CashMag

3D printing allows more businesses to bring their products to the market faster and more efficiently than ever before. The technology, although around for many years, has been a true game-changer in the past decade. At colorFabb, almost eight years young at the time of writing, we have seen 3D printing grow from a mainly hobby-oriented market, originating from the Reprap movement, to a confident additive manufacturing industry where more and more companies have not only made it part of their production and prototyping process, but even it made it their main way of producing.

One company using 3D printing as a way of producing their products is the French company CashMag, which is using various colorFabb copolyesters as their main material to print with. We asked them to tell a bit more about themselves and the way they work.

 

 

The desktop Cash Recylcer by CashMag – all images by CashMag and used with permission

 

About CashMag

CashMag is a leading French company in cashing solutions. They provide to their customers products like POS (point of sale) systems, cashing software with specific certifications for the French market and since 2008 Cash Recyclers!

 

 

What is a Cash Recycler?   “A Cash Recycler removes the need for staff to handle cash at the POS. It automates the payment process at Point Of Sale, improving the hygiene, deleting errors and shrinkage while enhancing security and staff productivity.”

 

The 5K Cash Recycler

With the Cash Recycler in the market they searched for a way to give a boost in productivity. The Cash Recycler was originally made of steel and they found it took long to improve existing products and to prototype new ones. So they turned towards 3D printing: “We started with 15 PRUSA i3 MK3 for our first try, and after several tests and improving our skills to this new technology we were able to produce good results. It lead to the production our first cash recycler 3D printing the 1F. Nowadays, we have 53 3D printers with different sizes and characteristics like Stacker 4 XL, RAISE PRO2+, MODIX BIG 60 etc… In 2018 we created the world first 100% 3D printed cash recyclers: the Desktop, the 5K and the 5T.”

Printing parts on the Stacker S4 XL

 

 

 

Our team found colorFabb and asked them for a solution. The nGen filament was the golden key!

 

CashMag’s material choice

CashMag explains further: “After a long time of tweaking our skills, we searched for a filament with the same characteristics of PETG but a little bit stronger and easy to print without warping. Our team found colorFabb and asked them for a solution. The nGen filament was the golden key! In February 2019, our CEO visited colorFabb in Netherlands to see how filament is produced and met with the colorFabb team in order to establish a good business relationship.”

They have also started working with PETG Economy with great results!

 

 

At colorFabb we value our working relationships with business partners and actively help to find the best possible material for their application. With CashMag we found that our range of co-polyesters, especially nGen, was the best fit for them. Custom development, as recently highlighted with Gantri is also a possibility. Interested to find out what material suits your needs best? Contact us!

 

About nGen

Almost 5 years ago, by the end of 2015, we released a new all-round material called nGen, next Generation, based on Eastman Amphora AM3300. We believed then (and still do) that this filament was a next step for 3D printing materials. It was our goal to bring a filament to the market that has functional properties, looks astonishingly good and prints like a dream.

nGen has been a hit ever since. This is not without reason. It is true all-round material suitable for most day to day 3D printing activities. Its chemical make up ensures a very consistent quality. An advantage over PLA is its elevated temperature resistance: 85 degrees C instead of 55 degrees C, so even in hotter climates (or a hot summer day) the material holds up extremely well. Below is a comparison chart of several of the Amphora based filaments compared to commodity materials like ABS and PLA.

You can read more on our dedicated landing page or our blog about co-polyesters.

nGen is an amazing material which enables users to create parts with gorgeous detail and the benefit of long term stability. Don’t just take our word for it. Below are some of the reviews that our users posted in our webshop:

“Its just the perfect Filament for me!”

“Printing as easy as PLA, but with better material properties.”

“nGen is very predictable and strong.”

“nGen is always my “go to” filament. It just prints beautifully. It’s strong, handles heat well, reliable, and just looks great.”

“… prints like butter 🙂 and the finish is absolutely perfect.”

DPA-100

Today we announce a brand new colorFabb material: DPA-100 – our first dissolvable support filament, specifically made for engineering materials.

colorFabb_XT and colorFabb PETG Economy printed with DPA-100. Topology optimized shelf bracket – by toms3dp

 

Learn more about the how-to and technical details here.

 

Beyond PVA

Unlike PVA our DPA-100 is less sensitive to moisture uptake and offers better shelf-life and print performance over time. It is a Dissolvable Polyacrylate material made to work specifically with engineering grade materials which are not suited for PVA, like PETG, ABS, ASA, PC and PA filaments. We have extensively tested DPA-100 on various 3D printing materials available in the market, both colorFabb and non-colorFabb branded.

DPA-100 is also perfectly suited for our range of co-polyester filaments: nGen, colorFabb_XT, colorFabb_HT and PETG Economy.

Quick guide: Which material and how?

Match Hotend temp Support Bed temp
nGen Yes 250 C 90C
colorFabb_XT Yes 250 C 90C
colorFabb_HT Yes 260 C 110C
PETG Economy Yes 250 C 90C
Generic ABS Yes 250C 100C
Generic ASA Yes 250C 100C

Read our full DPA-100 guide about the technical specifications and how to print.

 

Design by Ken Schulze

How to dissolve

Printing with DPA-100 is the first step. Dissolving the material is the second one. In order to dissolve DPA-100 you need a mild alkaline solution which is heated and stirred. At higher temperature DPA-100 will dissolve faster than at lower temperature. The temperature you choose depends on the temperature resistance of your build material. In general 20c below the temperature resistance of your build material is a safe settings. Thicker models would be less likely to deform and can handle temperatures closer to softening temperature. The minimum pH value for the alkaline solution is >10. We recommend using our DPA Detergent for making the alkaline solution.

The DPA Detergent is sold seperately from the DPA-100 filament.

 

Bicycle Helmet by Neomek

 

Detergent disclaimer

The detergent, dissolved in water, produces a mild alkaline which usually, together with the dissolved support material, can (in limited quantities) be disposed of via the wastewater. Please check your local regulations. You can acquire our waste profile datasheet by contacting support@colorfabb.com

Availability

DPA-100 and DPA detergent are available now exclusively from colorFabb’s website. Please note they are to be purchased separately.

DPA-100 is available as a 0.5kg spool and retails at € 120 ex VAT. Click here to head to our webshop.

DPA Detergent can be purchased per 1 kg drum at € 18 ex VAT and can be found here.

You can find all the relevant data sheets on the product pages.

 

Lithophanes

The art of making lithophanes is about 200 years old. It consists of etching an image in very thin translucent porcelain and use a light behind it to make the art visible. Historians claim that the idea originated from China, a thousand years ago or even longer. It used to be a manual process with, admittedly, stellar results. It made (and still makes) for great personal gifts.

With the growing popularity of 3D printing we have seen an increase of lithophanes posted on social media. The treshold is lower to start making one and the results can be amazing. Mind you, it still takes some skill to make them truly astonishing. Below are a few of the examples we have seen over the past few years. A special shout-out to Steve McGarr from Carlow, Ireland who has been posted quite a few and offers the designs in his Gadunky webshop. You should definitely check his work out and get his amazing designs.

Not only do our all-round PLA Economy White and PLA/PHA Standard White give great results, as you can see below our users have made lithophanes with nGen and colorFabb_XT as well!

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bup5gRjn352/

 

I’ll post this again; Happy Birthday Stan
byu/Retropally in3Dprinting

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/B1ADCFDInWL/?igshid=1n6wkihtskvxk

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BdJUvWwHqsB/

 

https://twitter.com/TreeTopArts/status/895105988142915584

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/B0FevrEC-7_/?igshid=7wzzy2q56i8j

 

 

https://twitter.com/smcgarr/status/1073752469468004353

 

 

 

One thing has not changed since the early days: creating lithophanes is still a craft and it takes some skills to make it look great! You can easily click on the images above to go straight to the orignal posts made on social media.

All the mentioned materials are available in our webshop and ship daily, worldwide and from stock. Find out more about the filaments and their properties here:

Our print team is currently working on some prints as well. Stay tuned for more from our print lab.

B25j Mitchell model plane

We have posted about model planes and drones before and know the model plane and drone communities are avid 3D printers. We saw a great model of a B25j Mitchell plane on Facebook recently and asked the maker, Coen Loos, for more information. He was kind enough to share some more details.

Printed by Coen Loos / design by 3DLabprint / all images by Coen Loos

Coen works at a school and got in touch with 3D printing there. He has been an avid 3D printer ever since 2015 and specifically focusses on model planes. He mainly uses designs by 3DLabPrint, specialist in 3D printable plane models. Coen was the first one using 3D printing with his local model plane club and people were skeptic at first… until he flew his printed plane!

The classic North American Mitchell B25j was mostly printed on the Prusa i3 Mk3 and made with our PLA Economy filament. Coen says: “colorFabb is my prefered brand due to its good service, reliable filament and perfect printing results.” Always glad to read that! Some smaller items were printed with nGen and Ninjaflex filament on the Ultimaker 2+.

The print settings for the main parts on the Prusa were:

  • Layer height 0.25mm
  • Nozzle temp 230c
  • Bed 55C
  • No cooling fan
  • Single perimeter of 0.42mm

Coen has chosen PLA due to its reliability but sees the need for more specific filaments. For that reason we sent him spools of our LW-PLA and varioShore TPU for further testing and we look forward to the results of that!

You can find this and many other plane models available for purchase at the 3DLabPrint website.

The results are amazing and Coen is planning on the maiden flight soon and we’re sure we’ll update you on that! Thanks for sharing, Coen!

 

About PLA Economy

PLA Economy is available on 2.2kg, 4.5kg and 8kg spools only. It is very well suited for the maker who needs quality filament at an affordable price. It is a perfect material for large volume and small series production, made with the guaranteed colorFabb quality that we are known for.

PLA Economy is now available in six of the most popular colors. ColorFabb PLA Economy is not a standard PLA. It has been modified for better layer adhesion and flow properties to get better performance over other basic PLA filaments. Because it’s made with the same processing technology used for other premium colorFabb products, this PLA Economy will be just as reliable.

Clearance sale

Nothing lasts forever…

In the past few years we have been adding and adding filaments to our portfolio. And then we added even more. At this point we have, also thanks to our Color on Demand program, thousands of products in our system. Mostly filaments. But not all filaments are equally succesfull and some of them need to make space for new innovations. That’s why we are currently having our largest clearance sale in our seven year history. Go to our Sales page on the webshop to see what filaments will be gone forever soon.

Why?

Why get rid of all these bright and fantastic colors. To be quite honest: economy and efficiency. We have a lot of great filaments that sell really well. The filaments chosen to be part of the clearance sale simply do not sell well enough to keep in stock. With every filament we asked ourselves questions that needed to be asked: Is Warm Red too close to Traffic Red to justify its existence? Is there any real demand for colorFabb_XT Pink or Purple? Although stunning, was there every really a market for nGen Transparent? All these questions were answered and tough decisions were made.

Are they bad filaments? No, absolutely not. They have been produced according to the same high standards as our other filaments and we stand with the quality of the materials we ship. We listen to the market and said market has made a choice. Demand is simply too low to keep them in stock. That is not to say there is no demand for them at all, but with an ever increasing portfolio of various filaments we have to make decisions. And we like our decision to be rational and fact-based.

So…? If your favorite material or color is among these pre-selected colors, you can now order in bulk to make sure you have plenty of stock to keep you printing for the time being. We have dropped the pricing significantly so the initial investment can be kept at a minimum.

But I really need this one filament!?! Custom production can be arranged, but an MOQ will apply for this, usually as from 25kg per material/color. Check with our team for the options.

And if I need only one spool? If it is PLA you are in luck. With our Color on Demand service we can produce a spool of PLA in RAL for you. Click here for the options. Color on Demand does not extend yet to other materials.

And when it’s gone? It’s gone. It is a clearance sale after all. We do not plan to have these products in stock again. There are more materials on the horizon (*stares at horizon*).

Below is a list of the materials which will go out of stock:

  • PLA/PHA Magenta (SOLD OUT)
  • PLA/PHA Chocolate Brown (SOLD OUT)
  • PLA/PHA Fluorescent Green
  • PLA/PHA Light Brown (SOLD OUT)
  • PLA/PHA Greenish Beige (SOLD OUT)
  • PLA/PHA Yellow Transparent
  • PLA/PHA Olympic Gold (SOLD OUT)
  • PLA/PHA Olive Green (SOLD OUT)
  • PLA/PHA Warm Red (SOLD OUT)
  • nGen Pink
  • nGen Purple
  • nGen_LUX Star Yellow
  • nGen_LUX Nature Green
  • nGen_LUX Regal Violet (SOLD OUT)
  • nGen Yellow Transparent
  • nGen Orange Transparent
  • nGen Red Transparent
  • nGen Blue Transparent (SOLD OUT)
  • nGen Green Transparent
  • nGen Violet Transparent
  • colorFabb_XT Purple
  • colorFabb_XT Pink
  • colorFabb_XT Dark Green
  • colorFabb_XT Orange
  • colorFabb_XT Yellow (SOLD OUT)

 

CLICK HERE TO GO TO OUR SALES PAGE

Lamp Shades

There is no restriction these days where one can find 3D printed parts: gadgets, end parts, tooling, prototypes and, more and more, design pieces that you can find in any home these days. One great application is to use 3D printing to make unique and customized lamp shades. Companies like Gantri are doing amazing things in this field and we recently came across the work of Nicolas Muller, who designed the Shiny Leaves Lamp Shade.

Design and all images by Nicolas Muller

Nicolas uses our nGen Clear to print the lamp shades on his self-built printer using E3D extruder and hot ends. He even used nGen to print parts of the printer, so he is clearly a fan! The ease of use and clarity of the filament has made it the go-to filament for Nicolas.

Nicolas is an architect and enjoys working on lamp shades and other designs when he finds the time. He is located in Strasbourg, France. From time to time he publishes his work on his Facebook page.

Nicolas’ website is still under construction but you can contact him if you would like to have more information: contact@acidstudio.fr. We will definitely follow him and his amazing work!

ABOUT NGEN

A little over three years ago, by the end of 2015, we released a new all-round material called nGen, next Generation, based on Eastman Amphora AM3300. We believed then (and still do) that this filament was a next step for 3D printing materials. It was our goal to bring a filament to the market that has functional properties, looks astonishingly good and prints like a dream.

nGen has been a hit ever since. This is not without reason. It is true all-round material suitable for most day to day 3D printing activities. Its chemical make up ensures a very consistent quality. An advantage over PLA is its elevated temperature resistance: 80 degrees instead of 45 degrees, so even in hotter climates (or a hot summer day) the material holds up extremely well. Below is a comparison chart of several of the Amphora based filaments compared to commodity materials like ABS and PLA.

You can read more on our dedicated landing page or our blog about co-polyesters.

nGen is an amazing material which enables users to create parts with gorgeous detail and the benefit of long term stability. Don’t just take our word for it. Below are some of the reviews that our users posted in our webshop:

“Its just the perfect Filament for me!”

“Printing as easy as PLA, but with better material properties.”

“nGen is very predictable and strong.”

“nGen is always my “go to” filament. It just prints beautifully. It’s strong, handles heat well, reliable, and just looks great.”

“… prints like butter 🙂 and the finish is absolutely perfect.”

Ceiling housing

Series production on a 3D printer can be done one by one. But what if you did it four by four? On the Stacker S4 it is possible to produce multiple parts at the same time due to the large print bed (345x525mm) and four print heads. Like these ceiling housings for a passive infrared (PIR) sensor, printed with nGen Dark Gray.

Design by TerroBladeZ

Printing small series is easier than ever with the Stacker combined with colorFabb filaments. Not only is it faster, it enables the user more flexibility and it saves money over conventional production. It took merely 18 hours to print 16 ceiling housings with a 0.4mm nozzle and at 0.12mm layer height.

 

About nGen

A little over three years ago, by the end of 2015, we released a new all-round material called nGen, next Generation, based on Eastman Amphora AM3300. We believed then (and still do) that this filament was a next step for 3D printing materials. It was our goal to bring a filament to the market that has functional properties, looks astonishingly good and prints like a dream.

nGen has been a hit ever since. This is not without reason. It is true all-round material suitable for most day to day 3D printing activities. Its chemical make up ensures a very consistent quality. An advantage over PLA is its elevated temperature resistance: 80 degrees instead of 45 degrees, so even in hotter climates (or a hot summer day) the material holds up extremely well. Below is a comparison chart of several of the Amphora based filaments compared to commodity materials like ABS and PLA.

You can read more on our dedicated landing page or our blog about co-polyesters.

nGen is an amazing material which enables users to create parts with gorgeous detail and the benefit of long term stability. Don’t just take our word for it. Below are some of the reviews that our users posted in our webshop:

“Its just the perfect Filament for me!”

“Printing as easy as PLA, but with better material properties.”

“nGen is very predictable and strong.”

“nGen is always my “go to” filament. It just prints beautifully. It’s strong, handles heat well, reliable, and just looks great.”

“… prints like butter 🙂 and the finish is absolutely perfect.”

 

About Stacker

The Stacker 3D printers are industrial grade FFF 3D printers. Recently the even larger Stacker S4 XL was added to the portfolio. Multiple print heads and a large build volume make them versatile printers. Small series production or large scale prototyping are no problem for the Stacker printers! This US based printer is very reliable and is a perfect match for any professional looking for serious 3D printing. You can find the full product specifications on our dedicated Stacker page.

For Stacker the term “industrial grade” is not a hollow marketing term. It means their printers are designed for extra long service life, extremely low maintenance and that the printer will maintain its positional accuracy throughout its life cycle. This printer has been designed to be used in a professional environment, be it for large prototypes or small series production.

The Stacker printers on display in our print lab

As many of you know, we are the distributor of Stacker 3D printers in Europe. We have been working with Stacker ever since their first prototype and now have several in our print lab. In the past 6 years we have seen 3D printing emerging from a hobby market to more professional uses. A lot of our users are using 3D printing to make a living or at least support their business in one way or another.

Interested? Get a quote or contact us!

Christmas Tree

With Christmas around the corner it’s only apt we follow suit with the rest of the world and print a Christmas tree. We chose the design by idig3D for our Christmas print. For the material we chose nGen Green Transparent.

Design: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1913982

Earlier this year we released no less than six transparent nGen colors:



nGen is of course our go-to filament and available in many colors. It is a true all-round material suitable for most day to day 3D printing activities. At the core of its reliability is the special chemical make-up of the Eastman Amphora™ AM3300 3D polymer, which results in a good melt stability. From pellet to filament to 3D print, nGen retains its material properties very well, meaning more stable results with less waste of time and material.

The Christmas tree was printed on the Ultimaker S5 with a 0.8 AA core nozzle and with a 0.4mm layer height. Nozzle temperature was 240C and the bed temp at 80C. We used the spiral vase mode.

nGen works extremely well on the Ultimaker printers. Find out more on the standard settings we recommend here. But one could make life even easier. Only yesterday we posted that nGen (under it’s raw material name AM3300) has been added to the Ultimaker Market Place, making printing with the right settings even easier!

Learn more about printing nGen on the Ultimaker 3 and S5 here.

nGen AM3300 in Ultimaker Market Place

Not long after we announced that XT-CF20 was added to the Ultimaker Market Place in Cura 3.6 in addition to Color on Demand PLA and woodFill we are happy to tell you that nGen now also is a part of the Market Place. Sort of…

Twin RC waterjet by Ewolve

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2752198

The Ultimaker Market Place makes it easier for users of the Ultimaker 3 and S5 to use pre-set profiles for third party filaments which have been tested by both the filaments manufacturers and Ultimaker themselves to achieve the best possible user experience.

Important: To choose the optimal nGen settings in the Market Place head to the Eastman entries and choose AM3300, the base material for nGen.

Three years ago, by the end of 2015, we released a new all-round material called nGen, next Generation, based on Eastman Amphora AM3300. We believed then (and still do) that this filament was a next step for 3D printing materials. It was our goal to bring a filament to the market that has functional properties, looks astonishingly good and prints like a dream.

Printed with nGen Red on the Ultimaker S5 with 0.15mm layer height.

nGen has been a hit ever since. This is not without reason. It is true all-round material suitable for most day to day 3D printing activities. Its chemical make up ensures a very consistent quality. An advantage over PLA is its elevated temperature resistance: 80 degrees instead of 45 degrees, so even in hotter climates (or a hot summer day) the material holds up extremely well. Below is a comparison chart of several of the Amphora based filaments compared to commodity materials like ABS and PLA.

You can read more on our dedicated landing page or our blog about co-polyesters.

nGen is an amazing material which enables users to create parts with gorgeous detail and the benefit of long term stability. Don’t just take our word for it. Below are some of the reviews that our users posted in our webshop:

“Its just the perfect Filament for me!”

“Printing as easy as PLA, but with better material properties.”

“nGen is very predictable and strong.”

“nGen is always my “go to” filament. It just prints beautifully. It’s strong, handles heat well, reliable, and just looks great.”

“… prints like butter 🙂 and the finish is absolutely perfect.”

“The material has good print bed adhesion, low warping and low shrinkage. Easy to print.”

Beyond our initial goals to create a filament that prints well and holds up to every day 3D printing tasks we have since found out more properties of the filament, giving it a great advantage. For instance, we recently came across a business case where a printed object made with nGen has been under water in the ocean for 16 months! And it did not loose its functional properties!

And you can get highly detailed prints as well:

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Model balustrade. Original post: https://learn.colorfabb.com/detailed-balustrade/

Although nGen is a true star in our portfolio, it doesn’t feel too good to perform a supporting role from time to time. Literally. In combination with colorFabb_XT nGen filament can also be used as a breakaway support. Complex designs like the drill case below do need support material and we found that nGen did a great job in that department.

Drill case. Original post: https://learn.colorfabb.com/drill-case/

Another great material it works extremely well with is our nGen_FLEX:

Pliers (click image for the gif to play). Original post: https://learn.colorfabb.com/pliers
Coupler (click image for the gif to play). Original post: https://learn.colorfabb.com/coupler/

It is not only materials nGen plays well with. It also performs extremely well on a wide range of printers. And with the addition of AM3300 to the Ultimaker Market Place in Cura 3.6, printing with nGen is easier than ever.

nGen Transparent Prints

With nGen we offer an all-round 3D printing filament for every day use. One advantage over PLA is its glass temperature (of 85 degrees C, double that of PLA). Another is the special chemical make-up of the base material, Eastman Amphora™ AM3300 3D polymer, which results in a good melt stability. From pellet to filament to 3D print, nGen retains its material properties very well, meaning more stable results with less waste of time and material. Read more on what nGen is. Earlier this year we launched 6 more nGen colors – all of them transparent.

Below are some of the recent prints we made:

All designs by Richie_i3: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3028886

All the prints were made in our print lab on the Ultimaker 2+. We used the following settings:

  • Nozzle diameter: 0.8
  • Layerheight: 0.5
  • Nozzle temperature: 240C
  • Bed temperature: 75C
  • Extrusion multiplier: 1.4
  • Vase mode: on

nGen works extremely well on the Ultimaker printers. Find out more on the standard settings we recommend here.

 

Back in March we added 6 transparent colors to our nGen portfolio:

 

 

The colors were added to a rich mix of 17 colors, bringing the total to 23 colors of nGen filament you can choose from and ship from stock! With nGen Transparent colors you can print objects that have a great shine and stand out from the crowd, even from far away.

nGen is a true all-round material suitable for most day to day 3D printing activities. At the core of its reliability is the special chemical make-up of the Eastman Amphora™ AM3300 3D polymer, which results in a good melt stability. From pellet to filament to 3D print, nGen retains its material properties very well, meaning more stable results with less waste of time and material.

It was launched almost 3 years ago and has been a hit ever since. This is not without reason. It is true all-round material suitable for most day to day 3D printing activities. Its chemical make up ensures a very consistent quality. An advantage over PLA is its elevated temperature resistance: 80 degrees instead of 45 degrees, so even in hotter climates (or a hot summer day) the material holds up extremely well. Below is a comparison chart of several of the Amphora based filaments compared to commodity materials like ABS and PLA.

You can read more on our dedicated landing page, our blog about co-polyesters or our most recent blog revisiting this filament.

Our brand new nGen transparent colors are available now in our webshop and ship from stock. Click here to go directly to our webshop. Samples are also available.

 

 

Also available: nGen_LUX, our brand new luxurious high-end filament. Read more about what makes this filament so special here.