Any thoughts on the various 3d printer filaments now on the market which contain carbon-fiber or other such materials?

https://markforged.com/materials/

Carbon Fiber Filament 3D Printing | Buy Carbon Fibre Filament

 

I have 2 stratasys systems. I purchase material from Argyle Materials. The MarkForge system is nice but the build size it too small. When they get the platform bigger I will purchase one of them. As for materials ABS is fine but I like the PC/ABS or PC for most jobs. When I grew the vents I ran them in ABS and had them on the car for about 1 month. No problems with the heat.

 

Many. Do you have a specific concern?

Have not used them yet myself due do the cost, abrasive nature, and the fact that the break tests aren't as spectacular as id hoped. You can only do so much when you have the chop the fiber small enough to get through a 0.4mm nozzle, and when inter layer bonding is usually the limiting factor.


Window frame Visor mounted RAM ball.

 

Nice surface finish! I should really try to dial mine in a bit better.

 

Lol, that was treated with acetone vapor.

 

Ha, downside of me always screwing around in PLA I guess (hey, it burns out for investment casting SO NICELY it's not funny)

 

Yea, we talked about that a few pages back I think. Something Id like to dabble in, too many other hobbies ATM. I suggest messing with ABS for finished parts, its way better than PLA in many ways, and prints so nicely, especially on overhangs. I still use PLA for parts that need stiffness and wont be exposed to anything over 110*F.

Try the FOXsmart brand. Its super cheap, and really good filament. Its pure ABS (no fillers) and less than $20 a roll. Shipping is always $4 no matter how much you buy.

 

Huh, about half to 2/3rds the price from the supplier I was using. I'll have to try them.

 

I've given up on 3d printer filament that isnt nylon. Its way too ******* easy to work with to make anything else worth the effort. 255° nozzle, 55° plate. Apply liquid glue stick to plate and start print before it dries, sticks perfect and doesnt warp every time. Cant ******* do that with abs.

 

Probably the best filament on the market would be this:

Ultem 9085 3D Printing FIlaments | Aerospace Grade Materials | Made in the USA

Glass transition temp is pretty high. I'm currently building a printer just to use this filament.

 

You can when you know what you're doing.

Full print volume abs prints here without even lifting a corner.

 

No, just curious. I don't own a 3d printer, and probably won't (barring some specific need) until a consume-grade model is available which lays down actual metal or something equivalent to it. My hope is that someone out there is working on a desktop SLS / SLM unit that doesn't require liquid CO2 to operate.



Question:

Many filament manufacturers publish an annealing process, which is basically just putting the finished part into an oven and running it through a certain thermal profile over the course of a couple of hours. The maximum temperature is generally much lower than the head temperature (eg: 400°F vs. 300-350°C).

Is has benefit?

 

I've had pretty much every type of additive mfg printed. If the volume is heated enough, FDM Ultem is just awesome.

 

Yes, similar to sintering metal, it allows the voids to close and things to homogenize a little more, in addition to the crystal structure changes, and stress relief.

Watch this for some empirical data, I was quite suprised.

 

Interesting stuff.

With completely assembled, works right out of the box printers coming in under the $200 mark*, I expect to see some newer materials and improved resolutions coming to the more expensive units soon. After all, if the only advantage to the more expensive printers is size of the part you can print, they are going to lose market share pretty quickly. Especially when the larger ones almost all come in kit form. Some of them have less than stellar reviews, but most people will never miss the fancier features at that price point.


* Check out this little unit: https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=15365 Fairly well reviewed, desktop model. Hell, I paid more than $200 for my last laserjet printer.

 

I keep wanting a reason to buy an inexpensive little desktop unit like that. Because I can't deny that they're cool.

But I just can't think of a real application where I'd do something useful with it. I can buy high-quality My Little Pony figurines cheaply just about everywhere, and whenever I have a "serious" need for a one-off fabricated product, it pretty much needs to be made of metal and able to resist significant loads, so I wind up going to emachineshop.com.

Had eight of these fabricated for about $220 a week ago, plus another $112 for 16 of the little bushing-spacer thingies that fill the gap between the bracket and the mating surface where the original socket-cap screw went:










It's a cable-management bracket for an industrial robot. The company that makes the 'bot didn't include any provision for dealing with the cables that come off of it, so I made these. Turnaround time was about 9 days. The above is just the test-fitment, I'll post pics of the painted and installed units later.

This is the fourth time I've used EMS.com just for this one project. Seriously, if you work in the "building small quantities of weird, custom **** in a hurry" industry, they're a lifesaver.

 

Me, too. For at least a decade. But my nephew has one now, so I can just go use his if I really wanted.

 

enclosed? Meh, I was afraid nylon was hard to use than ABS which is why I never tried it until now. But its easier and has superior mechanical properties.

 

Enclosed and heated. If the chamber isn't at least 50* C youre going to have a bad time.

But yes the mechanical properties are nice, and id like to and will try some eventually, but its pricier than abs and pla. And I enclosed my printer fir free with cardboard. Its a great insulator.

 

As promised:















And with that, my new Robot Army is finally complete: