A look inside our new building

“Buildings should serve people, not the other way around.”
– John Portman, US architect

What is a building but a structure with walls and a roof? It is what you do with a building that gives it added value. We recently moved to a new building, as we announced several weeks ago. One of the most popular posts on social media in recent months was the revelation of our logo on the building last Monday:

As with many start ups in the tech sector, colorFabb started with an idea and a garage. A small office on top of that garage with one extruder running at some times day and night. Within a year we saw the need to move from that garage, expand our production and logistics capacity. We moved.

It was not too long after moving that we found that the vision we had for colorFabb did not fit the building we were in.

We have an ambitious vision and to accomplish this vision we need the right tools. Moving into the new building is important for colorFabb, since it enables us to bring that vision to reality in 2017 and beyond.

That vision not only consists of more and better filaments, but also of 3D printing services, engineering skills, strategic partnerships and more. All of it to bring 3D printing solutions, in the broadest sense of the word, to our customers.

In the next few months we will keep you updated on the latest developments.

We are now located in Belfeld, a small town just south of Venlo, in a state of the art building. We remain in the same region, which has excellent logistic facilities and is close to the German and Belgian borders.

We already gave you  a quick sneak peek a few weeks ago, Below you find the first official look inside our new building, which is now being converted into a 3D Printing Centre: developing and production of materials, services like printing, design and engineering as well as customer support and B2B sollutions.

Once you enter the building you immediately see the bike, which was printed with XT-CF20.

Moving on, next to the offices on the lower floor we have another showpiece: the Saturn V Rocket. Designed by Paul Fischer and printed by Korneel Bullens, it was entirely printed with nGen. You can find the original blog on this print here.

Design: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:911891 

It may look small in this building, but the entire print is 2.5 meters tall!

Past the offices are our print labs. Yes, that is plural – we now have two print labs. Here we do all our tests with new materials, material characterizations, the prints we make for this blog, support, etc.

30+ printers (not all shown) are continuously printing and testing.

We have already teased you a bit with images from our production site:

This is the heart of the company where a dedicated production crew works every day to produce the filaments you are using.

Finally, we move on to logistics. Our logistics team ships to 70+ countries – webshop, resellers and distributors alike. DHL picks up from our warehouse every day to make sure your orders will delivered as soon as possible.

 

As you can see, we are very proud of our new home. This building gives us the room to expand according to our vision and bring you even better products, improved quality and more services suited to your needs.

Please note that we will be at the RapidPro Trade Fair and Conference in Veldhoven, The Netherlands on March 7, 8 and 9. You can find us at stand 16. Drop by to find out our latests plans and how we can help you with your 3D printing needs.

If you have any questions you can also drop us an email: sales@colorfabb.com

 

Stacker

As many of you know, we are the distributor of Stacker 3D printers in Europe. We have been working with Stacker ever since the first prototype and now have several in our print lab. With the upcoming Stacker S2 being available for pre-order now and soon on Kickstarter we are testing A LOT.

Late last week we received an S2 printer and we immediately took it for a spin. The part we printed (and shown briefly yesterday) is the rocker arm by Ericthepoolboy. It is part of the bigger Toyota Engine that was printed by Korneel Bullens almost two years ago.

Design: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:644933

We scaled this part 500% and printed with colorFabb_XT at 0.2mm layer height. The new Stacker S2, like the S4 before it, is an excellent printer for small series production, prototyping and printing technical parts. Its industrial design and build allow for great accuracy and fantastic prints.

In two weeks we will be at the RapidPro Fair in Veldhoven, the Netherlands. We will be showcasing the Stacker printers, printing with our co-polyester filaments at booth 16. Drop by to see the latest and greatest in 3D printing!

Of course we keep testing on the Stacker S4 in our print lab as well. We have designed a callibration part ourselves, which we printed with our colorFabb_XT Black:

We have designed this calibration part for size and XYZ dimension as a benchmark for other platforms and materials.

As mentioned before, colorFabb is the official European distributor for Stacker. Stacker printers are manufactured in the USA. Check out the awesome features here and wonder why you have not one yourself!

If you are interested in a Stacker, please click here or contact us at sales@colorfabb.com

colorFabb_XT is made with Eastman Amphora™ 3D polymer AM1800. Launched in September 2014, it is a fantastic functional engineering material. With colorFabb_XT we achieved to produce a filament that provides good strength and toughness, as well as certain FDA food contact compliances. It has found a wide audience amongst users looking for extra functionality. With a temperature resistance of 75+ degrees, this filament offers (aside from its high strength and very high toughness) odor neutral processing, a styrene free formulation, FDA food contact compliance and BPA (Bisphenol A ) free formulation.

You can find more about what co-polyesters are by clicking here.

 

Fully printed vise

Back in the day (September last year) we printed a vise with nGen on the Lulzbot Mini. Although nice it still needed screws. Now we have printed a vise that is 100% 3d-printed – no screw or other piece of hardware is needed to hold the individual pieces together. Pieces clip and snap together easily!

We used colorFabb_XT, nGen and nGen_FLEX for this print.

Design: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2064269

The “Yet ANOTHER Machine Vise” is designed by Christoph Laimer a.k.a. TheGoofy from Switzerland. The design was uploaded merely weeks ago, but we found it an excellent model for our various co-polyesters.

We used nGen Yellow, colorFabb_XT Light Blue and nGen_FLEX Black printing this vise.

Remember the “3D-printed Watch with Tourbillon” we printed last year? Same talented designer!

All parts were printed on the Ultimaker 2 and Ultimaker 2+ in our print lab.

 

As Christopher explains on the Thingiverse page:

“Very often people just try to 3d-print common mechanical objects. But the traditional shape of these objects is often not 3d-printable, and if an object was successfully printed, it maybe does not work, or it is not strong enough.

For mechanical objects it is therefore required to adapt the design depending on its future use. If you’re familiar with some CAD-tool, and if your creating designs for 3d-printing. I recommend to think about the special material properties of 3d-printed parts.”

colorFabb_XT is made with Eastman Amphora™ 3D polymer AM1800. Launched in September 2014, it is a fantastic functional engineering material. With colorFabb_XT we achieved to produce a filament that provides good strength and toughness, as well as certain FDA food contact compliances. It has found a wide audience amongst users looking for extra functionality. With a temperature resistance of 75+ degrees, this filament offers (aside from its high strength and very high toughness) odor neutral processing, a styrene free formulation, FDA food contact compliance and BPA (Bisphenol A ) free formulation.

colorFabb_XT was our first co-polyester based filament and we followed it up with nGen , which was released a little over a year ago. It is an all-round filament which has many advantages over, say, a PLA. The temperature resistance is over 80 degrees C and it works on most printers with a heated build plate.

nGen is a low-odor, styrene-free material uniquely suited for 3D printing enthusiasts, particularly those who need the flexibility to print within a wide processing temperature range. With nGen you will have good flow properties through the printer nozzle—even at lower temperatures than some other polymers require. These properties make nGen more workable at a wider breadth of temperatures, producing reliable results and resulting in less waste. Visual prototyping has never been better than with nGen.

nGen_FLEX was released in September 2016 at the TCT Show and is our first semi-flexible material. With a Shore A hardness of 95 it is a material that is ideally suited for functional parts. It is not soft and squishy like other flexible materials in the market, but allows for fast printing and printing on 3D printers using a Bowden tube. nGen_FLEX is a material for users looking for an engineering grade flexible filament with a high temperature resistance (over 120 degrees C) and good chemical resistance.

You can read the initial reception of nGen_FLEX here.

You can find more about what co-polyesters are by clicking here.

Pangolin

A pangolin is a mammal that is covered with touch, overlapping scales. These scales normally offer great defense against predators in the wild. This benign creature however is currently being threatened with extinction. They’re considered the world’s most hunted animal because people believe that the meat is prized for medicinal ingredient.

To get some attention for this little fella we have printed one. We challenged Niels, our new intern, with this multipart design to learn how to use the Ultimaker 2+ and our PLA Economy. It took him only a few days to get flawless quality from the Ultimaker 2+.

Design: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2064359

This print was made on the Ultimaker 2+ with 0.1mm layer height, using PLA Economy Silver.

Designed by Amao Chan from Taiwan, who has a real heart for the little Pangolin. In Amao’s words: “Pangolins now are facing critical crisis as they are closing to extinct. In fact, humans are the murderers of this disaster, superstition and greed are the main reason to cause this massacre.”

“Nowadays, the numbers of pangolins are less and less, some people eat them only for the reason of showing their ostentatious wealth, what they do to these helpless animals is to make them approach to endangered.”

About the design: “Pangolin is a really skillful and difficult work that I have spent a lot of time on it. It has been passed at least six editions before presenting to all of you. What I was trying to challenge is an artwork with both perfect appearance and function. It was a little struggle for me to share this work at the beginning since I’ve fallen in love with it when it’s first done and stood in front of me. At this moment, what I am wondering more is to let you firsthand it, holding and feeling the variation with actions. Enjoy and I believe you’ll like it.”

Well, we like it a lot! For this print we chose PLA Economy to print with.

PLA Economy was launched November 2016 and it has been a big hit ever since. Only now we are catching up with the demand for this new and great filament! We have been printing quite a lot with our new PLA Economy line. A few examples are:

We have been testing this material for the better part of last year and have found this filament a great alternative those customers who need a lot of PLA. We are initially releasing PLA Economy in four colors: White (RAL 9010), Black (RAL 9005, Red (RAL 3020) and Silver (RAL 9023). This PLA grade has been tested extensively and is being produced and shipped by the same colorFabb team you are used to so you know we are not compromising on quality. You can rely with this filament on the same high standards that colorFabb is known for. It is available only on 2.2kg spools.

PLA Economy is an addition to our range of PLA/PHA, which is available in 30 colors (and on 750 grams spools).

GoPro Bike Mount

Let’s gopro for this one and explore the outdoors. Today’s featured print is a small, but highly functional one. We have printed a GoPro Bike Mount with colorFabb_XT:

Design: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:248893

We printed this part with colorFabb_XT Red on the Ultimaker 2 with a 0.6mm nozzle. Due to the quite extreme overhang we slowed down to get the perfect overhang performance.

Such an overhang is not easily achieved, but we managed it with our colorFabb_XT, a material that keeps performing at an awesome level. You can find out how to print with colorFabb_XT in our tutorial or contact support@colorfabb.com for the most optimal settings for your printer!

We even took it for a ride outside!

One of our 3D print engineer’s (Stephan) daily bike ride to the office. Not in real time…

colorFabb_XT is made with Eastman Amphora™ 3D polymer AM1800. Launched in September 2014, it is a fantastic functional engineering material. With colorFabb_XT we achieved to produce a filament that provides good strength and toughness, as well as certain FDA food contact compliances. It has found a wide audience amongst users looking for extra functionality. With a temperature resistance of 75+ degrees, this filament offers (aside from its high strength and very high toughness) odor neutral processing, a styrene free formulation, FDA food contact compliance and BPA (Bisphenol A ) free formulation.

colorFabb_XT was our first co-polyester based filament. Our portfolio of co-polyester based filaments, made with Eastman Amphora polymers, has since extended with the all-round nGen, the high temperature resistant colorFabb_HT and semi-flexible nGen_FLEX. You can find more about what co-polyesters are by clicking here.

colorFabb_XT is available in our webshop and through our worldwide network of distributors and resellers.

 

3D Scanner

Combining several technologies is what we love here at colorFabb. 3D Scanning, smart phones and a little thing called 3D printing (you may have heard about it). We even combined two vastly different materials, namely colorFabb_XT and PLA Economy.

Today’s featured print, straight from our print lab, is Dave Clarke’s $30 3D scanner:

Design: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1762299

This scanner won the Pinshape 2016 Top Functional Design award, and rightfully so. Congrats, Dave!

You can spend a lot of money on accessories for your smart phone, but why not print a fully functional scanner? We will give the scanner and the results a spin soon, but for now we have the scanner printed:

You can find the full tutorial for this model here.

We printed on one of the Ultimaker 2+ in our print lab. For the housing parts we used PLA Economy Black with 0,6 nozzle on 0,2mm layerheight.
The technical parts and phone holder we printed with  colorFabb_XT Clear with 0,25mm nozzle on 0,1mm layerheight.

PLA Economy was launched November 2016 and it has been a big hit ever since. Only now we are catching up with the demand for this new and great filament! We have been printing quite a lot with our new PLA Economy line. A few examples are:

We have been testing this material for the better part of the summer and have found this filament a great alternative those customers who need a lot of PLA. We are initially releasing PLA Economy in four colors: White (RAL 9010), Black (RAL 9005, Red (RAL 3020) and Silver (RAL 9023). This PLA grade has been tested extensively and is being produced and shipped by the same colorFabb team you are used to so you know we are not compromising on quality. You can rely with this filament on the same high standards that colorFabb is known for. It is available only on 2.2kg spools.

PLA Economy is an addition to our range of PLA/PHA, which is available in 30 colors (and on 750 grams spools).

As said, the technical parts were printed with colorFabb_XT. We launched colorFabb_XT over 2 years ago at the London 3D Print Show together with Eastman Chemical Company. Eastman is our material partner for co-polyesters. colorFabb_XT is made with Amphora AM1800 and has a unique formulation for 3D Printing that features excellent properties : High strength and very high toughness, Odor Neutral processing, High Tg / improved temp. resistance, Styrene free formulation, FDA food contact compliance, BPA (Bisphenol A ) free formulation. It will allow the user to produce 3D printed functional products in a safe way.

Both colorFabb_XT is made with Eastman Amphora™ 3D polymer AM1800. With Amphora, items can be created that are more functional, more durable, more efficient, and attractive.

Our filaments available in our webshop and through our network of distributors and resellers worldwide.

http://colorfabb.com/storelocator/

steelFill

Back in June 2016 we announced steelFill to the world. In September we launched steelFill officially. Today we have printed an aptly themed object with steelFill : the Man of Steel logo.

Design: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:246349

Modelled by Filippo Panza, this design is based on the current Superman series and quite appropiate for our steelFill.

With steelFill we are added a fourth metal based filament to our portfolio after succesfully releasing bronzeFill in 2014, copperFill later that year and brassFill in early 2015. As with these other filaments, the key is post-processing and you can use similar techniques as with our other special metal based filaments.

You can find the full tutorial on how to print with steelFill here.

This part was printed on the Makerbot Replicator 2 with a 0.2mm layer height at 210 degrees C. steelFill is an abrassive filament and not kind to the standard brass nozzles.

For the nozzle we chose the Olsson Ruby nozzle 1.75mm version. the ruby nozzle retains the excellent heat conducting properties of brass, while being extremely resistant to wear. This means that you can print your standard materials as usual, but also very abrasive materials such as steelFill but also our XT-CF20.

The Olsson Ruby is a high-tech nozzle with a carefully designed ruby tip, which makes it have unique properties. The ruby nozzle is designed by Anders Olsson, inventor of the popular Olsson Block that is also part of the Ultimaker 2+ 3D Printers.

This nozzle was generously supplied to us by 3DVerkstan, our distributor and partner in the Nordic regiona and manufacturer of the Olsson Ruby Nozzle. For more information about the nozzle, contact 3DVerkstan: info@3dverkstan.se

There will be a separate blog about post-processing this piece later on. You can find more prints made with steelFill, which have been post-processed, here:

Yeah, we like our superheroes…

steelFill is available in our webshop and through our network of distributors and resellers worldwide.

Prosthetic design

3D printing is a technology that is perfectly suited for prosthetic and orthopedic designs. These applications require a high level of customization as well as complex shapes. We have seen this with companies like Mathis Orthopédie and organisations like Enable and 3D Life Prints.

To understand the needs and the challenges ourselves we have chosen to print a design for a prosthetic leg ourselves, using colorFabb_XT Dark Gray.

Design: https://grabcad.com/library/prosthetic-leg

This part was printed on a Swiss made Delta Tower with 0.15mm layer height. The design was altered slightly for better printing.

Please note that this model and print are made as a case study and not intended to be used in real life with a body’s weight supporting it. As you can see in the original design, the part we printed is meant to be the outer shell.

For this purpose colorFabb_XT is an excellent material.

colorFabb_XT is made with Eastman Amphora™ 3D polymer AM1800. Launched in September 2014, it is a fantastic functional engineering material. With colorFabb_XT we achieved to produce a filament that provides good strength and toughness, as well as certain FDA food contact compliances. It has found a wide audience amongst users looking for extra functionality. With a temperature resistance of 75+ degrees, this filament offers high strength and very high toughness, odor neutral processing, a styrene free formulation, FDA food contact compliance and BPA (Bisphenol A ) free formulation.

colorFabb_XT was our first co-polyester based filament. Our portfolio of co-polyester based filaments, made with Eastman Amphora polymers, has since extended with the all-round nGen, the high temperature resistant colorFabb_HT and semi-flexible nGen_FLEX. You can find more about what co-polyesters are by clicking here.

colorFabb is available in our webshop and through our worldwide network of distributors and resellers.

 

Keep checking out this site for the latest news regarding colorFabb news, tutorials and the latest prints from our print lab!

PLA/PHA Natural

Eager followers of our Twitter account have noticed that we have been printing quite a bit recently with PLA/PHA Natural in recent weeks:

And there is a good reason for this. PLA/PHA is our signature PLA filament which we exactly launched 4 years ago this month. The added PHA makes our grade of PLA tougher and less brittle than generic PLA grades in the market. PHA (polyhydroxyalkanoate) is like PLA a bio-polyester, so our unique blend is still 100% biodegradeable. This material is available in 30 colors, but today we focus on the one without a color: PLA/PHA Natural.

Due to the work of Spectra3D we have found that our filament is perfectly suited for investment casting. You can read our previous blog on Spectra3D’s work here.

Using 3D printing in investment casting reduces cost and adds flexibility to the process. PLA is a natural choice for this process where the entire print is burned out.

The results are phenomenal if we say so ourselves and we took ourselves to the task to print technical parts for investment casting ourself. Check out the results:

Design: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1643878

These engine block parts are a great design and you will see more of this design soon… (and that’s all we are going to say about this).

Another part we printed is intended for steel casting:

Design: https://grabcad.com/library/steel-casting-2

Both parts were printed on an Ultimaker 2 with a 0.6mm nozzle and 0.2mm layer height, resulting in a flawless surface quality.

In the past years, after the initial launch of our line of PLA/PHA filaments, we have released many other 3D printing filaments, like woodFill, bronzeFill, colorFabb_XT and one of the bestselling filaments: nGen. For a full timeline, click here. It is good, however, to go back to where it all started and find applications for the filament that started it all.

PLA/PHA Natural has been a favorite of professional designers ever since we launched it four years ago and has been a bestseller since. Our PLA/PHA range has received very good reviews over the years.

It has proven to be an extremely reliable filament for prototyping and investment casting.

PLA/PHA Natural is on sale this week. Get your spool now at a discounted price and find out the benefits of this filament soon on your own printer! Click here to go to the product page.

In the meantime, we keep printing…

Sneak peek

Last week we announced that we had moved to a new state of the art facility to accomodate our vision for the growth of colorFabb. The entire team has worked hard to facilitate this move in a record time.  Today, we present you a first sneak peek of our new production facility.

 

We have completed the first stage of moving to our new plant. Production lines have
been installed and are running.

We’re here to fulfill your filament needs.

Our new address is:

colorFabb BV

Bremweg 7

5951 DK Belfeld (Venlo)

The Netherlands

Stay tuned for more…