Month: August 2018

Color on Demand Prints

With Color on Demand we offer a one-of-a-kind service where you can order the color you want as a PLA filament. Starting from 750 grams (for a color already matched) or 2kg (for a brand new color, made for you) the treshold is lower than ever to make your prints truly unique.

Find out more about Color on Demand by clicking here or check our most frequently asked questions here. Interested in having your own custom color made by us? Fill out our contact form!

Below we have collected the prints we have made using the unique colors we have matched for our customers (most recent print(s) on top):

Chicago buildings – 311 South Wacker

Design: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1002335

Color: RAL 7023 (Concrete Grey)

Printed on the Stacker S4 with a 0.6mm nozzle and at 0.2mm layer height.

Kawai Tsugite Joint Puzzle

Design: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2529087

Colors: RAL 5003 (Sapphire Blue), RAL 5005 (Signal Blue), RAL 5015 (Sky Blue) and PLA Economy Dark Blue

Printed on the Stacker S4 with a 0.2mm and a 0.4mm nozzle

Phone Amplifier

Design: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1381104

Colors: RAL 6005 (Moss Green) and RAL 2004 (Pure Orange)

Printed on the Prusa i3 MK2s, 8% infill, 45mm/s and with a 0.4mm nozzle

Hand-screw clamp

Design: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2403756

Colors: RAL 3027 (Raspberry Red), RAL 5009 (Azure Blue), RAL 7024 (Graphite Grey), RAL 9010 (Pure White)

Printed on the Ultimaker 2+ using standard PLA settings at 0.2mm layer heigth and using a 0.4mm nozzle

iPhone X and Apple Watch Dock

Design: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2813363

Color: RAL 7016 (Anthracite Grey)

Printed on the Ultimaker 2 with a 0.15mm layer height and a 0.4mm nozzle at standard PLA settings. Printing took 8.5 hours.

Vertical Windmill Helix

Design: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2745063

Colors: RAL 4004 (Claret Violet) and RAL 5009 (Azure Blue)

Printed on the Prusa i3 MK2 at 210C nozzle temp, 55C heated bed temp. Printed at 30mm/s. It took a full 16 hours to print

Roosevelt Wabash building

Design: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1002335

Colors: RAL 7001 (Silver Grey) and RAL 7031 (Blue Grey)

Printerd on the Stacker S4 with a 0.6mm nozzle, 0.2 layer height and 45mm/s. We used 10% infill rectalineair

Pineapple

Design: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2595659

Colors: RAL 1018 (Zinc Yellow) and RAL 6037 (Pure Green)

Printed on an Ultimaker 2+ at 0.2mm layer height with standard PLA settings

Puzzle Cube

Design: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2975065

Colors: RAL 1018 (Zinc Yellow), RAL 2002 (Vermilion), RAL 5023 (Distant Blue)

Printed on the Ultimaker 2+ with 0.2mm layer height, standard PLA settings

Colors: RAL 6027 (Light Green). RAL 3015 (Light Pink), RAL 7039 (Quartz Grey)

Origami vase

Design: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2503199

Colors: RAL 5018 (Turqoise Blue) and two custom made colors

Printed on the Sindoh 3DWOX 2X at 0.2mm layerheight – 40mm/s printing speed – 0.4mm nozzle

Bilinski’s Vase – Golden Rhombus

Design: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3055640

Color: RAL 6019 (Pastel Green)

Printed at 0.16mm layerheight – 40mm/s printing speed – 0.4mm nozzle

Yoda

Design: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:14104

Colors: RAL 6002 (Leaf Green) and RAL 6029 (Mint Green)

Printed at 0.16mm layerheight – 40mm/s printing speed – 0.4mm nozzle

The Willis Tower

Design: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1002335

Color: RAL 7038 (Agate Grey)

Print at 0.2mm layerheight – 45mm/s printing speed – 0.6mm nozzle

Plantygon

Design: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2448911

Colors: RAL 6010 (Grass Green), RAL 3004 (Purple Red), RAL 5002 (Ultramarine Blue), RAL 2009 (Traffic Orange)

Original post: https://learn.colorfabb.com/plantygon/

Modular Drawers

Design: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2539830

Colors: RAL 4001 (Red Lilac), RAL 7001 (Silver grey), RAL 1018 (Zinc Yellow), RAL 2002 (Vermillion), RAL 6001 (Emerald Green), RAL 9003 (Signal White), RAL 6027 (Light Green), RAL 7021 (Black Grey)

Original post: https://learn.colorfabb.com/drawers/

Functional Design Challenge – Prints

A couple of months ago we challenged our users to come up with a design for us to print. The design had to be functional and to be printed with our highly functional PA-CF Low Warp filament. This Functional Design Challenge was quite a success and we announced 5 winners early July.

One of the perks was that we would print their design and send the prints to them. We have finished the prints and they will be shipped today. Below you can see the results:

Brent Heylen / part for the Shell Eco marathon, a school project

Original design:

Printed results:

Pol Guixe / filter box for a Fiat Panda

Original sesign:

Printed results:

Peter Roodenburg / Prusa fan shroud

Original design:

Printed results:

Oscar Kogenhop / personal shoe stretcher

Original design:

Printed results:

Jaromir Efler / bashguard for a trail bike

Original design:

Printed results:

All entries were judged by three experienced designers and 3D printers:

Steve Cox, UK – 3D printing expert when it comes to our metal filled filaments & much more!
Brent Wright, US – founder of LifeNabled and changing lifes by using 3D printing. See some of his amazing work here.
Gijs Houdijk, NL – technical development manager at colorFabb, knows 3D printing and our filaments better than you know yourself.

The winners received each 2 spools of PA-CF Low Warp and an Olsson Rubby Nozzle, graciously provided by 3DVerkstan in Sweden. Read more about why you should the Olsson Ruby Nozzle for all abrasive 3D printing materials in our recent blog.

All prints were made on various Ultimaker printers.

About PA-CF Low Warp

We launched PA-CF Low Warp late last year. It 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. 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 than most other nylon filaments available in the market.

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 allows continues use at 120°C while retaining sufficient properties for the intended application. For those looking to print with nylon, moisture is a serious topic. PA-CF low warp has been modified to lower the uptake of moisture and slow down the time it takes to fully saturate by 4 times. In practice this means the filament is quite forgiving and user should be able to print with the material without noticing extreme influences of moisture uptake.

Users can now print high strength material without the need of heated chambers. The materials shows very good results for 3D printed parts 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.

3d printing challenge colorfabb contest pa-cf low warp

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.

3d printing art colorfabb design flower cup mushroom star ngen transparent wavey spiral

Safety glasses holder

Safety first! Whenever printing, in daily life and also in our production plant safety is of our highest concern. That’s why we require all our guests when they enter the production area to wear safety glasses. Since this should not be forgotten we have them ready to grab at the entrance of our building and made a safety glasses holder to display them well:

Design: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2756873

We chose the Snap together sunglass holder by rockah as the basis and created the footing ourselves (design by our print engineer Sven Hacker). It is an ideal design and easy to print. Perfect for safety glasses or for your collection of sunglasses.

Settings used on the Ultimaker 2+ were:

0.4mm nozzle
0.2mm layerheight
Printspeed: 45mm/s

For this print we used our trusted PLA Economy, a highly popular filament used for bulk projects by many of our users… and ourselves.

PLA Economy is a fantastic PLA grade which we launched in November of 2016. Initially we released four colors: white, red, black and silver. We added the always popular Dark Blue slightly later, 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. You can use the standard PLA settings if your printer has these pre-defined and these should work fine.

You can also opt for the PLA Economy Value Pack: order four spools as a value pack and receive an immediate 10% discount!

Buy PLA Economy Buy PLA Economy Value Pack

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

3d printing colorfabb holder pla economy safety glasses ultimaker 2

Icelandscape

A couple of months ago we already showed you how 3D printing can be used to make amazing 3D maps, like we did with the Everest region. Since then we have upped the scale a bit and printed a another 3D map. But a lot bigger. We received a request from a customer who wanted Iceland’s northern coast partially printed. We call the project “Icelandscape”*:

A total of 12 printed parts

The region in question is Ólafsfjörður and the request was to print most of the peninsula as a showcase model to plan and organize hikes and ski trips in the mountains. The elevated coastal region (which is stunning is real life) is a perfect example of how one can print 3D maps. Due to the size we had to cut up the model and print it in 12 parts, which can easily be glued together.

We created the file by using Terrain2STL – a great online application to make your own custom 3D maps. We printed on the Stacker S4 at 0.2mm layer height, using a 0.8mm nozzle and with 7% infill.

The total printing time of Icelandscape was 400+ hours and we used over 18kg of PLA Economy White. The total map measures 190cm x 80cm x 10cm. This is easily the biggest print we have ever done.

For this print we used our trusted PLA Economy, a highly popular filament used for bulk projects by many of our users… and ourselves.

PLA Economy is a fantastic PLA grade which we launched in November of 2016. Initially we released four colors: white, red, black and silver. Recently 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.

You can also opt for the PLA Economy Value Pack: order four spools as a value pack and receive an immediate 10% discount!

Buy PLA Economy Buy PLA Economy Value Pack

About Stacker

Both the Stacker S2 and its larger sibling Stacker S4 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 S2 in the middle

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!

* We like puns…

3d maps 3d printing colorfabb iceland landscape stacker

TinkerToys

One of the greatest benefits of 3D printing is that one can print unique, individual parts instead of having to produce a single part in mass production which has to appeal to everybody. Because realistically, only a few things appeal to everybody. Customization can be applied to anything from functional parts to prosthetics and from gadgets to prototypes. We recently visited TinkerToys in Leipzig, Germany who apply this huge advantage to toys.

From design to print, made possible by Tinkertoys even in the smallest hands

We were greeted by Jonas Willen, responsible for production and with the team since November 2014. He offered us some insights in regards to their way of working and how they use 3D printing in such a great way.

TinkerToys was founded in 2014 and has a goal and this goal is to show children what creative potential is within them. They have developed their own software, the Digital Construction Kits, with which they can playfully create their own toys as 3D models on a touch screen. The software is made as such, that kids as from 6 years old can work with it.

Designing, the easy way

Marko Jakob, one of the founders of TinkeToys, says: “We want to show children that you can do more with digital media than only watch YouTube videos or play video games. The digitalization of the world also offers incredible possibilities and we want to show children the possibilies of the creative process at an early age.”

The software can also easily be used on tablets in your home! You can download the apps for iOS and Android for free!

The self designed models can then immediately be printed on several printers, mostly Ultimakers. As a material, TinkerToys has commited to only use bio-based materials and print almost exclusively with colorFabb’s PLA/PHA.

Jonas explains: “For TinkerToys, it is important that the toys are made of a sustainable material. Furthermore, Colorfabb PLA with the addition of PHA allows us to print connectors, so the toys can move. For example, our mascot TimTinker can move all his body parts and the cars can move their tires.“

Another element is how well our filaments works with the Ultimaker line of printers. It is no secret that we have quite a lot of Ultimaker printers in our print lab to ensure that our filaments run as flawless as possible on these printers.

PLA/PHA is our signature PLA filament which we exactly launched 4 years ago this month. The added PHA makes our grade of PLA tougher and less brittle than generic PLA grades in the market. PHA (polyhydroxyalkanoate) is like PLA a bio-polyester, so our unique blend is still 100% biodegradeable. This material is available in 30 colors.

With over 15.000 printed unique toys so far, the TinkerToys staff of 9 ensure that high quality prints end up with the small designers and bring their dreams to life.

TimTinker – TinkerToys’ mascot

Want to know more? Contact TinkerToys (info@tinkertoys.de) or visit their website (German)

Sander Strijbos (colorFabb) and Jonas Willen (TinkerToys) in the Leipzig store

3d printing colorfabb tinkertoys toys ultimaker

Darth Revan

Earlier this year we launched PLA Semi-Matte Black as an addition to our regular PLA colors we have been offering for years. 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. We came across a design of Darth Revan by COLOR3DJP which was a perfect match for this high quality aesthetical material.

Design: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2699572

We made this print on the new Ultimaker S5 with a 0.14mm layer height and standard PLA settings. It took approximately 3.5 days to print.

Darth Revan has been a fan favorite ever since being introduced in The Old Republic video game. Star Wars figurines and 3D printing have been going hand in hand ever since the first Star Wars fan got his or her hands on a 3D printer. This bust is a great addition with a very nice finish.

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.

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

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

This filament 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.

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.

3d printing colorfabb darth revan semi matte star wars ultimaker