Van Mierlo

At colorFabb we are proud of the partnerships we have. One of the success stories we are particularly fond of is our co-operation with Van Mierlo Technische Handelsonderming. Like colorFabb Van Mierlo is a technical service company creating added value in their products to meet their customers’ needs.

 

About Van Mierlo

Van Mierlo is a highly respected name when it comes to technical solutions. In the south of the Netherlands it owes its reputation to the quality, service and reliability it delivers. They supply their customers with an extensive range of products and solutions for, among other things, the metal industry, non-food sector and high-tech industry.

In 2013 van Mierlo BV celebrated its 50-year anniversary. This demonstrates the confidence that their customers have in them. As a preferred supplier of one of the largest organizations in the high-tech industry, Van Mierlo has a great deal of knowledge and experience with regard to the delivery of tools in the semicon industry. This makes Van Mierlo unique in this market. 

 

The tool cart inlay

Everybody’s needs regarding their tool box is very specific: the tools, the layout, the size… Van Mierlo saw 3D printing as the perfect opportunity to create custom made tool cart inlays. These tool cart inlays offer their users maximum flexibility to have all the tools they’ll need at their disposal.

 

A toolbox inlay, specifically for a UV light (design by Van Mierlo)

Whether safely storing measurement tools in a Quality Control department, needing a specific tool combination for each specific assembly station on a production line or being a maintenance engineer in need of certain tools at any given time.

Finding the right printer and material to create the inlays, Van Mierlo found the perfect combination of Stacker 3D printers and colorFabb’s PLA Economy filaments.

 

Last year we printed our own tool cart inlays. Check out that blog here!

At Van Mierlo the project started years ago. Working closely with colorFabb’s engineers they looked for the perfect solution in terms of hardware and materials. Starting with one Stacker 3D printer, they now have 5 Stackers running 24/7 devouring colorFabb filament. The amount of filament they have used so far stretches from colorFabb’s HQ to Berlin. How about that?

 

When creating an end product reliability is key. Measured over the past year and a half, the uptime of four Stackers was over 90%.

 

 

The tool cart inlays that Van Mierlo offers are a great example of how colorFabb’s application development has helped them finding the right printer and material to make this possible.

 

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.

Not sure if our big spools fit on your printer? Check out the dimensions here or print XL your own spool holder!

 

ABOUT STACKER S4 XL

Stacker is becoming the standard in industrial grade 3D printing, based on the technology and experience of the S2, S4 and S4-XL printers. The Stacker range of printers is the ultimate production platform within FDM for large scale and small series 3D printing.

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 7 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.

 

 

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.

Interested? Get a quote or contact us!

RC Planes

Last year’s LW-PLA has found a steady following in the RC Plane community. We have already posted about our lightweight filament in our blog where we highlighted Eclipson’s Model V plane (click here to go directly to that blog). Over the past few months we have seen more use of LW-PLA by makers of RC planes following Eclipson’s lead.

Below is a short summary of videos we found recently on Youtube. (Updated on June 9th with the two top videos)

 

Videos

Slope soaring by Airfection RC Gliders (Youtube)

 

By 3DLabPrint (Youtube)

 

By Coen L (Youtube)

 

https://youtu.be/zosspO7DSN8

By RC Air Adventures (Youtube)

 

By ADDIMP 3D (Youtube)

 

By 3Dlabprint (Youtube)

 

By Airfection RC Gliders (Youtube)

 

By Wernersgyro (Youtube)

 

By Localfiend (Youtube) (more information)

LW-PLA is the first filament of its kind using an active foaming technology to achieve lightweight, low density PLA parts.

Daily worldwide shipping from stock! Visit our webshop!

 

Printing RC planes is not the only application where LW-PLA excels. Other succesfull applications are printing of insoles and cosplay, where the weight of the printed suit can be significantly reduced!

 

About LW-PLA

At around 230C this material will start foaming, increasing its volume by nearly 3 times. Users can decrease material flow by 65% to achieve lightweight parts, or use the expanding properties to effectively reduce print time by using big layer heights or single extra thick perimeters.

 

For the filament to expand it is necessary to put a certain amount of energy into the filament. The amount of energy a filament can absorb during printing depends on the length of the hot-zone and the time it takes for the filament to pass through the hot-zone. The longer a filament will reside inside the hot-end, the more energy it can absorb which will increase the amount of expansion.

Assuming nozzle size and layerheight are fixed, our main input variables are Temperature, speed and flow to determine the amount of expansion. Find out more about how to print by checking our LW-PLA print tutorial.

Read more: How to print with LW-PLA

 

You can also find all relevant information on our dedicated information page.

At colorFabb we have always been active in developing new filaments for FDM/FFF 3D printing, like the first metal filled filament bronzeFill, the one of a kind nGen_LUX and the unique Color on Demand service where customers choose their own colors to print with. LW-PLA is our latest offering in an ever expanding portfolio.