Adventures in 3D printing

[jarhead]

pretty interesting subject. Is the filament expensive?

 

[koenbro]

pretty interesting subject. Is the filament expensive?

Yes, I do think so, and would not be commercially viable to make volume production because of this cost and the time it takes for printing. However, for a one-time part, fixture, prototype, or custom application 3D printing is an amazing technology.

More on the cost. Low-end materials are fairly cheap. I buy discontinued/on-sale material off Matterhackers, where you can score PLA at around 40-50 dollars a kilo. BTW you need to pay attention as some spools are only 0.35 kg, others 0.5x or 0.75 kg so compare prices with this in mind. I actually don't like PLA at all, just as I avoid PVA.

Engineering materials like carbon fiber/nylon print with much greater accuracy (in my limited experience FWIW), but are more expensive. I would say my favorites so far are:
- CF/N12 that is $208/kg (!!!),
- Jabil SEBS-95A which is a rubber like soft material is $86/kg, and
- PETG, which is chemical resistant, and is about $100/kg.
Kimya PEKK CF is now *ON SALE* at Matterhackers for $900 / kg, but read up on its properties: top shelf engineering stuff. That said, ABS and ABS-R will do 90% of what I need.

For supports, SR-30 and RapidRinse are amazing and in a different league than PVA; the cost is an eye-watering $264/kg $$$. Check out prices on the Makerbot website here.

And then there is metal: BASF Ultrafuse is $450 for a 3kg spool, but that includes debinding and sintering.

That said you don't use a lot of material. My prints are generally 20-40 grams and the biggest part so far was 110 grams (the video accessory shown a few posts above); so a 0.75 kg spool goes far. I have gotten a stash of filament and I need to stop buying:

 

[koenbro]

Still thinking on which filament to try next.

I just got a spool of rosewood Filamentum Timberfill and that will be my next experiment.

 

[sdavilla]

eSun PLA+ @$24/kg, eSun ABS @$22/kg, CF PTEG @$45/kg and QDID CF PA12 (nylon) @99/kg.

Just printed 57 grams of PLA, about $1.36 in PLA. Dirt cheap.

 

[koenbro]

What kind of projects do you print? Will check out eSun, for sure!


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[pdentrem]

Are you guys storing your thread in a dry box?

 

[koenbro]

Are you guys storing your thread in a dry box?

Yes spools are in Mylar bags with several bags of desiccant each. Plus I am in Arizona.


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[sdavilla]

What kind of projects do you print? Will check out eSun, for sure!


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Latest. CNC bits for a PM-30MV mill. Three tries First was left, wrong dim on two front mounts. Second was back, goofed moving the mounts and now three are off. Hahaha. Last was right, with electronics mounted.

This is up next I think. X-Axis stepper mount. The real mount will come with the CNC kit some time. Until then, this will work fine for a power x-axis.

CF Nylon or CF PETG or ABS. Can't decide. Any means swapping to the high temp extruder on my QIDI i-fast.

 

[sdavilla]

Are you guys storing your thread in a dry box?

Yes, pretty much everything I watch and read about 3D printing says humidity == bad for filaments.

 

[pdentrem]

I mentioned the dry box as I am sure not everyone would know about this.
Pierre