3D Print in Multiple Colors with a Single Extruder with the Ingenious Stick Filament

3D Print in A number of Colours with a Single Extruder with the Ingenious Stick Filament

The latest craze in the 3D printing hobbyist today is multicolor printing. However, this requires printers with multiple extruders and a lot of experience. More and more multiple extruder machines are coming out, but none of them are cheap.

An alternative to this is to use a single multi-colored filament. This is great if you want your objects to be rainbow colored all around or if you are happy with the pattern the filament maker created.

However, the new stick filament system should make it possible to obtain the desired colors for the desired parts. The idea is pretty simple and ingenious.

The stick filament, as the name suggests, consists of filament sticks that hook into each other. You buy several colored pencils and then arrange them in the order you want to get control of the final pattern.

“Stick Filament is the new filament system, simple, colorful and intelligent. Choose the material, choose the colors, just connect the sticks and then print your object,” says the company behind the product.

The stick filament is now available in the versions styrene and PLA with a diameter of 3 mm each. The company behind Stick Filament is experimenting with 1.75mm versions.

The new filament system should work with all common FDM / FFF printers (Fused Deposition Modeling / Fused Filament Fabrication).

The stick filament can be purchased in three versions. A mixed pack of impact-resistant polystyrene pens (HIPS), 15 sticks in each of the five colors, costs 12.90 euros.

The same mix with PLA sticks is sold for the same price. Finally, a Photolum pack of HIPS photoluminescent sticks sells for € 18.90 ($ 22.68). All of these products can be pre-ordered, but have not yet been dispatched. If the company has at least 100 pre-orders, the staff will be charged and the product will be shipped. There are currently 21 pre-orders.

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Parts 3D printed with PP3D.  Photo via Recreus.

Recreus launches new ‘straightforward print’ polypropylene filament

Spanish raw material manufacturer recreation has launched its newest thermoplastic filament – PP3D (polypropylene). Notoriously difficult to print on, the material contains a primer that must be applied to the build bed before each print. Recreus claims that the primer enables easy printing on the polypropylene filament, thus allowing “maximum adhesion of the material to the bed”.

Chemical resistant and durable

Because of its chemical resistance and longevity, polypropylene is suitable for a range of household and industrial applications. We often see the material used for food and beverage containers, chemical packaging (like bleach bottles), medical syringe components, and even for the dashboards of cars. For engineering companies that want to 3D print the material, PP3D is suitable for functional prototypes that require electrical insulation, heat resistance, acid resistance, salt resistance, and oil resistance. According to Recreus, PP3D complies with European guidelines for materials that come into contact with food, although 3D printing of food containers is generally not recommended, regardless of the material.

The filament was developed with the help of a polyolefin specialist Repsoland is currently offered in black and white. The recommended printing temperature is 235 ° C with a print speed of 40 mm / s.For a full list of recommended parameters, see Here.

Parts 3D printed with PP3D. Photo via Recreus.

Recreus PP3D primer

Apparently the Recreus polypropylene filament differs from the others by the inclusion of the special primer in the box. The primer ensures adhesion and prevents warping and deformation during the printing process. It is worth noting that the primer reaches maximum adhesion at only 40 ° C and peel off at 80 ° C, allowing users to work with extremely low bed temperatures. This reduces energy consumption and extends the life of the heated components in the printer.

In order for the primer to be successful, it is recommended that the user wait five minutes after application to allow the primer to dry on the bed. During the printing process, the bed should be set to 40 ° C. When the part is finished and rotated to 85 ° C, the printed part is completely released with minimal force.

Recreus PP3D primer.  Photo via Recreus.Recreus PP3D primer. Photo via Recreus.

As 3D printing systems advance, so do the filaments we use with them. Published earlier this year a study by Researchers from the Beijing University of Chemical Technology details the development of a Polycaprolactone (PCL) -based composite filament infused with starch for use with low temperature FDM machines. The researchers then functionalized the filament by adding bioactive ingredients and giving it antibacterial properties. Elsewhere, in a US Army materials laboratory, a new one high strength multipolymer filament It is designed for use with inexpensive 3D printers.

The nominations for the 2020 3D Printing Industry Awards are now open. Who do you think should make the shortlists for this year’s show? Now say your word.

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The image shown shows parts 3D printed with PP3D. Image via Recreus.

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Thanks to Filamet, metal printing is now in your hand

New filament means you may print steel on any 3D printer

You may want to sit down because this one is exciting. The virtual foundry has just launched Filamet ™, a new metal infused filament that turns any FDM 3D printer into a metal 3D printer!

Really…

We have just gotten used to the fact that only high-end printers can handle metal and most mortals have to get by with simple plastics. That just changed. You can now print copper and bronze on any 3D printer.

This new filament from the Wisconsin-based company could literally be a game changer and disrupt the current course of 3D Printed Metal. They came out with copper and bronze, but you can expect more metals to be seen in the near future.

More than just metal.

The patented process of the virtual foundry not only works with metal, but will also be equipped with 3D-printable glass and ceramic products over the next 6 months. Maybe you don’t need to upgrade your 3D printer after all, and thanks to this quantum leap in materials science, even the simplest desktop unit could turn into a complete manufacturing facility.

How does it work? It’s basically a heavily infused plastic, just enough plastic to get through your current printer. Currently this is only 11.5%, an amount that was below the theoretical limit a year ago. The remaining 88.5 mass% are high-purity metal powder. The prints can then simply be buffed or, interestingly, post-processed to remove the small amount of plastic. The resulting product is 99 +% pure metal that is as pure as many of us will ever need. The virtual foundry says they keep improving the process and expect future versions to be closer to just 8% plastic.

Another great Kickstarter success story?

This project showed up on Kickstarter last year and raised 135% of target funding. However, the virtual foundry had a mission to bring metal production to our desktops before 3D printing was even an option. It used to work with cold casting and electroforming, but now technology has caught up and 3D printing seems to have given them the answer.

We don’t have the finished product in our hands yet. However, the big start at the Hubble Auditorium in Lockheed-Martin suggests the team really cracked the code.

“Printer manufacturers have struggled for years to get metal printing within the price range of the average sole proprietorship or small business,” said Bradley Woods, the man behind this technical breakthrough. “Filamet ™ has the opposite strategy. Instead of impairing the high-end, only the functions of current 3D printers are expanded. “

“We expect materials to be a big part of near-term product innovation in the 3D printing market. Our company offers an instant solution for creating real and useful metal prints on the desktop 3D printer you already own. “

Professionalize your home printer

This filament could make your desktop printer a rival to the reputable commercial machines, and even turn out to be better. That’s because metal printers are notoriously slow, and a large printer can actually take 48 hours to make a single print.

While the end result may be spectacular, even if you could afford to have one in your home workshop, it might not fit your workflow.

Consumer printers are designed for the average user and therefore offer a realistic tradeoff between price, resolution and speed. With this metal filament, your home 3D printer could become a real manufacturing weapon. We can suddenly make statues and parts out of copper and bronze without having access to a furnace, and that could be a revolution in itself.

Prints can take less than five hours with a consumer printer, and this new material is big news even for large businesses.

Print on any printer with Filamet Metall

Companies are in this too

The technology has attracted big names like Calvin Klein and a company looking to license the consumable parts manufacturing technology for its facility that 3D prints uranium fuel cells for nuclear reactors. The technology works with any 3D printer, meaning that even commercial companies with multiple printer scans are now using their simpler units for faster, cheaper production.

This opens up so many new opportunities and science itself could be a launch pad for other companies to develop their own innovations. We have often said that the biggest step forward will come from materials, but even we haven’t seen any company turn today’s printers into complete production lines for metals, glass and ceramics.
We can’t wait to see the products in action and test this filament for ourselves. If it turns out to be half what the claims are, it can change everything.

http://www.theVirtualFoundry.com & [email protected]

More pictures under http://www.thevirtualfoundry.com/showcase/

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Can A 3D Printer Print Better Filament For Itself?

Can A 3D Printer Print Higher Filament For Itself?

3D printed parts are generally not nearly as strong as an equivalent injection molded part and techniques like prolonged heat treatment, although they tend to distort the part beyond use.

[CNC Kitchen] examined the results (video, embedded below) of a recent paper describing a novel ABS filament reinforced by a “star-shaped” polycarbonate core. According to the authors, this arrangement is resistant to deformation during the annealing process, which is often required to increase the strength of the parts. While researchers had access to specialized equipment needed to make such a composite material, [CNC Kitchen’s] The solution to simply using its twin extruder setup to print the required hybrid filament directly is something we think is very much in line with the now old school, RepRap “print your printer” vibe.

The printed filament appears to be of reasonable dimensional accuracy and seems to feed the printed spool through a heating block with no nozzle attached to ensure there are no obvious clogs. The rest of the video focuses on a very thorough comparison of strength and deformation between the garden variety of polycarbonate, ABS, and this new hybrid filament after the annealing process. Although he finishes with mixed results, being able to combine and print just your own hybrid filament is super cool and a success in itself!

Interested in multi-material filaments? Read our article about a more conventional approach that doesn’t require you to print it yourself!

Filament Dust Filter Helps Keep Your Print Quality High

Filament Mud Filter Helps Hold Your Print High quality Excessive

If we’re honest, our workshop isn’t as clean as it probably should be, and many manufacturers are likely to say the same thing. This can have effects such as: B. clogging of the motors with iron filings or in this case dust, which affects the quality of 3D prints. With the aim of tackling this, [3Demon] built a fun SpongeBob dust filter for their 3D printer.

The filter works in a simple way. The SpongeBob shell is 3D printed in half, with a hinge connecting both parts. There is a piece of sponge in each half. The two halves are then snap closed, with the filament running through a hole in SpongeBob’s head and out through the (square) pants. When the sponge is wrapped up nicely, dust is wiped off the filament as it travels through the bob to the printer.

While it is important to carefully install the filament to avoid filament advancement issues, it is an easy way to automatically clean the filament during the printing process. You will be surprised how dirty your filament gets after a few months of sitting on the shelf. Removing such contaminants reduces the likelihood of troublesome problems such as delamination and jams. Avid printers should also consider making their own filament. Have fun printing!