Repairing parts with PA-CF Low Warp

Another field where 3D printing excels in is the replacement of parts. With the right materials 3D printing is a great tool to extend the life of many everyday items. Crucial to this are various factors like modeling skills (if the file of the part is not readily available) and the right material. A functional filament like our PA-CF Low Warp is a perfect match when it comes that latter part.

About a year ago we posted abouy the laundry dryer part printed with colorFabb_HT:

Original post: https://learn.colorfabb.com/laundry-dryer/

This week we saw two examples on Twitter of users making parts with PA-CF Low Warp, our highly functional engineering grade nylon based filament.

First up is Brent Wright. We recently wrote a blog about the use of 3D printing in the field of prosthetics. Brent has been doing fantastic work at a hospital in Guatamala by printing prosthetics making it more accessible and cheaper for local people. You can read the original blog here.

Turns out that Brent is using his 3D printer for other parts as well:

 

https://twitter.com/lifenabled/status/977729672401379328

Image courtesy of Brent Wright

As you can see the original part is no longer available and instead of replacing the entire bed or having an expensive spare part made, Brent went to work and modeled & printed it. This way one saves money, time and also the environment. A small piece of plastic ensures not only that an entire bed is made obsolete, but a new bed also does not need to be transported through the Guatamalan jungle.

Brent has been using PA-CF Low Warp for a bit now, especially for prosthetics:

And we’re happy he has found yet another use for this great filament!

But the need to repair stuff can be found everywhere in the world. We make a small leap from the jungle of Central America to the UK, where Steve Cox resides. Steve is of course no stranger to 3D printing and colorFabb as his excellent skills with bronzeFill have shown. (Click here and here for examples).

Now, Steve was already working with PA-CF Low Warp (see this thread here for an excellent example) and when the vacuum cleaner broke he had the right material in house to print a new part:

When we contacted Steve about this he said: “I think this particular way of utilising 3D printing is something that should get more publicity, especially as we have such environmental pressures on us now.  I think it can definitely play a part in the circular economy because it puts us in a position where we are able to repair and reuse things more effectively than ever before.”

We couldn’t agree more. Steve was so generous to send us some high-res pictures:

 

 

All images courtesy of Steve Cox

Interestingly the vacuum cleaner head is now even stronger than it was before it broke.

Steve also notified us about a website called Happy3D: https://www.happy3d.fr/en/ This website specializes in designs to repair every day objects. You should definitely check this one out!

This was the second Dyson part Steve printed. Before he printed a part that went in the front of the head and held the bearings for the rotating brush. He modelled the part from photographs they sent him and a few critical dimensions.  He then printed the repair part in white nGen and it worked perfectly – the material cost for the part was around 16 Euro cents!

The CAD design by Steve Cox

The printed part, made with nGen White

 

We thank Brent and Steve for sharing their work on Twitter and their ultra fast responses after we contacted them. True makers and problem solvers who are showing us how 3D printing can and should be used. Great job, guys!

 

 

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. PA-CF Low Warp is, due to its stiffness and strength, a perfect material for replacement parts and custom made parts.

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.

 

Holiday Closures 2018

During Spring of this year there are some regional and national holidays we have to observe. We prefer working hard to make sure you get your filaments delivered to your door as fast as possible, but such is life. Below are the days we will be closed:

Monday, April 2nd – day after Easter

National holiday, little we can about it except for furniture shopping (Dutch tradition, don’t ask). All orders placed during the Easter weekend will ship on Tuesday April 3rd.

Friday, April 27th – King’s Day

All kinds of festivities in the Netherlands, but shipping your order is not one of them. All orders placed as from noon CET on April 26th will ship on Monday after that weekend.

Thursday, May 10th – Ascension Day

Another holiday, but we’ll be gone only for that day. Orders placed that day will ship on Friday.

Monday, May 21th – Pentecost

We like to stretch out our Catholic holidays. Like Christmas and Easter, there is another day added to Pentecost. All orders placed during the Pentecost weekend will ship on Tuesday May 22nd

PLA Semi Matte Black

Today we announce the launch of a new filament: PLA Semi-Matte Black

When developing our semi-matte PLA we’ve been looking for a solution which doesn’t involve fibers to achieve a less glossy surface finish. We did not want to loose the ease of use our PLA and keep print settings and parameters as close to regular PLA setttings. For a full matte finish our XT-CF20 and PA_CF Low Warp do the trick, but they need a hardened steel nozzle to print with. The brand new PLA Semi-Matte Black will bring a new aesthetic quality to our range of PLA filaments.

Our semi-matte PLA filament eliminates the glossy appearance seen on most PLA 3D prints. The highlights on the surface will be less visible, resulting in an overall cleaner and much higher quality look.

The example below shows the difference between PLA Economy Black and PLA Semi-Matte Black. The part was printed on the Prusa I3 MK2s using the material switch option. The entire part was printed with 210C.

Left: PLA Economy Black / Right: PLA Semi Matte Black

If you’re looking to upgrade your 3D printed projects to the next level, our PLA Semi-Matte will do the trick.

Design by Eggnot: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2376777

PLA Semi-Matte contains no fibers and prints at regular PLA temperatures and settings. The material is as reliable and easy to work with as any other PLA type material.

Design by PRATRIK: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2268356

 

PLA Semi-Matte Black is available now. Click on the image below to go directly to our webshop:

XL spools and samples are available as well.

Indicator Light

3D printing is an excellent tool for visual prototyping. Today’s print is a great example of a prototype to give a customer a good look and feel of the part before mass production starts. We printed an indicator light.

Custom in-house design

Printed on the Ultimaker 2+ with both nGen Transparent and PLA Economy Black. Both of them with 0.2mm layer height. nGen was printed at 240⁰C and a bed temp of 75⁰C while PLA Economy was printed a bit cooler, resp. 215⁰C and 55⁰C.

nGen Orange Transparent was recently added, as well as five other transparent colors in our nGen portfolio – bringing the total number of available colors to 23.

For another great use of nGen transparent filament, check out the blog earlier this week where we printed a working traffic light.

With our nGen Transparent colors you can print objects that have a great shine and stand out from the crowd, even from far away. With the right settings you can even print translucent objects to a degree as you can see!

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.

The black part was printed with PLA Economy.

PLA Economy is a fantastic PLA grade which we launched in November 2016. Initially we released four colors: white, red, black and silver. In 2017 we added the always popular Dark Blue, which is similar to our very own Ultra Marine Blue that we offer in our portfolio of PLA/PHA filaments.

PLA Economy offers a great value for your money. One spool consists of 2.2kg of filament for a dirt cheap price of a little over € 35 (ex VAT and shipping). It is a different grade than our range of PLA/PHA, but we guarantee the same colorFabb quality. Our filaments are readily available from our webshop.

Traffic Light

Today’s print is a multi-material print since we like to mix up the filaments we have in our ever expanding portfolio. Our intern Sven Hacken went to work and designed a fully functional traffic light!

Design by Sven Hacken / CLOUD3D: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2826057

And the funny thing is: it works like a charm!

All parts were made on the Ultimaker 2, 2+ and 3. Below is a listing of the materials and settings we used:

[table id=13 /]

The variety of materials used is exemplary of the work Sven is doing in our print lab. Material of choice for the opaque, rigid parts was PLA Economy. For the transparent parts the obvious choice was our new line of transparent nGen colors and even nGen_FLEX was needed for the base feet.

For the light inside, Sven used a USB camping light (link here).

 

We recently added 6 new transparent colors to our portfolio of nGen filaments:

These six are added to a rich mix of 17 colors, bringing the total to 23 colors of nGen filament you can choose from as from today! With nGen Transparent colors you can print objects that have a great shine and stand out from the crowd, even from far away. With the right settings you can even print translucent objects to a degree as you can see!

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.

PLA Economy is a fantastic PLA grade which we launched in November 2016. Initially we released four colors: white, red, black and silver. In 2017 we added the always popular Dark Blue, which is similar to our very own Ultra Marine Blue that we offer in our portfolio of PLA/PHA filaments.

PLA Economy offers a great value for your money. One spool consists of 2.2kg of filament for a dirt cheap price of a little over € 35 (ex VAT and shipping). It is a different grade than our range of PLA/PHA, but we guarantee the same colorFabb quality. Our filaments are readily available from our webshop.

The small feet on the bottom were printed with nGen_FLEX. nGen_FLEX was our very first step into flexible filaments. Our main focus before had been rigid and stiff materials, but we found that we should add a functional filament to our portfolio that met the needs of our users. Our co-operation with Eastman Chemical Company has lead to the release in the fall of 2016 of nGen_FLEX – made with Eastman Amphora FL6000.

nGen_FLEX is a semi-flexible filament with a Shore A hardness of 95. This enables users with the Bowden tube printer (like Ultimakers, for instance) to print with this filament without an effort. Of course the user can influence how flexible a print should feel by adjusting infill and perimeter settings. nGen_FLEX is temperature resistant to about 130C. That means 3D printed objects can be steam sterilized at 121C which is a great asset for medical / laboratory environments.
You can read more in our recent blog post where we revisited nGen_FLEX.

nGen_LUX prints

nGen_LUX has been released a short while ago and we are seeing more and more prints popping up on social media. Here are a few we have gathered from our Twitter, Facebook and Instagram followers (click on them to go to the original posts immediately):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1986901601640558&set=gm.584854291853675&type=3&theater

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bf83hhXHDqJ

 

 

nGen_LUX is a unique development based on our best-selling co-polyester nGen, made with Eastman Amphora AM3300 3d Polymer. The excellent clarity of the base AM3300 makes this material uniquely suited for the extremely rare pigment used in nGen_LUX. The material uses diffuse reflection to scatter light in all directions. For the eye it’s nearly impossible to spot layering, even at 0.2mm layerheight. nGen_LUX allows users to print visually appealing models without the need of post processing. nGen_LUX features all the characteristics of our regular nGen, good chemical stability, elevated temperature resistance (85C) and thus allows users to print creations that are functional, durable, efficient and attractive.

It is now available in 5 awesome colors:

nGen_LUX is our new standard in how a 3D printed object can look. It is the filament for the users who wants to bring something extraordinary their work. It is the filament that needs to give that added value. The “Lux” not only stands for luxurious – which is definitely the look of the prints – but also refers to the unit of illumination used worldwide. And light is what makes this filament truly special. Believe us when we say that the photos don’t do the prints real justice…

nGen_LUX is the first special filament based on nGen and the second one in our range of co-polyesters after XT-CF20, our carbon fibre enforced filament based on colorFabb_XT. It can be printed with the very same settings as nGen.

Click here to go directly to our webshop. For a bit more information, click here.

See our recent prints made with nGen_LUX:

Project Unicorn. Original post: https://learn.colorfabb.com/project-unicorn/

 

Candy dispenser. Original post: https://learn.colorfabb.com/candy-dispenser/

Stacker at Optima

Stacker 3D printers are industrial grade. It has been said many times before and one can see by the way they are built these machines were made with professional use in mind. colorFabb is the distributor of Stacker in the EMEA region for quite a while now and in today’s blog we highlight the use of the Stacker at one of our customers: Optima Staaltechniek, a Dutch company specialized in CAD drawing, steel renovation and project management. It has now branched out to 3D printing as well.

O3D Printing | Logo

Optima is a company that was founded in 1997 and has been known for its reliability and knowledge at all aspects of its business. Optima 3D, the printing arm of the company, stems from a small but specialized machineshop where constructions were and are fabricated for trucking, bagage handling and various smart constructions for the building industry. Optima currently has a Stacker S4 running in their shop to produce prototypes and small series of products for their customers. We talked to Rob Beemster, owner and founder, about the choices he made regarding 3D printing.

 

Why 3D printing?

Rob: “In the search for a higher level of technology and building a better environment the decision was made to start developing a way of building machine – and other parts through added manufacturing”

Why choose Stacker?

“The Stacker machine was selected, amongst others, because of size, multiple printer heads and utilization of materials that we deem necessary for our product range.”

What is it that you produce on the Stacker?

“Optima 3D manufactures a range of half products for the marine, agriculture and machine industry.”

What are the current experiences with the Stacker printer?

“Added to our various other machines Stacker is utilized for the somewhat bigger-, multiple – and parts where supports need printing.”

What materials are you using and why?

“In general we print with colorFabb’s range of co-polyester filaments and with XT-CF20 in particular. Its surface finish, stiffness and accuracy are the main avantages. For the big prints we use PETG. Strong prints that need to be heat resistant are usually printer with colorFabb_HT.”

Visit Optima’s website (Dutch)

 

 

 

Optima Staaltechniek is a a perfect example of how 3D printing brings added value to a company that needs reliability and quality delivered to its customers. The match of the Stacker printer with our range of functional co-polyester is a perfect all-in-one solution.

The Stacker S2 and S4 are industrial grade FFF 3D printers. 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.

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 5 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!

Candy dispenser

First world problems arose at the office when candy was lying around freely. First world solutions were found by printing a candy dispenser. Of course it has to stand out anywhere and we just so happened to have the right filament for the job: nGen_LUX

Original design: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2636622 (no candy included)

Originally designed by HelioxLab, we found it necessary to adjust the reservoir a bit to contain more candy. Because more is always better when candy is involved [citation needed] . For the most parts we used nGen_LUX and for the reservoir regular nGen Clear. All parts were printed on the Ultimaker 2+. The settings used were:

Layerheight: All parts except reservoir were printed at 0.2mm – which already results in a stunning surface quality with nGen_LUX. The reservoir was printed at 0.5mm and with 150% material flow. For the print speed we used the standard nGen speed for the nGen_LUX parts and once again the reservois was the exception; we used 75% of the standard nGen speed for that one.

Printing temperatures were uniform for the entire print. Printing at 240⁰C with the print bed at a comfortable 75⁰C

Yes, printed at 0.2mm layer height.

We used three of five nGen_LUX colors currently available: Star Yellow, Nature Green and Regal Violet.

nGen_LUX is a unique development based on our best-selling co-polyester nGen, made with Eastman Amphora AM3300 3d Polymer. The excellent clarity of the base AM3300 makes this material uniquely suited for the extremely rare pigment used in nGen_LUX. The material uses diffuse reflection to scatter light in all directions. For the eye it’s nearly impossible to spot layering, even at 0.2mm layerheight. nGen_LUX allows users to print visually appealing models without the need of post processing. nGen_LUX features all the characteristics of our regular nGen, good chemical stability, elevated temperature resistance (85C) and thus allows users to print creations that are functional, durable, efficient and attractive.

It is now available in 5 awesome colors:

nGen_LUX is our new standard in how a 3D printed object can look. It is the filament for the users who wants to bring something extraordinary their work. It is the filament that needs to give that added value. The “Lux” not only stands for luxurious – which is definitely the look of the prints – but also refers to the unit of illumination used worldwide. And light is what makes this filament truly special. Believe us when we say that the photos don’t do the prints real justice…

 

 

nGen_LUX is the first special filament based on nGen and the second one in our range of co-polyesters after XT-CF20, our carbon fibre enforced filament based on colorFabb_XT. It can be printed with the very same settings as nGen.

Click here to go directly to our webshop. For a bit more information, click here.

 

 

Another very cool print we made recently with nGen_LUX is Project Unicorn. Click the image below for the story behind that print!

Action sensor

When sports meets 3D printing… We have all seen those exciting images during sports games that are repeated over and over: that very cool angle just behind the goal or up close with the ball. Those images need to be captured. French company Action Sensor specializes in making the cameras and mounts for this very application.

As per Action Sensor’s comments:

“This camera installed on the top of the basketball basket records and tweets automatically (or moderated to be adapted to the player, sponsor, …) the most interesting few seconds of the Basket Ball games, when the team scores (automatic ball detection, automatic recording).

Thanks to nGen based on Amphora AM3300 and nGen_Flex based on Amphora FL6000, both brand materials from Eastman Chemical Company, durability in harsh environment can be achieved. First system has been installed more than 6 months ago and is working daily since.”

The parts connecting the aluminum profile are made with nGen_FLEX, which is perfectly suited to resist to the impact of the ball without breaking. Rigidity has been finetuned thank to the infill ratio.

These parts have been printed on Ultimaker 2+ (nGen_Flex and nGen) and Prusa i3  (nGen) in no time thank to the good and fast printability of both filaments.

You can find more information about the Action Sensor on their website:

http://www.action-sensor.com/

 

About nGen

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 over two 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.

Recently we added 6 bright transparent colors to our nGen portfolio, bringing the total to 23 colors. All these colors are available now in our webshop and ship from stock. Click here to go directly to our webshop.

 

About nGen_FLEX

nGen_FLEX was our very first step into flexible filaments. Our main focus before had been rigid and stiff materials, but we found that we should add a functional filament to our portfolio that met the needs of our users. Our co-operation with Eastman Chemical Company has lead to the release in the fall of 2016 of nGen_FLEX – made with Eastman Amphora FL6000.
nGen_FLEX is a semi-flexible filament with a Shore A hardness of 95. This enables users with the Bowden tube printer (like Ultimakers, for instance) to print with this filament without an effort. Of course the user can influence how flexible a print should feel by adjusting infill and perimeter settings. nGen_FLEX is temperature resistant to about 130C. That means 3D printed objects can be steam sterilized at 121C which is a great asset for medical / laboratory environments.
nGen_FLEX is made for those who are seriously looking for a engineering grade semi-flex material, capable of withstanding high temperatures, good chemical stability and result in tough parts fit for real world use. With nGen_FLEX you won’t need to compromise too much on printing speed and the need for specialized flex-extruders is elminated. After the launch we received a lot of acclaim for the filament:
“ with @ColorFabb – prints very easily, on @Ultimaker bowden even!” – Joel Telling
“Very impressed by the flexibility of the filament and its ability to be printed without special extruders.” – Michael Teeuw
“Works quite well for low density parts.” – Matthew Gorton, Printed Solid
“Looking good, great shine!” – Steve Cox
You can find more here. Visit our dedicated landing page for more information:
nGen_FLEX is currently available in Black, Dark Gray and Clear. Click here to head directly to our webshop.

Click here – a collection of handy links

This is the click bait you have been waiting for. If you are going to bookmark one page today, let this one be it. At colorFabb we have quite some information on our website and sub sites. Here is a guide to the most handy links (updated July 2018):

 

Landing pages

Our most recent products have dedicated landing pages with all relevant information available. You can find them here:

 

Buying

Our webshop has all products categorized by material. Click on Materials and go to the requested material to see the full selection:

Click here to see where you can purchase colorFabb filaments online (all of them web based, some of them physical stores – please inquire)

We do offer discounts, check out all the options here

Looking for sponsorship? Check out this FAQ entry first.

 

Color on Demand

Make your prints truly unique. With Color on Demand you can request a RAL reference which will be matched in PLA by colorFabb’s team. With an MOQ of 2kg, the threshold is lower than ever for 3D printing users to create with their very own color! Click here.

 

Support

Our entire FAQ with all the questions you may have? Click here:

Data sheets of our filaments have been collected and you find them by clicking here

What you need to know about food safety in filaments, clikc here

Post-processing techniques for our metal filled filaments: click here

Curious about the length of our filaments? Click here. Size of our spools? Click here

How to achieve a clear print with colorFabb_HT: Click here

Want to know what co-polyesters are? Click here

 

Something to read

All our news, blogs & tutorials are gathere in this very place. If you have not arrived here through our blog site, click here:

 

We regularly update our catalogue. Click on the image below to open it:

 

Want to see all product reviews in one place? Click here

Eager to read all our news letters again? Click here