3D printing prosthetics

3D printing changes lives in many ways. Nowhere as much as in the field of prosthetics where it has a direct impact on people’s daily lives. Prosthetics are nothing new, but 3D printing allows for more customization and faster developments tailored specifically to the person who needs the prosthetic part.

In December 2016 we already wrote a blog about this particular use of 3D printing by Mathis Orthopédie. Below are some more examples of organizations that are using 3D printing.

 

Médecins Sans Frontiéres

Médecins Sans Frontiéres (MSF, also known as Doctors Without Borders) is an organization that operates worldwide in conflict areas. Doctors and health sector workers work together to provide assistance to populations in distress, to victims of natural or man-made disasters and to victims of armed conflict.

One area is to provide prosthetics for Syrian war victims. You can see the great work MSF is doing in the video (made by The Economist) in Amman, Jordan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W1veGQxMe4

Video by The Economist

 

LifEnabled: Enable. Train. Serve.

The genesis of LifEnabled was in a Guatamalan clinic in 2006 when Brent Wright, Certified Prosthetist and Board Certified Orthotist, was invited by Tim and Doris Spurrier, founders of Hospital Shalom in San Benito, Guatemala, to launch the hospital’s prosthetic program.It took several years and a lot of help & input from friends and family to grow the program to a level where LifEnabled became an official non profit organization.

You can read the full story here (and it is a good story!).

Brent is increasingly looking at 3D printing to test and produce prosthetics. In the past few years, 3D printing has made leaps in terms of printers and materials. Quality is of course always the main priority. While traditional prosthetic sockets will still have a place in certain situations, the opportunity to move forward with 3D printing paves the way for helping more patients with less material and time costs. 3D printing also allows the potential for more access to prosthetic care for patients in impoverished parts of the world.

We have been in touch with Brent recently and sent him our new PA-CF Low Warp to test with. The results are very good, as you can see in the video below:

LifEnabled video and images by Brent Wright

He printed a transtibial Prosthetic socket, weighing 208 grams for and with 2.5 mm wall thickness. In his words: “This material is amazing.” It took 3.5 hours to print.

But 3D printing is not the only “new” technology used by LifEnabled. They also use a dedicated app. Brent says: “I have been working on a simple way to create an .stl or .obj file that can be scaled and then sent directly into your fabrication work flow. DigiScan 3D uses the structure.io scanner and an iPad. Some clinicians have found that they use an outside shape manipulation software, others have found ways to scale their model and go straight to test socket fabrication, while others just want a file they can keep in their electronic medical records. I wanted a simple way to capture a shape and not push people to buy a specific shape modification software.”

You can get the app here.

Make sure you check out the videos they have posted online with their awesome work:

Stay up to date with LifEnabled’s work:

 

Born Just Right

Born Just Right’s mission is to build creative solutions that help kids with differences live a more enjoyable life. It all started with Jordan Reeves, who was born just right. She is the lead innovator and official ambassador of BJR. Through her activities and opportunities to speak and mentor other kids with limb differences, Jordan is helping change attitudes around physical differences. Check out the TedX Youth talk she held:

Now, as it happens Jordan has an super hero alter ego: Girl Blaster. And the most obvious thing Girl Blaster needs is, of course, a 3D printed prosthetic that shoots sparkles! To make it even more awesome, they called it Project Unicorn.

Born Just Right was founded by Jen Lee Reeves, Jordan’s mother. She believes giving kids design knowledge empowers them to create their own solutions.  The focus of Born Just Right is on 3 outcomes:

  • Raise awareness about the power of design.
  • Identify and support inclusive designers & brands.
  • Support and grow a design community for kids and parents to help foster learning.

Jen works closely with Sam Hobish, designer and 3D printing wizard who made Project Unicorn a reality. The part was printed with our very own PLA/PHA Lila.

Jordan, Project Unicorn and Born Just Right have recently been featured in some worldwide publications:

colorFabb is proud partner of BJR! Make sure you follow the work of Born Just Right on social media:

And if you really want to stand out from the crowd, check out their shop.

 

From the Middle East, via Guatamala, to Missouri and all over the world, 3D printing prosthetics is changing lives. The world can be a harsh place some times, but it becomes great again when people – with the help of 3D printing, a lot of good will, an upbeat spirit and a healthy dose of creativity – start these organizations and make a change for the better. It is important and necessary work.

At colorFabb we aim to develop and produce the best possible materials for this application, be it semi-flexible nGen_FLEX, a high strength PA-CF Low Warp or a wide range of colors in our PLA/PHA and nGen range.

Robotics

It is a well established fact by now that our new PA-CF Low Warp filament is all about functionality. We developed this filament with only one goal: to make sure a lot of users have the ability to print high quality printed parts. Even on a cold bed. In the past weeks we have already shown quite a few prints and their respective qualities (listed below). Another great application for PA-CF Low Warp is the field of robotics and we printed a few parts to show:

Designs:

The prints above have been designed for the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) which just kicked off its 2018 season again. You can find a full collection of designs that have been made in the past for the FRC here.

FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is an organisation aimed to encourage young people to become science and technology leaders and you should definitely check out their website.

PA-CF Low Warp is, due to its stiffness and strength, a perfect material for robotics and its much needed custom made parts. In that regard it is not that different from the application of this filament for drone parts, about which we wrote last week.

The parts were all printed on our Ultimaker 2+ in our print lab, equipped with 0.4mm Olsson Ruby nozzles. We printed at 260C and a 50C bed. Due to its abrasive nature, the Olsson Ruby nozzles ensure that print quality remains the same for many, many hours and days of printing.

As the name indicates, PA-CF Low Warp is a polyamide (nylon) with carbon fiber. An added bonus is that, unlike many other engineering grade filaments, it has very little warping when printing large objects! Low infill prints come out perfectly flat on cold bed for higher infill prints 40/50C temperature is enough to obtain flat prints. It is an engineering grade filament for a wide range of printers and users alike. You can find more information on our dedicated landing page.

In recent weeks we have printed a lot with PA-CF Low Warp. Below are a few examples:

The PA-CF Low Warp filament is a one of a kind polyamide formulation with the ability to print nearly warp free on non heated buildplatforms. Low infill prints come out perfectly flat on cold bed for higher infill prints 40/50C temperature is enough to obtain flat prints.

PA-CF Low Warp allows continuous use at 120°C while retaining sufficient properties for the intended application. Most high heat resistant materials will be difficult to print and require heated chambers and / or heated platforms to keep parts from warping the bottom layer. PA-CF Low Warp shows a very low tendency to warp, even at ambient temperature platform.

Eager to get started? Click here to get the basics on how to print with PA_CF Low Warp.

PA-CF Low Warp is available now in our webshop and ships from stock. We currently stock spools of 700 grams, but as from late next week large spools containing 2kg of material will be available as well.

You can also opt to get a unique bundle package, containing one spool of PA-CF Low Warp and the Olsson Ruby Nozzle 0.4mm in our webshop.

SLS Prints

Back in November we announced our partnership with Sintratec. Sintratec is a Swiss high-tech company specializing in the development and production of SLS 3D printers. You can read the announcement here. In more than one way this has been a very important step for colorFabb. Not only do we add another high-end printer for the industrial market to our portfolio, this is also our first step beyond FFF / FDM 3D printing. Working with Sintratec is our first venture in SLS 3D printing and a very exciting one at that!

Sintratec S1: https://colorfabb.com/sintratec-s1

The partnership with Sintratec is in line with colorFabb’s mission statement: Offering added value with high quality material and hardware solutions to meet our customer’s needs by means of interfacing between polymer knowledge and 3D printing know-how.

SLS (Selective Laser Sintering) is a logical next step beyond our tried and tested way of FDM 3D printing. Laser sintering allows you to print extremely durable and highly detailed objects. The laser sintering technology makes it possible to print complex objects with unparalleled freedom of form. We have printed some examples:

Branched hand by PscL: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:332451

Scaled to a 60mm print, this branched hand shows the design freedom one has and the level of detail that can be achieved. We spent a whole euro to give a sense of scale.

Another great application for SLS is functional printing, like gears:

Herringbone gear by jonaskuehling: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:18379

We scaled these prints back to 28mm and 6mm each to show detail in functional parts.

All prints were made on the Sintratec Kit with Sintratec PA12 Powder. With SLS 3D printing a laser is used to sinter a powder, in this case Sintratec’s own nylon. The laser points at certain places in the powder binding the material together to create a solid structure. Below is a video where you can see how one layer is created:

New doors open and new worlds are to be explored when coming from traditional 3D printing.

Sintratec Kit: https://colorfabb.com/sintratec-kit

We currently offer both the Sintratec S1 (fully assembled SLS printer) and the Sintratec Kit (assembly required). We believe the Sintratec S1 is a unique offering which strengthens our portfolio of 3D printers and professional services.

Retail prices are:

Please contact us for more information or get a quote.

For a full overview of colorFabb’s portfolio of filaments and printers, please have a look at our catalogue.

Housing

3D printing is uniquely suitable for customizing parts that one needs on the fly. A custom housing, for instance. The original design by Printcontrol was made to be a housing for electronics, but you can use it as a housing in general. We chose our new PA-CF Low Warp filament to print for extra stiffness and toughness.

Original design: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:243905

And the matte finish just gives it a very cool and industrial look. We printed on the Ultimaker 2+, using the Olsson Ruby nozzle. Print temperature at 260C and a 50C bed. Layer height is 0.3mm.

As the name indicates, PA-CF Low Warp is a polyamide (nylon) with carbon fiber. An added bonus is that, unlike many other engineering grade filaments, it has very little warping when printing large objects! Low infill prints come out perfectly flat on cold bed for higher infill prints 40/50C temperature is enough to obtain flat prints. It is an engineering grade filament for a wide range of printers and users alike.

We have printed a lot with PA-CF Low Warp recently. Below are a few examples:

As said, functionality is key with this filament and it is a material that suits the needs of the professional user perfectly.

The PA-CF Low Warp is a one of a kind polyamide formulation with the ability to print nearly warp free on non heated buildplatforms. Low infill prints come out perfectly flat on cold bed for higher infill prints 40/50C temperature is enough to obtain flat prints.

PA-CF Low Warp allows continuous use at 120°C while retaining sufficient properties for the intended application. Most high heat resistant materials will be difficult to print and require heated chambers and / or heated platforms to keep parts from warping the bottom layer. PA-CF Low Warp shows a very low tendency to warp, even at ambient temperature platform.

PA-CF Low Warp is a material that has a lot of practical applications. One of them is within the automotive industry. The unique combination of high strength, good temperature resistance and good chemical stability makes this material a good choice for parts in and around the car. It’s used a lot already for brackets and covers.

In general it can be used for functional prototyping and final part manufacturing. For functional prototyping users are often looking for materials which have good toughness, strength and resistance to abrasion. Because of the excellent mechanical strength and heat resistance het material can even be considers for use in final applications. PA-CF low warp has great dimensional stability, because of extremely low warp. The material is therefor unique suited for applications such as jigs & fixtures which require parts with accurate dimensions.

Eager to get started? Click here to get the basics on how to print with PA_CF Low Warp.

PA-CF Low Warp is available now in our webshop and ships from stock.

 

The Olsson Ruby Nozzle – One nozzle for all materials

Due to the abrassive nature of the filament we recommend the use of hardened nozzles for the best performance of the material and printer. For this reason we are offering the Olsson Ruby Nozzles with the purchase of PA-CF Low Warp. You can find the combined offer here.

We have published about the use of the Olsson Ruby Nozzle before and we are very enthusiastic about the use of this filament combined with abrassive materials like PA-CF Low Warp, but also XT-CF20 and steelFill.

The ruby mounted at the tip assures that even the toughest materials will be printable. It was originally designed for printing with a composite of Boron Carbide (B4C), the third hardest known material in the world. Since most of the Olsson Ruby is made from brass, with its excellent heat conductivity, performance and throughput is first-class.

This nozzle, soon on your printer!

The Olsson Ruby is manufactured, assembled and tested in a high-quality facility in Sweden. This is why 3DVerkstan – also colorFabb’s partner in the region – guarantees the very best quality and tolerances.

As from now you can purchase the Olsson Ruby Nozzle 0.4mm in combination with PA-CF Low Warp in our webshop.

 

 

Router attachment

Recently we released PA-CF Low Warp. This is a filament developed with one single purpose and that’s to create functional prints on a wide range of 3D printers. For today’s print we move further into the DIY world by printing a router attachment for a rotary tool, the Dremel in this case.

Original design: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:17105

Designed by Lenbok, we printed this part of the Ultimaker 2+ with a 0.8mm Olsson Ruby nozzle. We chose 0.2mm layer height and printed at 260C nozzle temp. As the designer says on his Thingiverse page: “Screw this puppy onto your dremel, adjust your bit depth, and route away to your heart’s content.”

As the name indicates, PA-CF Low Warp is a polyamide (nylon) with carbon fiber. An added bonus is that, unlike many other engineering grade filaments, it has very little warping when printing large objects! Low infill prints come out perfectly flat on cold bed for higher infill prints 40/50C temperature is enough to obtain flat prints. It is an engineering grade filament for a wide range of printers and users alike.

We have printed a lot with PA-CF Low Warp recently. Below are a few examples:

As said, functionality is key with this filament and it is a material that suits the needs of the professional user perfectly.

The PA-CF Low Warp is a one of a kind polyamide formulation with the ability to print nearly warp free on non heated buildplatforms. Low infill prints come out perfectly flat on cold bed for higher infill prints 40/50C temperature is enough to obtain flat prints.

PA-CF Low Warp allows continuous use at 120°C while retaining sufficient properties for the intended application. Most high heat resistant materials will be difficult to print and require heated chambers and / or heated platforms to keep parts from warping the bottom layer. PA-CF Low Warp shows a very low tendency to warp, even at ambient temperature platform.

PA-CF Low Warp is a material that has a lot of practical applications. One of them is within the automotive industry. The unique combination of high strength, good temperature resistance and good chemical stability makes this material a good choice for parts in and around the car. It’s used a lot already for brackets and covers.
In general it can be used for functional prototyping and final part manufacturing. For functional prototyping users are often looking for materials which have good toughness, strength and resistance to abrasion. Because of the excellent mechanical strength and heat resistance het material can even be considers for use in final applications. PA-CF low warp has great dimensional stability, because of extremely low warp. The material is therefor unique suited for applications such as jigs & fixtures which require parts with accurate dimensions.

Eager to get started? Click here to get the basics on how to print with PA_CF Low Warp.

PA-CF Low Warp is available now in our webshop and ships from stock.

 

The Olsson Ruby Nozzle – One nozzle for all materials

Due to the abrassive nature of the filament we recommend the use of hardened nozzles for the best performance of the material and printer. For this reason we are offering the Olsson Ruby Nozzles with the purchase of PA-CF Low Warp. You can find the combined offer here.

We have published about the use of the Olsson Ruby Nozzle before and we are very enthusiastic about the use of this filament combined with abrassive materials like PA-CF Low Warp, but also XT-CF20 and steelFill.

The ruby mounted at the tip assures that even the toughest materials will be printable. It was originally designed for printing with a composite of Boron Carbide (B4C), the third hardest known material in the world. Since most of the Olsson Ruby is made from brass, with its excellent heat conductivity, performance and throughput is first-class.

This nozzle, soon on your printer!

The Olsson Ruby is manufactured, assembled and tested in a high-quality facility in Sweden. This is why 3DVerkstan – also colorFabb’s partner in the region – guarantees the very best quality and tolerances.

As from now you can purchase the Olsson Ruby Nozzle 0.4mm in combination with PA-CF Low Warp in our webshop.

Gimbal

Another aspect where PA-CF Low Warp in excels is the fact that it is light weight, but tough. It is therefore an excellent material for drones for example where weight and strength matter. Today’s featured print is the Open Brushless Gimbal by turbi.

 

Original design: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:110731

The recently released high quality engineering filament is an excellent material for these type of demanding applications.

In the example we used printed motors instead of real brushless motors. The frame of the gimball is printed using PA-CF Low Warp on the Ultimaker 2+ with a 0.4mm Olsson Ruby nozzle, using 0.2mm layerheight. It was printed at 260C with 50C bed temp.

As the name indicates, PA-CF Low Warp is a polyamide (nylon) with carbon fiber. An added bonus is that, unlike many other engineering grade filaments, it has very little warping when printing large objects! Low infill prints come out perfectly flat on cold bed for higher infill prints 40/50C temperature is enough to obtain flat prints. It is an engineering grade filament for a wide range of printers and users alike.

The PA-CF Low Warp is a one of a kind polyamide formulation with the ability to print nearly warp free on non heated buildplatforms. Low infill prints come out perfectly flat on cold bed for higher infill prints 40/50C temperature is enough to obtain flat prints.

It  is the first result of the cooperation between LEHVOSS group and colorFabb. Both companies share the vision to develop high strength engineering materials, without compromising on printability.   Together with LEHVOSS colorFabb created a custom formulation which is optimized for the production of high quality filament and achieving the best possible 3D printing characteristics. PA-CF Low Warp is the first PA based filament released by colorFabb and only released now because it doesn’t compromise on printability. The very low warp characteristic of this material is a truly unique feature of this PA material and allows many users to process nylon material on standard desktop FFF 3D printers.

PA-CF Low Warp allows continuous use at 120°C while retaining sufficient properties for the intended application. Most high heat resistant materials will be difficult to print and require heated chambers and / or heated platforms to keep parts from warping the bottom layer. PA-CF Low Warp shows a very low tendency to warp, even at ambient temperature platform.

As can be seen with this example for drone parts, users can now print high strength material without the need of heated chambers. The materials shows very good results for 3D printed specimens compared to injection molded data, with only minimal loss in performance. This is a result of the excellent printability of the material, enabling users to acquire optimal performance on desktop FFF 3d printers.

PA-CF Low Warp is a material that has a lot of practical applications. One of them is within the automotive industry. The unique combination of high strength, good temperature resistance and good chemical stability makes this material a good choice for parts in and around the car. It’s used a lot already for brackets and covers.
In general it can be used for functional prototyping and final part manufacturing. For functional prototyping users are often looking for materials which have good toughness, strength and resistance to abrasion. Because of the excellent mechanical strength and heat resistance het material can even be considers for use in final applications. PA-CF low warp has great dimensional stability, because of extremely low warp. The material is therefor unique suited for applications such as jigs & fixtures which require parts with accurate dimensions.

Eager to get started? Click here to get the basics on how to print with PA_CF Low Warp.

PA-CF Low Warp is available now in our webshop and ships from stock.

 

The Olsson Ruby Nozzle – One nozzle for all materials

Due to the abrassive nature of the filament we recommend the use of hardened nozzles for the best performance of the material and printer. For this reason we are offering the Olsson Ruby Nozzles with the purchase of PA-CF Low Warp. You can find the combined offer here.

We have published about the use of the Olsson Ruby Nozzle before and we are very enthusiastic about the use of this filament combined with abrassive materials like PA-CF Low Warp, but also XT-CF20 and steelFill.

The ruby mounted at the tip assures that even the toughest materials will be printable. It was originally designed for printing with a composite of Boron Carbide (B4C), the third hardest known material in the world. Since most of the Olsson Ruby is made from brass, with its excellent heat conductivity, performance and throughput is first-class.

This nozzle, soon on your printer!

The Olsson Ruby is manufactured, assembled and tested in a high-quality facility in Sweden. This is why 3DVerkstan – also colorFabb’s partner in the region – guarantees the very best quality and tolerances.

As from now you can purchase the Olsson Ruby Nozzle 0.4mm in combination with PA-CF Low Warp in our webshop.

Feeder Bracket

Our recently released PA_CF Low Warp is a great material for making printed modifications for 3D printers. We printed the Rear Mount Feeder Bracket for the Ultimaker 2 with our new filament:

The design was made by Christopher Bray and can be downloaded here.

We printed this part on the Ultimaker 2+ with a 0.8mm Olsson Ruby nozzle 0.2mm layerheight and 260C nozzle temp. Of course this is not the only part that can be printed with our new functional filament: Fan mounts, motor mounts, extruder carriage, gears, etc. are all possibilities.

PA-CF Low Warp was released in the week before Christmas. It is our first foray into nylon based materials. The formulation has been modified to reduce the uptake of moisture by half compared to PA6 and it also takes about 4 times longer to reach the saturation point. This makes PA-CF Low Warp less sensitive to moisture then most other nylon filaments available in the market.

You can find more information about the printability of PA-CF Low Warp on our dedicated landing page.

The PA-CF Low Warp is a one of a kind polyamide formulation with the ability to print nearly warp free on non heated buildplatforms. Low infill prints come out perfectly flat on cold bed for higher infill prints 40/50C temperature is enough to obtain flat prints. This tailormade formulation of polyamide features the mechanical properties of a PA6. Tensile strength was measured at 77,99 MPa and impact strength (notched) was measured at 5,44KJ/m2, test specimens both printed on Ultimaker 2+, 260C 0.1mm layerheight with 100% infill.

PA-CF Low Warp is available now in our webshop and ships from stock.

The Olsson Ruby Nozzle – One nozzle for all materials

Due to the abrassive nature of the filament we recommend the use of hardened nozzles for the best performance of the material and printer. For this reason we are offering the Olsson Ruby Nozzles with the purchase of PA-CF Low Warp. You can find the combined offer here.

We have published about the use of the Olsson Ruby Nozzle before and we are very enthusiastic about the use of this filament combined with abrassive materials like PA-CF Low Warp, but also XT-CF20 and steelFill.

The ruby mounted at the tip assures that even the toughest materials will be printable. It was originally designed for printing with a composite of Boron Carbide (B4C), the third hardest known material in the world. Since most of the Olsson Ruby is made from brass, with its excellent heat conductivity, performance and throughput is first-class.

This nozzle, soon on your printer!

The Olsson Ruby is manufactured, assembled and tested in a high-quality facility in Sweden. This is why 3DVerkstan – also colorFabb’s partner in the region – guarantees the very best quality and tolerances.

As from now you can purchase the Olsson Ruby Nozzle 0.4mm in combination with PA-CF Low Warp in our webshop.