I stumbled upon this old picture while looking for another one. It shows tiny carbon fibers embedded in crystal-clear polycarbonate, that happened when I switched from CFPLA to a crystal-clear polycarbonate (hellish stuff to print btw). Looking at it a second time makes me realize how complex extrusion is (more after the break).
A microphotography that shows carbon fibers during a transition from CFPLA to polycarbonate.
Obviously the nozzle diameter is one of the major parameters when 3D printing. But you may have wondered about the many nozzle shapes that are available on the market. Some brands have preferred shapes. And, even though will not have a drastic impact on the print, they may be significant and worth a post.
Overall length of the nozzle?
Marketbot vs Ultimaker nozzles.
Both are quite long, but the former has a bigger flat ring around the nozzle hole.
In my opinion, long nozzles are more convenient for cleaning, and they let more cooling air flow around.
Shorter nozzles reduce heat loss a bit and they probably give a better control and reading of the temperature (remember: the sensor is on the heating block, not on the output).
They could arguably help to reduce the overall length of the hot end, so they reduce could positioning error slightly. And they may spare a few grams... But this is marginal and for the most hard core players: they will not help make a bad design better!
An amazing door knocker by Sonia Verdu
(rust comes from post-processed glued iron dust)
Still today, the visual quality of 3D printed objects is far from perfect. Of course, a stringy or bumpy surface does not mean the part will not work: you can get a visibly ugly part that still works well enough as a mechanical connector for example. But an artist will certainly not like it.
This post tries to list the main filaments that artists would look for first. Many other filaments are listed in a former post about materials that can be printed (without artistic consideration).
It also talks about the brand new bronzeFill filament from ColorFabb. Yes, it does contain bronze. No, we are not yet printing metal really. But certainly it is a major and very welcome addition to the list of interesting materials to 3D print.
How to 3D print Nylon reliably, cleanly and hassle-free.
A well-printed and robust dual-head Nylon mount (check it here).
Nylon is flexible, slippery and incredibly tough when it is printed correctly.
For me, it is a cheap and very useful material to 3D print. It is my best choice whenever PLA is not possible, and the very reason I never use ABS (more about the materials in this post).
But the nice properties of Nylon are the ones that precisely make it difficult to print ! By the way, Nylon also produces toxic fumes when heated, just like ABS, so it better be used in well-ventilated rooms.
I tried many known and unknown techniques to print reliably, and it is time I share my experience because I am happy with what I found. Read on for more!
I heard years ago that trimming line was one of the many materials that was tested on a 3D printer (the biggest list is probably here). This time I tried for myself, and it was also the proper occasion to deal with how "reliable" the material has to be (note that I wrote another post more specifically on how to print it).
Really, trimmer line may be a fully compatible filament !
My hot end is dying: the annoying PEEK thermal insulator started to melt (I suspect that the PID regulator overshot the temperature because of intermittent connection that I have fixed since). Still, it does not impede the flow much, so it gave me the opportunity to try some risky fun : what about this basic nylon trimmer line I got for free 10+ years ago when I purchased my gardening trimmer tool?
Every now and then I am being asked about it, so here is a post on the many materials that can be 3D-printed at home.
Smooth transition, from carbon-fiber reinforced PLA to ABS
It is not complete and will expand with time. It is no buyer's guide either, nor a technical document. Read it as a short generic survey of usable materials. There is also a post dedicated to materials most suited to artistic goals.
As for me and many others, I print mostly with PLA filament (see below). Even though I have a set of other materials (wood, rubber, Nylon and so on), I did not test all the following myself, mostly because each material requires its set of specific time-consuming trials and errors to achieve good quality. Mastering all of them would take me months, if not years!
No need for a hot bed, no issue with massive overhangs, no stringing at all, no retraction, grinding nor feeding issues, not even noise, smell nor chemicals.
Free and easy sourcing of material, highly portable, robust, self-powered and auto-adapting printing system. And damn, they even master wood gradients and polygonal infill!
Now, on the downside: it comes without a user manual and the system is incompatible with g-code. And sometimes, it stings.
Wood filament now brittle, lost all its needed flexibility !
When I started printing this morning with my wood filament (~2-3 week old), all kinds of filament issues appeared, while I had almost none before. I soon realized that the filament now is much more fragile than one week ago.
First I though I had temperature and clogging issues, since I was testing my plugin for simulating wood grain.
Twisted Gear Lamp by BenitoSanduchi, printed with Cura at 80mm/s, 0.2mm layers, Ultimaker
You may like to read also my post on wood shades though temperature changes.
What is a "wood filament"?
I bought an early batch directly from a small producer in Germany. The full reference was LAYWOO-D3 LOT F0142. It was not cheap, but it even got more expensive because everyone wanted some!
How it is made sounds trivial: just a mix of saw dust and plastic... But shaping this mix into a nice filament must be tricky otherwise all the major producers would have produced it before and would be already be selling kilometers of it...
There was no choice on the color yet.
What strikes me first is the surface, which is extremely rough compared to the other filament kinds. I think there is still air in this filament... The overall stiffness is much lower than PLA, and you almost feel like you could bend it without breaking it (even though it still breaks nicely with a sharp movement and pliers). Later, I had serious issues with the filament for some time which lost all of its flexibility, but the issue is gone thanks to a air dryer.
Unusual deep marks left by my hobbed bolt (with a medium tension on the feeder)
The filament diameter is not very constant, but it is not worse than the two kind of PLA filament I had. From 3.0 to 3.1 mm, which is totally fine for me. I never had any grinding issue (during the first week of the filament). Some people however report serious issues and varying diameters (read on from this post for example). Note that my bowden tube is non standard, and its inner diameter is 4mm (OD 6mm). This proved to help a lot obviously.
Printing wood (how weird does it sound!)
On my first print, I thought I was under extruding a bit because I heard bubbles popping out of the nozzle while printing, and the thin walls where not that smooth. I still should try with higher feed rate just to check how it behaves and if the result is smoother.
However the macros for horizontal filling (picture on the right) seems to tell it is pretty well tuned. See how the successive pass really fit each other better than with PLA (my nozzle is 0.4mm). Well, it may not be better, but since the material is rough, it really looks like it is.
The layers are harder to see than with PLA. At 0.1 height, it makes walls almost invisible. But much more interestingly to me, the horizontal filling is much nicer than with PLA.
Also, the extruding temperature really seems unimportant, really not like PLA. You just can set almost anything and it prints nicely, but you will get different colors. For this, you need to insert specific g-code manually in the generated file or use my forthcoming Cura/Skeinforge plugin.
Also, it looks instantly "dry" out of the nozzle. So much that I may significantly reduce the minimum time between layers so it prints faster. It really does not look like it is melting the previous layer top when the heads moves over (looks like wet cardboard more than plastic to me). However the layers still stick nicely to each other; may be because of the texture more than because they get welded ?
With surprise, I realized I could bend the following object where I could not with PLA. Hence, I suspect that this material will not stand the same amount of stress as with PLA nor ABS. It actually looks like something between cardboard and a springy MDF (it gets a bit stiffer with time, not much imho). The printed object also really can be painted, much more than with PLA or ABS.
It really gives a fine result, but not for all uses.
Printed at 222°, 60mm/s, 100% fill. The resulting object is quite elastic.
Printing at 80mm/s, I could probably go much faster
A closeup HD video that show the nice "thick" paths
Tips and issues with wooden filament
I would not leave the filament heating for long in the nozzle as it becomes really brown (and somehow crusty), so there may be a risk to obstruct the nozzle (update: good prediction since it just occurred to someone!). So I purge the head manually with regular PLA when a print is done (which now appear to me very "chemical/industrial" compared to the wood filament).
Purging : from much heated wood to pink PLA. Disgusting but safer.
I had no grinding at all when I checked carefully the feeder marks on the filament. May be that was thanks to my bowden tube replacement, or to my own feeder, or both. Actually, even though the filament surface is rough, since the material is smooth I can move it in the bowden tube as easily as with PLA (if not more).
Also make sure to keep it in a sealed bag and somewhere it will not degrade as mine did :(
Conclusion
As a final note, I think this material really rocks for artists and designers, and even though I am not an artist, I think I will always have a spool of wooden filament nearby :)
Check also how you can get different shades of brown (gradients) by varying the extruding temperature during print.
And then, now, I want to go and invest a bit in making my own filament. Winter is coming and I will have a pile of wood dust, together with a pile of broken PLA things. By the way, it even smells like a biscuit :p
This could be my new business card, but the clean up is more difficult than with PLA
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