voestalpine Railway Systems Nortrak

Our filaments find their way all over the world to thousands of users. From hobbyists to the largest companies we see how filaments are being used for numerous applications: from fun to functional. Earlier this year we held a contest, #madewithcolorFabb, where we invited our users to share their prints with us. Derek Cameron from voestapline Railway Systems Nortrak sent in a fantastic print of a model railway track he made with our Color on Demand PLA on the Blackbelt 3D printer:

 

About voestalpine Railway Systems Nortrak Inc.

voestalpine Railway Systems Nortrak (“vaRSN”), with ten production facilities across Canada, US and Mexico, is North America’s leading designer and manufacturer of special trackwork for the railway industry.  As the industry’s technology leader, they take pride in providing superior products, excellent customer service and unbeatable engineering design services to our customers. They are committed to bringing innovative solutions, products and services to their customers across the freight, transit, industrial and high speed segments. Nortrak is a subsidiary of voestalpine AG, a leading technology and capital goods group with combined material and processing expertise.  Nortrak is closely affiliated with voestalpine’s Railway Systems group which operates 50 production and sales facilities in 23 countries and is the global market leader for intelligent railway infrastructure system solutions.

vaRSN’s creative research and development team utilizes the latest analytical and testing techniques to tackle the industry’s technical challenges.  They can also tap into the global expertise of their parent company.  This ensures that optimal solutions are developed regardless of the client’s operating requirement. vaRSN is an acknowledged industry leader with numerous patents related to turnouts, turnout components, and switch machines.

All images and video by Scott Crego and Derek Cameron / voestalpine

About 3D printing at voestalpine

In Derek Cameron’s words: “We often utilize 3D printing as display models for customers, trade shows and also for prototype fit and function. Our sales team especially appreciates our 3D printing capabilities.  Showing a 3D printed model to a customer really grabs their attention, which can be difficult to do with just a 2D drawing.”

“Because we research and develop new products for the railway industry it was important for us to have a printer that could print full-scale prototypes and models. Most railway components are typically not very wide nor tall, but instead very long. We considered several large-volume 3D printers on the market but each of them had a finite limit for each axis. This is where the BlackBelt 3D printer added value that other printers could not. One of the axes is theoretically limitless, enabling us to continuously print models without the need to piece multiple parts together afterward. Additionally, we often need to print multiple copies of the same model. With the BlackBelt we can print multiple models back to back without the need to remove each individual one from the bed before starting the next print job.  This has saved us time, money, and also produces higher quality models. In short, the BlackBelt has been a game changer for us by enabling us to complete projects faster and create higher quality models that would not have been possible for us before.”

The vaRSN team had been using colorFabb filament for several years when we announced Color on Demand service. Derek Cameron continues: “When I saw the announcement I instantly thought of how great it would be to have models printed in our company’s official color, especially for models used at tradeshows. I no longer had to search to find a filament that was “close enough” in color. This, along with colorFabb’s consistent high quality and ease of printing made the filament an easy choice.”

 

About Color on Demand

With Color on Demand companies like vaRSN can now print with the colors they wish for and need. By making the treshold as low as a 2kg spool for a unique, custom-made color the proverbial sky is the limit when it comes to choice and options. Or check out our series of RAL Classic colors! Almost every RAL Classic color is already matched and ready to order as from a single 750gr spool!

We have developed a new filament production method which not only allows more flexibility to produce a great, unlimited amount of colors, but is so efficient that even very small amounts of filament can be produced efficiently at no higher costs compared to ordinary filaments. Color on Demand initially starts with the material most popular in the market right now: PLA. With Color on Demand the potential colors on offer can be in the thousands.

 

About Blackbelt

The Blackbelt 3D printer is a new type of 3D printer using fused filament fabrication (FFF) in combination with innovative belt technology. Printing on a belt (patent pending) provides new possibilities like long prints, printing horizontal overhangs without support and producing series production of the same or individual parts. Launched in 2017 it has been a new kind of 3D printer, allowing companies like vaRSN to complete long prints without feeling the limit of a regular desktop 3D printer.

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.

 

Memento

memento / məˈmɛn toʊ. an object or item that serves to remind one of a person, past event, etc.; keepsake; souvenir.

Recently we posted a blog about the great work many of our users did printing lithophanes. Head over here to see what they made. At colorFabb we were immediately inspired and a lot of our colleagues sent their favorite photos to the print team to have their own special mememto created.

All lithophanes were printed on the Ultimaker 2+ with PLA Economy White (with one notable exeption, scroll to the bottom for a special guest appearance).

 

 

Meet colorFabb’s extended family

Below are the results: sons, daughters, a pregnancy, dogs: loved ones now immortalized as a 3D print.

 

 

 

 

 

 

More examples will be added soon!

And with a dash of green…

All of the above lithophanes were made with PLA Economy White. White is the color most suited for this application. As seen in our previous blog various materials like PLA/PHA, nGen and colorFabb_XT can be used aside from PLA Economy. But that does not mean you cannot experiment with color:

 

Printed on the Prusa i3 with PLA/PHA Intense Green

 

Credit where credit’s due

All lithophanes were created by our former colleague Sven Hacken who has continued his career in law enforcement. Thank you, Sven, for all these prints and being an amazing colleague in the past few years!

Sven used Gadunky’s lithophane profile (click here) and 3DP Rocks’ lithophane generator (link here) for all of the family memento prints.

Hulk print by our colleague Paul. You can find the Thingiverse link here. Design by JohnC55.

We used the TRÅDFRI E27 LED light from IKEA as backlight to play with the colors a bit and achieve the best possible effect.

 

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.

varioShore contest

Update: The winners! (April 17th 2020)

 

First place

Second place

https://twitter.com/r0ybent/status/1239635063085678593

Third place

https://www.instagram.com/p/B9cH3IwnRuv/

The winners have been contacted already.

 

Original post

Last year we launched our new flagship filament: varioShore TPU. This week we release the black varioShore TPU in addition to the natural color already available. But we’re not done yet. Hot on the heels of our very succesfull #MadeWithcolorFabb contest we have yet another contest.

 

This time it is a more specific contest and, you may have guessed it, we are looking for prints made with varioShore TPU. The unique properties enable a large group of makers to create amazing functional prints. We have seen cosplay, insoles and drones being printed and are looking for the next big thing! Inspire us and your fellow makers with your creativity.

 

What is varioShore TPU?

varioShore TPU allows users to vary the density of the material by adjusting temperature and material throughput (speed & layerheight). At temperatures between 200 and 250C the materials will start to expand to roughly 1.4-1.6 times its original volume. This means the material can be printed at low flow rates (60-70%), to compensate the active foaming, which in return gives very soft printed parts. Between 190-200C the material can be printed without foaming, resulting in different haptics and harder prints compared to foamed samples.

The base TPU is a 92A material, which will work with most standard extruder set-ups for both Bowden and direct drive systems. Learn more about varioShore in our lengthy blog post.

To enable you to print with our innovative filament we also lowered the price of varioShore TPU with 10% during the contest. Click here to head to our webshop!

 

varioShore contest rules

  • Contest lasts until March 31st 2020 midnight CET
  • All entries to be posted on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram
  • Tag colorFabb and use the hashtag #varioShore
  • Credit the designer if the design is not yours
  • Extra points for originality and functionality
  • Entries to be judged by colorFabb employees
  • Entries can be used by colorFabb for marketing purposes
  • Photos, gifs and videos are allowed

 

What can you win?

It’s worth it. Let’s see what you can win:

1st prize: 16 spools of colorFabb filament 

2nd prize: 8 spools of colorFabb filament

3rd prize: 4 spools of colorFabb filament

(regular 600, 650, 700 and/or 750 grams spools from stock)

Winners will be announced in the first week of April.

 

 

Introducing: Color Favorites

Today we introduce Color Favorites (or Colour Favourites, for you using the English spelling), our brand new special filament category.

Magneto design by Pascal Ackermann (link)

 

What is ‘Color Favorites’

Color Favorites is the new category within Color on Demand. Every since we launched Color on Demand, back in June 2018, we have received a lot of requests for certain colors, but with a special effect, or with an additive. We are now adding some of them in a separate category, starting with two much sought after colors.

 

Smokey Black

A semi transparent black filament with interesting light transmittance quality. Great for printing luminaires and other artifacts which need to hide the light source but also emit light.

Lamp design by Flowalistik (link)

Click here to go directly to our webshop.

 

Milky White

Another semi transparent white filament with excellent surface quality finish after printing. Due to the semi transparent surface details look crisp and smooth.

Click here to go directly to our webshop.

 

Availability

Both Milky White and Smokey Black are made to order, being part of our Color on Demand program. We do not keep stock of these products. Please keep a lead time of at least a week in mind for these filaments.

More colors and effects will be added in the months to come. Stay tuned.

 

Your own color

At colorFabb we think that customization does not end with the unique design and print you make. Color should be choice as well. With Color on Demand we offer a wide range of custom made colors. We have already matched most of the RAL Classic colors, but can of course make a tailor-made color especially for you! Click here for our Color Request form and have your own color made by us!

 

varioShore TPU Black

Now available: varioShore TPU Black.

Design by Flying Ginger (link), remixed by colorFabb with inscription

With the launch of varioShore TPU in October last year we added a new flagship product to our ever expanding portfolio of high quality 3D printing filaments. Initially launched in a single neutral color, varioShore TPU can now also be ordered as a black filament. We recently ran a poll on both Twitter and Facebook and our users clearly chose black as our next varioShore TPU color:

 

What is varioShore TPU?

varioShore TPU allows users to vary the density of the material by adjusting temperature and material throughput (speed & layerheight). At temperatures between 200 and 250C the materials will start to expand to roughly 1.4-1.6 times its original volume. This means the material can be printed at low flow rates (60-70%), to compensate the active foaming, which in return gives very soft printed parts. Between 190-200C the material can be printed without foaming, resulting in different haptics and harder prints compared to foamed samples.

This part is an excellent demonstrator for varioShore TPU material. The ergonomic grip of the bike handle really is perfect to demonstrate the haptic experience of a foamed TPU material. It’s very different from a regular TPU material, much softer surface and better grip.

3 main advantages

varioShore TPU is flexible in more ways than one:

  1. This material is not limited to one shore hardness, but with the right print settings you can have multiple shore hardnesses – even in one print!
  2. We used our LW-PLA technology in this filament as well to reduce weight significantly. Although the weight reduction of varioShore TPU is not as significant as LW-PLA, the weight of the overall print is noticable and can make the difference for prints where weight matters.
  3. Prints that need a soft touch, like handle bars for bikes or shoe soles are no problem anymore with varioShore TPU.

 

“It really is a fantastic development… Incredible innovation.” – Steve Cox

“Another astonishing FDM material development from the colorFabb team.” – Richard Horne

“Another amazing product by colorFabb!” – Bart Tangermann

 

Click here to head directly to our webshop. Shipping starts in week 8 of February.

7 years later…

This month it is exactly 7 years ago that colorFabb saw the light of day. It looked a little bit like this…

Basically a garage with an office, first production of our spools and our first show: RapidPro

 

Well, 7 years later…

 

In February 2013 we launched our first products at the RapidPro trade show here in the Netherlands. We had about 20 colors PLA/PHA and only 2.85mm filament. It was still in the early days when there were only a few of us and we constantly had to explain: “No, we are not selling the printers, we make the filament.” (Disclaimer: these days we do sell printers!)

One of our first tweets when we had 10 followers or so.

A lot happened in the past seven years. We basically started in a garage booth with an idea and a lot of ambition. The idea is still the same: to bring the best possible filament to the market and make sure we meet the need of our customers. The ambition has only grown over the past years. The only thing we left behind was the small garage and the little office above. To give you an idea, the image below was our print lab / logistics:

Scale: almost 1:1

In the meantime we moved twice, went from 20 products to 3200+ SKUs (with more to come in 2020), expanded our staff from 3 to almost 30, we became an independent company, ship to 70+ countries worldwide, have the best customers in the world (yes, that’s you) and have been running, working, printing and producing almost 24/7 to make sure you get the best possible filament to print with.

colorFabb has become a company and brand we are very proud of. The biggest shift is the focus on custom colors with our Color on Demand service. We nearly have all the standard RAL classics available (180+ and counting) and have even matched several hundred more colors. But we don’t stop there: Brand new products like LW-PLA and varioShore TPU have been launched, as well as strategic co-operations with brands like Ninjatek, Lubrizol, igus and Iroprint to ensure our customers have the right filament to suit their needs.

You can find more specific recaps per year by clicking on the links below (2013, when we started is sadly lacking, but believe us when we say it was awesome):

 

What’s next?

“What’s past is prologue.” 

~ William Shakespeare

 

And that prologue has been amazing and we will work hard to make the next seven years (and beyond) even better. We thank all our users, customers, partners and staff for making colorFabb the brand and the company it is today!

Get ready for a year full of great new material developments!

Mimphonium

After last month’s #MadeWithcolorFabb contest we will dive a little bit deeper into the story behind the month’s winner: the Mimphonium. This is a very cool, UK based project by Domenico Marseglia. We were intrigued by the fact that quite a bit was printed with PLA/PHA Standard White Let’s go into the details.

What inspired him to start with this project? We asked him and Domenico was gracious enough to share his thoughts.

 

How it all began…

“The original inspiration was a project someone else came up with in the early days of the Raspberry Pi. It was made from a child’s toy with some solenoids that hit the notes from behind. I thought it was great, but I could do better. In particular, the solenoids made a horrible clattering noise. I thought about the moving coil meters we had at school, and I came up with my version that you can see in the photo below. The two big let-downs were my woodworking skills and the cost of a glockenspiel to get the metal bars from. The two big breakthroughs were another project I saw where the notes were cut from copper pipe, and my employer buying a 3d printer for prototyping work. Then, over a series of trial and error refinements, I came up with the design you see today.”

The first iteration

Visit the Mimphonium website here.

 

The printed parts

Domenico continues: “I have a website under construction. I think the best bit for you would be this page (click here).  This shows that it is not just the final product that is 3d-printed, but some of the tools I used to make it are also 3d-printed. I think the coil winder is another sub-project in its own right. I think this reflects a more serious side of the current usage of 3d-printing. The parts made form PLA have their limitations in terms of end-user products, but they are often more than good enough for assembly fixtures.”

Mounting the coil on the coil winder

The printer

He has an Ultimaker 2, upgraded to 2+. After the upgrade it works especially well with our signature (and long time favorite) PLA/PHA Standard White. “I just use the default values for everything except the hammer heads. In that case I use 100% infill to make them heavier.”

The project is still on-going and we will follow for sure.

Follow the Mimphonium project on Twitter!

 

We saw a lot of great entries during the #MadeWithcolorFabb contest. The Mimphonium eventually won, but it had worthy oponents. You can find all the winners here.

 

About PLA/PHA

PLA/PHA was the very first material released by colorFabb seven years ago. Starting with almost twenty colors, the portfolio eventually expanded to thirty colors (some of them about to be discontinued). The unique blend of PLA and PHA bioplastics made it a one-of-a-kind filament for users looking for a 3D printing filament that processed well on various printers and was of high quality. It was the basis of colorFabb’s success.

Our high quality PLA/PHA filaments ship daily and from stock.

PLA/PHA has always been a favorite amongst colorFabb users. With our focus on expanding our portfolio some colors will be discontinued. You can find these on our clearance sale page (click here).

Hinge

3D printing is a great tool at the work place and around the house for making replacement parts on the go. It even enables people with the right design skills to customize the needed part to his or her liking. To make it even better, if required. We recently printed a hinge, a replacement part for a double hinged connector.

Custom design by colorFabb

We printed this hinge with PETG Economy on the Ultimaker 3, using the default CPE Engineering Fine settings in Cura.

 

The convenience of replacing

This hinge is one of several repaclement parts we have made in recent years with various materials:

Printing on the Ultimaker printers is easier than ever. Various colorFabb materials can be selected in the Market Place in Cura for effortless printing. Filaments like our Color on Demand PLA, XT-CF20, nGen (under AM3300) and woodFill have their settings pre-programmed for the Ultimakers 3, S3 and S5 printers.

Click here to go to our blog about the Ultimaker Market Place.

 

For the hinge print we used the CPE Engineering Fine setting, which resulted in a great and functional print.

 

Original hinge design

 

The hinge in real life

 

About PETG Economy

PETG Economy is part of our Economy line of commodity filaments: PLA and PETG, available on large spools (starting at 2.2kg) in a limited amount of popular colors.

colorFabb Economy: Large volume, High quality, Low price

 

colorFabb’s Economy line is developed for users who need a lot of filament. By adding a specifically sourced PETG to our portfolio we are adding more functionality and diversity to our range of filaments.

As with PLA Economy we have extensively tested this filament in our print lab. Both in production and print lab we have adhered to the highest colorFabb quality – this is something we simply do not compromise on.

The idea behind these filaments is to keep it at a very competitive price. Retail price of PETG Economy is € 40 excluding VAT and shipping. This works out to be a little over € 18 per kg for high quality filament.

 

Tips, tricks and settings

At colorFabb we have a well-equipped 3D printing studio with many popular 3d printers. Our grade of Economy PETG has been tested using various 3D printers, which has resulted in the following recommended settings:

Advised 3d printing temperature: 235C-255C

Advised 3d print speed: 30 – 50 mm/s

Advised Heated bed: 70-80C

Cooling fan: 75/100% fan cooling for best aesthetics, this gives best performance on overhangs and small details. For best mechanical performance try printing with the least amount of cooling needed, for optimal layer adhesion.

For Ultimaker 3, S3 and S5 settings we recommend the CPE Engineering Fine setting in Cura, like we used for this hinge.

 

Availability

PETG Economy is available from stock and ships daily & worldwide. We offer 5 colors (Black, White, Red, Dark Gray and Light Gray) as 2.2kg, 4.5kg and 8kg spools. Click here for the availability.