, and order my stuff online, would appreciate people’s two cents 
Tpu is by far the toughest option, but that toughness comes from being very flexible which can be tricky to design around until you’re used to it.
A straight reprint of a chassis intended for abs in tpu will likely be a wobbly mess
A bunch of people (myself included) like to use tough variants of pla: specifically eSun PLA-ST or overture super PLA. These are much more impact resistant than vanilla pla or even regular pla+ variants. So provide a great blend of toughness Vs printability but are unlikely to feature on any online printer providers.
Plenty of people still run ants in abs, it’s pretty robust and about 10% lighter than pla variants
Nylon variants however are probably the best option if you want toughness but more rigidity than tpu. It’s a pain to print, needs a lot of heat and can give off fumes but that’s likely less of a concern if you’re outsourcing the printing anyway. But avoid carbon fibre or glass infused variants - these increase rigidity but greatly reduce toughness
Tldr: use a regular nylon variants if getting someone else to print, if/when you get your own printer try eSun PLA-ST (super PLA is ending production soon)
Some folks are using 64D shore TPU, which is a lot stiffer than your usual 95A shore stuff. I’ve tried it in beetles and wasn’t happy with it (it splits and cracks on really big impacts) but a lot of folks really like it for ants.
Overture Super PLA is being discontinued as mentioned by Jack. There’s a bit more detail about it over here in this thread so if you’re going to go with Overture you might want to buy sooner rather than later, especially if you’re going for a particular colour.
I know you said you don’t really want to, but if you can, I would really highly recommend using tpu. If it has to be rigid than try buying a stiffer type like Joe suggested. If not, then I would also say overture super pla plus (if you can get your hands on any)
yeahhh thats sort of my issue with TPU at the moment, i don’t really design my chassis’ in a way that allows me to make part of any of it with TPU unfortunately, so usually just one solid material is my go-to. I would absolutely love to use TPU if my robots were designed in a way that allowed me to make it work. ill keep the thing about Nylon in mind for definite, thank you for your suggestions and thoughts
my main issue is that i unfortunately don’t own my own 3d printer so i end up ordering my prints online, which does end up limiting my materials to an extent. i would love to do TPU prints but i’d have to redesign all my robots before i even consider that… but thank you for your input!
I’ve heard something about putting Nylon prints in boiling water to improve flexibility. I haven’t tried it though.
Always boil your nylon. Well you don’t have to boil it but make sure it’s sat somewhere humid for a week or so before you want to use it.
You can use it as an opportunity to dye it funky colours which I am a big big fan of.