Hyper Soccer Ball

The print we feature today is the Hyper Soccer Ball, designed by Jose Almeida a.k.a. Dalpek.

Design: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:638568

Dalpek created this design by joining three truncated icosahedrons by their vertices.

We printed this complex print of a soccer ball with nGen on the Lulzbot TAZ 6 at a 0.2mm layer height. We did not use any support for this print and the print as you see it, is as it came from the printer.

We recently added the Lulzbot TAZ 6 to our collection of printers in our print lab. The LulzBot TAZ 6 is an extremely reliable, easy-to-use desktop 3D printer ever, featuring innovative self-leveling and self-cleaning, and a modular tool head design for flexible and multi-material upgrades.

Aside from that, we also started reselling both the TAZ 6 and the Lulzbot Mini in Europe.

You can find more information about these great additions to our webshop here, as well as Richard Horne (RichRap) and Joel Telling’s (3D Printing Nerd) review videos.

Both the Lulzbot Mini and TAZ 6 have free shipping in Europe and two free spools of nGen filament! You can order online now.

Why do we add two free spools of nGen with these printers? Because they are a perfect fit. And we want to make sure that everybody who purchases a Lulzbot printer knows it too!

nGen has proven itself to be a very versatile material that can be used for a lot of applications, visual prototyping being one of them! It has become our default, all-round filament for printing all sorts of prototypes and prints just have to look damn good!

And again, no support was used for this print.

nGen is an all-round filament which has many advantages over 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. You can find more information on our dedicated landing page.

Ever since launching in november 2015 (and later in a big way during the CES Show early 2016), nGen has been a bestseller and a material that has been adopted by users worldwide very rapidly.

nGen is available through our webshop and our network of distributors and resellers worldwide as well as our partner Lulzbot.

nGen is made with Eastman Amphora™ 3D polymer AM3300. It is part of our range of Amphora based filaments. Other grades are: engineering grade colorFabb_XT, high temperature resistant colorFabb_HT and semi-flexible nGen_FLEX. With Amphora, items can be created that are more functional, more durable, more efficient, and attractive.

You can find more about what co-polyesters are by clicking here or check the table below how the rigid filaments compare to ABS and PLA:

Moveo upgrade

A project we have been working on for quite some time now is the Moveo Robotic Arm by BCN 3D Technologies in Barcelona. It is a great project which we already teased in November and December.

Original design: https://www.bcn3dtechnologies.com/en/bcn3d-moveo-the-future-of-learning/

Almost a month ago, during the RapidPro in Veldhoven, we showed the functional arm to the audiences of that show:

But this project is far from finished. We have decided to upgrade the robotic arm with some new parts:

The parts we printed on the Stacker S2 are:

Mantis Gripper by 4ndreas (Andreas Hölldorfer – http://chaozlabs.blogspot.nl/)
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1480408

Moveo Adaptor plate for Mantis Gripper by drmaettu
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1783754

Moveo 5th axis body piece to replace current print.
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1693444

The Mantis gripper allows for a more versatile grip for the Moveo robot arm and it looks cool. Andreas even has the gripper picking up a full mug of coffee on his YouTube video in his blog:

And that’s exactly what we need here at colorFabb: More efficient ways to get our coffee! Using the Adaptor plate designed by drmaettu we should be able to mount it easily to the Moveo Robot arm.

We will write a final and complete blog post on the entire project soon.

As with the previous parts, we have printed with colorFabb_XT Yellow and Dark Gray.

Our range of Amphora based co-polyesters are perfectly suited for a project like this. In 2014 colorFabb teamed up with Eastman Chemical Company to develop unique grades of co-polyesters suited for 3D printing. Eastman Amphora™ 3D polymer are a low-odor, styrene-free choice that is uniquely suited for 3D printing applications. With Amphora, items can be created that are more functional, more durable, more efficient, and attractive.

So far we have launched four grades, starting with colorFabb_XT in 2014, which is a fantastic functional engineering material. Late 2015 we follow this up with nGen, our next Generation general purpose filament and a drop in replacement for PLA. A wide processing window and perfect reliability make this filament a very popular one in our portfolio.

In 2016 we followed that up with colorFabb_HT, a high-temperature resistant filament that allows for functional engineering projects that need lasting parts. Half a year ago at the TCT Show in Birmingham we introduced nGen_FLEX to the market, a flexible filament with a Shora A hardness of 95 allowing for functional and flexible parts to be printed.

More information can be found in the blog we wrote about co-polyesters last summer.

You can find our entire portfolio of co-polyesters in our webshop or via our distributors and resellers worldwide.

We printed these parts on the brand new Stacker S2. The S2 is still available on Kickstarter, but only for a few more hours.

colorFabb is proud partner of Stacker and official distributor for the EMEA region. At colorFabb we have been extensively testing with both the S2 and S4 in our print lab with our entire range of filaments. What makes this printer so different from the rest? First of all, it is based on the technology that has made the Stacker S4 such a success.

You can also expect the following:

  • Copy mode for printing two objects at once for 2X print speeds
  • Dual print heads can be offset to prevent the idle head from dripping on the print when not in use to achieve super clean dual material prints
  • Large build volume: 395mm (X) axis, 325mm (Y) axis, 525mm (Z) Axis
  • Built-in mobile base, essential for EDU and work groups
  • Superior print quality
  • STACKER designed and manufactured hot ends and filament drives produce a superior finish, and work with all filaments, including flexible and metal filled
  • Uses 1.75mm filament for high-speed printing.
  • Quick change nozzles in a range of sizes from .25mm to 1mm
  • Comes with a single license of Simplify3D slicing software
  • Includes a sheet of BuildTak print bed surface but will accept glass

Although the Kickstarter pledges will be delivered in May / June of this year, you can already pre-order the S2 through us, as the official Stacker distributor in the EMEA region, or Stacker itself. Delivery of the pre-order printers will be in April. Get your quote now!

 

Spherical roller bearing

Late last year we discovered in our printlab a golden combination: nGen on the Leapfrog HS. Our all-round 3D printing filament performed remarkably well on the printer and today’s print is another great example:

Design: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2093991

Spherical roller bearing  is designed by Filip Sjöö a.k.a. filiptheking, the Swedish mechanical engineer that likes to create stuff.

As said, the print was made on the Leapfrog HS at a 0.2mm layer height. Look at the stunning details of this print:

nGen is one of our most successful materials. It was developed with Eastman Chemical Company and based on their AM3300 co-polyester. After launching it almost a year and half ago, it has been widely adopted by 3D printer users all over the world as a go to material and replacement for PLA. You can find all information you are looking for on our dedicated landing page.

Earlier prints we made on the Leapfrog HS are:

nGen is made from Eastman Amphora™ AM3300 3D polymer. Like colorFabb_XT, colorFabb_HT and nGen_FLEX, it is part of Eastman’s Amphora range of copolyesters for 3D printing. Find more about co-polyesters, what they are and what the advantages are by visiting our previous blog.

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.

But there is more…

Do you have a Leapfrog HS and want to try nGen? Now is your chance! We partnered with Leapfrog to offer a unique deal for Leapfrog users: 15% discount on nGen filaments in our webshop!

This is how it works: Leapfrog has sent out an email to all its subscribers with a unique discount code that can be used on our site. This discount code should be entered when checking out and can be used up to 5 times per code. The discount only applies to nGen filaments.

Did you not get this email? Check your spam folder for yesterday’s (Thursday March 23rd) Leapfrog Newsletter.

Still having problems? Contact Leapfrog for more information and your personal discount code.

woodFill on the Lulzbot Mini

Last week we announced our partnership with Aleph Objects and became official reseller of their line of 3D printers.

The Lulzbot Mini has proven itself to be an extremely reliable and easy to use printer in our printlab. We have two now ourselves and see a wide range of our materials printing with stunning results. We have of course printed a lot with nGen on this printer, but also our woodFill shows how beautiful prints can look on the Lulzbot Mini.

Design accreditations:

3D Benchy by Creative Tools: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:763622

Rocktopus – Meet rocktopus, the mascot of the all-new LulzBot Mini desktop 3D printer made by Aleph Objects, Inc. in Loveland, Colorado, USA:  https://www.lulzbot.com/content/meet-rocktopus

Stealth Birdhouse by Steve Wood a.k.a. Gyrobot: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:108892

Voronoi Klein Bottle by Robert Woodhead a.k.a. MadOverlord

woodFill was launched exactly 3 years ago this month during the London 3D Print Show and was our first special filament. Other natural filled special filaments have followed, like bambooFill (which we recently discontinued) and more recently corkFill. our woodFill has been a hit from day one due to easy processing and its fantastic looks. Added bonus is that your print room smells like a wood shop when printing with woodFill.

As from this week we became an official reseller for Lulzbot 3D printers. Both the Lulzbot Mini and its bigger sibling, the Lulzbot TAZ6, are available at colorFabb. We have been working with Aleph Objects, the Colorado based producer of the Lulzbot printers, for quite some time now and know them to bring quality products to the market.

LulzBot is a product line of Aleph Objects, Inc., a Free Software, Libre Innovation, and Open Source Hardware company. Aleph Objects was founded in January 2011 and headquartered in Loveland, Colorado, USA, where they develop, manufacture, and support their products. Aleph Objects was recently named the Fastest-Growing Privately Held Computer Hardware Company in the U.S., ranked at no. 122 in Inc. Magazine’s list of the fastest-growing privately-held companies in the United States.

woodFill is available in our webshop. You can find a handy tutorial here.

We have brought back the XL woodFill spool, which you can buy in 2.85mm. If you are interested in the 1.75mm variety, please drop us a line: sales@colorfabb.com

Lulzbot printers available at colorFabb!

We are proud to announce that we are now official Lulzbot resellers in Europe. Both the Lulzbot Mini and Lulzbot TAZ 6 are available in our webshop.

Both the Mini and the TAZ 6 are very well known in North America and they are now ready to take on Europe! We have been printing with the Mini and TAZ 6 in our print lab for quite some time and you may know that Aleph Objects, producer of the Lulzbot printers, also sells our filaments in the US.

We love printing on the Lulzbot printers. We are confident that they offer added value to our customers looking for a great and reliable printer.

LulzBot is a product line of Aleph Objects, Inc., a Free Software, Libre Innovation, and Open Source Hardware company. Aleph Objects was founded in January 2011 and headquartered in Loveland, Colorado, USA, where they develop, manufacture, and support their products. Aleph Objects was recently named the Fastest-Growing Privately Held Computer Hardware Company in the U.S., ranked at no. 122 in Inc. Magazine’s list of the fastest-growing privately-held companies in the United States.

Lulzbot Mini

The LulzBot Mini was built to work out of the box, with no complicated assembly process getting in the way of you creating. Operating the Mini is the same- straightforward software, easy to read documentation and an army of LulzBot enthusiasts eager to help out people getting started. This printer is not only easy. you will still find flexible, industrial strength capacity from this machine.

Read Make Magazine’s review of the Lulzbot Mini here.

The Lulzbot Mini is now available in our webshop at € 1.573 including VAT / € 1.300 excluding VAT.

 

Lulzbot TAZ 6

Engineers, designers, educators, and makers agree: The LulzBot TAZ 6 is the most reliable, easiest-to-use desktop 3D printer ever, featuring innovative self-leveling and self-cleaning, and a modular tool head design for flexible and multi-material upgrades. With proven 3D printing technology and one of the largest print volumes in its class, the LulzBot TAZ 6 is ready to work.

3D printing is more reliable than ever with the integrated automatic bed leveling system, all metal LulzBot v2 Hot End, and heated PEI print surface.  With the all metal hot end, you can take advantage of the cutting edge market for new materials. Perfect for both large and small objects, the heated PEI build surface keeps your 3D printed objects in place when hot and releases when cool. With Cura LulzBot Edition, you have hundreds of quickprint profiles built in for seamless 3D printing.

The Lulzbot TAZ 6 is now available in our webshop at € 3.025 including VAT / € 2.500 excluding VAT.

Not sold yet? The TAZ 6 was recently reviewed by Richard Horne (RichRap) and Joel Telling (3DPrintingNerd). See their videos below:

You can find Richard’s full blog here.

And of course Joel Telling‘s review:

Richard and Joel have convinced you, we’re sure, but we’ll throw in a bit more:

  • free shipping in Europe
  • 2 (two!) free spools of our nGen filament!

This all-round filament was released a little over a year ago. The big launch of nGen was at the CES 2016 in Las Vegas together with Lulzbot. This filament works like a dream on the Lulzbot printers.

It is 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 is available in our webshop, through Lulzbot and our distributor network worldwide.

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

Stacker S4 head storage rail

Updated: scroll down for the version in XT-CF20

The Stacker S4 is a fantastic printer. Tough, reliable and industrial grade. We are the distributor of this US made machine in Europe and have printed many hours on it. One of the big advantages of the Stacker printer is its versatility: You can print 4 prints at the same time or print one big print. But what to do with the other print heads if you don’t need them?

Simple: store them!

Design: http://stacker3d.com/stacker-3d-printer-support/

We printed this part, obviously, on the Stacker S4 with colorFabb_XT Light Gray. We used a 0.12mm layer height which resulted in a 16 hour print.

The head storage allows the use of the maximum print volume with the remaining print heads.

Stacker recently launched the Stacker S2 on Kickstarter. You can read more about this printer here. It is the smaller sibling of the S4 with a smaller build volume and two, instead of four, print heads. The technology is the same as the S4, which has already been tested and tried by the market for almost a year.

Check out the Stacker S2 Kickstarter video below.

https://vimeo.com/205107978

For functional materials in such an application, we do not look any further than our colorFabb_XT.

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 is available in various colors. We have released it in Light Gray (RAL 7035) and Dark Gray (RAL 7043) as well for the more functional looking prints.

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

Update: April 6th 2017

We made another version, but now in XT-CF20:

Of course this one was printed on the Stacker S4 at a 0.2mm layer height. The matte surface quality is just plain awesome as you can see and the look fits the industrial grade build of the printer perfectly.

XT-CF20 is our first Amphora based special filament, launched nearly two years ago, made with colorFabb_XT and 20% carbon fibres. More information can be found here. XT-CF20 has received some really good reviews on our website. It may not be the easiest filament to print with, but the results can be stunning. The functionality, stiffness and the matte finish are true selling points of this material.

XT-CF20 is available online.

bambooFill

Update (March 28th): bambooFill spools are now officially sold out. Samples are still available.

It’s always hard to say goodbye and this is time it’s no different. Recently we had to make the decision to take bambooFill out of our portfolio. This was not an easy decision. The last time we discontinued a product was early 2014 when woodFill coarse was taken out of our portfolio.

Launched in the fall of 2014, bambooFill was the second of our bio filled filaments, following woodFill and preceding corkFill.

Last week we have produced our last batch of bambooFill:

The cost price of the raw materials have risen dramatically in the past few months for bambooFill to a point where it was no longer economically viable to produce this filament. Although not a bestseller like woodFill or corkFill, bambooFill had its fair share of fans. As said, it was not an easy decision but this allows us to focus on our current portfolio and development of new filaments as well – which are surely going to please our users!

Sad to see bambooFill go? So are we, but we still have other special filaments that have excellent aesthetic properties.

Raspberry Pi 7 display case, printed with booth bambooFill and woodFill (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1585924)

The current stock we have in our warehouse is the last stock we will have, so if you are a bambooFan (or are a panda who likes to print), we recommend to take action quickly. bambooFill is available in our webshop and at several distributors and resellers. Again, the spools that have been produced now are the last ones ever.

 

Meet Niels, our intern

Today we want to introduce a new member to the team, our intern Niels. Well, we’ll let him introduce himself…

I am Niels van Valburg, and I am a soon to be industrial designer, creator and overall problem solver through design. With 3D printing I can realise my ideas.

For my bachelor thesis I am going to work with nGen_FLEX to print a seating object, like a chair or stool. The end product will be designed for FFF 3D printing!

Through experimenting with different designs and researching the material I want to understand it better in order to make a design for a chair that not only is a next step in 3D printing capabilities, but also showcases the various material characteristics of nGen_Flex.

So I am interested to hear what you think about it!

I am currently going through my own design process at the moment, but feel free to leave a comment to tell me what you think!

Until next time!

Niels

 

This is the first in a series of updates on Niels’  progress. Every few weeks he will publish what he has been doing and share the results. 

RapidPro – A Visual Recap

This week we attended the RapidPro for the fifth consecutive year. It was exactly four years ago that colorFabb started here at this very show and it has been a great ride ever since. We had a great three days in Veldhoven and thank everybody who visited us and took the time to have a chat with us.

Below is a visual recap of this year’s RapidPro

The booth

Our basis and business card. For the first time we positioned ourselves in the Industrial part of the show, showcasing not only our functional co-polyester filaments, made with Eastman Amphora™, but also the Stacker printer which we distribute as well as our new services like modeling for 3D printing, engineering and printing itself.

 

The visitors

The one factor that makes or breaks a show are the visitors. And we seem to get the best of them every show! Thanks everybody for dropping by.

The Stacker 3D Printer

Featured printer in our booth this year was the recently launched Stacker S2 (available here and on Kickstarter). With two printers in our booth and one at the Mikro Centrum central booth it was easily the best represented printer of the show!  Interested in this printer? Contact us at sales@colorfabb.com

 

Moveo Robotic Arm

The Moveo robotic arm was designed by BCN (and we teased it before). Entirely printed, even the belts, we were proud to finally reveal this project at the RapidPro this year, where it was part of the Mikro Centrum booth in the middle of all the action.

And, of course, the full video of the robotic arm in action:

 

We had a blast during the show and hope to welcome you again next year. For everybody who couldn’t make it, we will keep the 10% discount on all our spools of filament for the remainder of this weekend (Sunday night midnight CET). Go to http://colorfabb.com/ and use coupon code RAPIDPRO2017 when checking out, or simply click here.

RapidPro

This week, starting today,  you can find us at the RapidPro Trade show and conference in Veldhoven on March 7, 8 and 9. It was four years ago that colorFabb debuted at this very show and we are attending again for the fifth consecutive year.

For the first time, we will be at the Industrial part of the show floor. You can find us at stand 16.


Stacker S2

This year the Stacker S2 3D printer will makes it debut at the colorFabb stand. The S2 was launched on Kickstarter last week and reached its goal within 4 hours after the campaign kick-off. The S2 is a two head industrial grade printer specifically built for education, manufacturing and design pro markets.

colorFabb is proud partner of Stacker and is the official distributor for the EMEA region. At colorFabb we have been extensively testing with both the S2 and S4 in our print lab with our entire range of filaments.

Read our previous blog on our experience with the Stacker S2.
The S2 shares most of the same design and engineering of its bigger sibling, the model S4. The larger model S4 has been shipped to customers since August of 2016 and has proven itself as a reliable industrial grade 3D printer.

For Stacker the term “industrial grade” is not a hollow marketing term. It means the S2 was designed for extra long service life, extremely low maintenance and that the printer will maintain its positional accuracy throughout its life cycle. The way “industrial grade” is achieved begins with superior engineering and high-quality components, and ends with an Stacker’s innovative new assembly method.

Come and see for yourself at the RapidPro in the next few days at stand 16. A full product description of the Stacker printers can be found here.

At the show we will be printing on both the Stacker S2 and S4. Materials of choice are the range of co-polyesters we released in the past few years. Co-polyesters are made with Eastman Amphora™ 3D polymer, materials which provide for low-odor and styrene-free options that are uniquely suited for 3D printing applications. With Amphora, items can be created that are more functional, more durable, more efficient, and attractive.

A featured print at the organizer’s booth is the Moveo Robot Arm by BCN3D, entirely printed with co-polyester filaments. Printed with colorFabb_XT Yellow and nGen Dark Gray. For the timing belts, we used nGen_FLEX Black. Printed by our own 3D print engineer Jos Deelen.

We have teased about this project before (here and here), but you can now and we are proud to finally show the results at the RapidPro!

Design: https://www.bcn3dtechnologies.com/en/bcn3d-moveo-the-future-of-learning/

Find out more about Amphora in this blog we posted last year. colorFabb_XT was our first co-polyester based filament, released in 2014. 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 (enabled by Eastman Tritan™ copolyester technology).and semi-flexible nGen_FLEX.

Our range of co-polyester based filaments are available online.

During the entire week you can get a 10% discount on all our spools of filaments (samples and printers excluded) by using the discount code RAPIDPRO2017 in our webshop. (Use this link to immediately get your 10% discount!)

 

We hope to see you in the next few days in Veldhoven and if you can’t make it, keep an eye out on our social media accounts for the latest updates!