woodFill on the Lulzbot Mini

Last week we announced our partnership with Aleph Objects and became official reseller of their line of 3D printers.

The Lulzbot Mini has proven itself to be an extremely reliable and easy to use printer in our printlab. We have two now ourselves and see a wide range of our materials printing with stunning results. We have of course printed a lot with nGen on this printer, but also our woodFill shows how beautiful prints can look on the Lulzbot Mini.

Design accreditations:

3D Benchy by Creative Tools: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:763622

Rocktopus – Meet rocktopus, the mascot of the all-new LulzBot Mini desktop 3D printer made by Aleph Objects, Inc. in Loveland, Colorado, USA:  https://www.lulzbot.com/content/meet-rocktopus

Stealth Birdhouse by Steve Wood a.k.a. Gyrobot: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:108892

Voronoi Klein Bottle by Robert Woodhead a.k.a. MadOverlord

woodFill was launched exactly 3 years ago this month during the London 3D Print Show and was our first special filament. Other natural filled special filaments have followed, like bambooFill (which we recently discontinued) and more recently corkFill. our woodFill has been a hit from day one due to easy processing and its fantastic looks. Added bonus is that your print room smells like a wood shop when printing with woodFill.

As from this week we became an official reseller for Lulzbot 3D printers. Both the Lulzbot Mini and its bigger sibling, the Lulzbot TAZ6, are available at colorFabb. We have been working with Aleph Objects, the Colorado based producer of the Lulzbot printers, for quite some time now and know them to bring quality products to the market.

LulzBot is a product line of Aleph Objects, Inc., a Free Software, Libre Innovation, and Open Source Hardware company. Aleph Objects was founded in January 2011 and headquartered in Loveland, Colorado, USA, where they develop, manufacture, and support their products. Aleph Objects was recently named the Fastest-Growing Privately Held Computer Hardware Company in the U.S., ranked at no. 122 in Inc. Magazine’s list of the fastest-growing privately-held companies in the United States.

woodFill is available in our webshop. You can find a handy tutorial here.

We have brought back the XL woodFill spool, which you can buy in 2.85mm. If you are interested in the 1.75mm variety, please drop us a line: sales@colorfabb.com

Stacker S4 head storage rail

Updated: scroll down for the version in XT-CF20

The Stacker S4 is a fantastic printer. Tough, reliable and industrial grade. We are the distributor of this US made machine in Europe and have printed many hours on it. One of the big advantages of the Stacker printer is its versatility: You can print 4 prints at the same time or print one big print. But what to do with the other print heads if you don’t need them?

Simple: store them!

Design: http://stacker3d.com/stacker-3d-printer-support/

We printed this part, obviously, on the Stacker S4 with colorFabb_XT Light Gray. We used a 0.12mm layer height which resulted in a 16 hour print.

The head storage allows the use of the maximum print volume with the remaining print heads.

Stacker recently launched the Stacker S2 on Kickstarter. You can read more about this printer here. It is the smaller sibling of the S4 with a smaller build volume and two, instead of four, print heads. The technology is the same as the S4, which has already been tested and tried by the market for almost a year.

Check out the Stacker S2 Kickstarter video below.

https://vimeo.com/205107978

For functional materials in such an application, we do not look any further than our colorFabb_XT.

colorFabb_XT is made with Eastman Amphora™ 3D polymer AM1800. Launched in September 2014, it is a fantastic functional engineering material. With colorFabb_XT we achieved to produce a filament that provides good strength and toughness, as well as certain FDA food contact compliances. It has found a wide audience amongst users looking for extra functionality. With a temperature resistance of 75+ degrees, this filament offers (aside from its high strength and very high toughness) odor neutral processing, a styrene free formulation, FDA food contact compliance and BPA (Bisphenol A ) free formulation.

colorFabb_XT is available in various colors. We have released it in Light Gray (RAL 7035) and Dark Gray (RAL 7043) as well for the more functional looking prints.

You can find more about what co-polyesters are by clicking here.

Update: April 6th 2017

We made another version, but now in XT-CF20:

Of course this one was printed on the Stacker S4 at a 0.2mm layer height. The matte surface quality is just plain awesome as you can see and the look fits the industrial grade build of the printer perfectly.

XT-CF20 is our first Amphora based special filament, launched nearly two years ago, made with colorFabb_XT and 20% carbon fibres. More information can be found here. XT-CF20 has received some really good reviews on our website. It may not be the easiest filament to print with, but the results can be stunning. The functionality, stiffness and the matte finish are true selling points of this material.

XT-CF20 is available online.

Stacker S2

In the past 4 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 (as detailed here and here). One company on top of this trend is Stacker from Minneapolis, MN. A couple of years ago they succesfully launched their first 3D printer on Kickstarter. This printer was all about functionality: printing small series or big prototypes – an industrial grade printer for the workspace.

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. The way “industrial grade” is achieved begins with superior engineering and high-quality components, and ends with an Stacker’s innovative new assembly method.

Before the launch of Stacker’s first printer we at colorFabb were already in touch with the Stacker team and we both had the same vision for 3D printing in that it was all about functionality. Our range of filaments, especially the co-polyester range made with Eastman Amphora™ 3D polymer, are a perfect match with Stacker’s range of printers.

Yes, a range of printers. As from yesterday, Stacker’s latest offering is available on Kickstarter. The S2 launched yesterday and was already completely funded within 4 hours after launching. Unlike other 3D printers that were not able to make the cut during the process of fulfilling their Kickstarter obligations, Stacker has already proven itself to bring a reliable printer to the market.

You can see the Kickstarter video here:

https://vimeo.com/205107978

Although the Kickstarter pledges will be delivered in May / June of this year, you can already pre-order the S2 through us, as the official Stacker distributor in the EMEA region, or Stacker itself. Delivery of the pre-order printers will be in April. Get your quote now!

We received our first S2 recently and have been printing non-stop since. One of the projects we have been working on are these prototypes for leg prosthetics:

Design: https://grabcad.com/library/prosthetic-leg

We printed these parts with nGen on the brand new Stacker S2. (And yes, these are the same prints we printed before).

colorFabb is proud partner of Stacker and official distributor for the EMEA region. At colorFabb we have been extensively testing with both the S2 and S4 in our print lab with our entire range of filaments. What makes this printer so different from the rest? First of all, it is based on the technology that has made the Stacker S4 such a success.

You can also expect the following:

  • Copy mode for printing two objects at once for 2X print speeds
  • Dual print heads can be offset to prevent the idle head from dripping on the print when not in use to achieve super clean dual material prints
  • Large build volume: 395mm (X) axis, 325mm (Y) axis, 525mm (Z) Axis
  • Built-in mobile base, essential for EDU and work groups
  • Superior print quality
  • STACKER designed and manufactured hot ends and filament drives produce a superior finish, and work with all filaments, including flexible and metal filled
  • Uses 1.75mm filament for high-speed printing.
  • Quick change nozzles in a range of sizes from .25mm to 1mm
  • Comes with a single license of Simplify3D slicing software
  • Includes a sheet of BuildTak print bed surface but will accept glass

 

As said, we test all our filaments, but we are always looking for more functionality. One of our favorite filaments for this is nGen.

This all-round filament was released a little over a year ago. It is has many advantages over, say, a PLA. The temperature resistance is over 80 degrees C and it works on most printers with a heated build plate.

nGen is a low-odor, styrene-free material uniquely suited for 3D printing enthusiasts, particularly those who need the flexibility to print within a wide processing temperature range. With nGen you will have good flow properties through the printer nozzle—even at lower temperatures than some other polymers require. These properties make nGen more workable at a wider breadth of temperatures, producing reliable results and resulting in less waste. Visual prototyping has never been better than with nGen.

nGen is available in our webshop, through Stacker and our distributor network worldwide.

You can find more about what co-polyesters are by clicking here.

Stacker

As many of you know, we are the distributor of Stacker 3D printers in Europe. We have been working with Stacker ever since the first prototype and now have several in our print lab. With the upcoming Stacker S2 being available for pre-order now and soon on Kickstarter we are testing A LOT.

Late last week we received an S2 printer and we immediately took it for a spin. The part we printed (and shown briefly yesterday) is the rocker arm by Ericthepoolboy. It is part of the bigger Toyota Engine that was printed by Korneel Bullens almost two years ago.

Design: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:644933

We scaled this part 500% and printed with colorFabb_XT at 0.2mm layer height. The new Stacker S2, like the S4 before it, is an excellent printer for small series production, prototyping and printing technical parts. Its industrial design and build allow for great accuracy and fantastic prints.

In two weeks we will be at the RapidPro Fair in Veldhoven, the Netherlands. We will be showcasing the Stacker printers, printing with our co-polyester filaments at booth 16. Drop by to see the latest and greatest in 3D printing!

Of course we keep testing on the Stacker S4 in our print lab as well. We have designed a callibration part ourselves, which we printed with our colorFabb_XT Black:

We have designed this calibration part for size and XYZ dimension as a benchmark for other platforms and materials.

As mentioned before, colorFabb is the official European distributor for Stacker. Stacker printers are manufactured in the USA. Check out the awesome features here and wonder why you have not one yourself!

If you are interested in a Stacker, please click here or contact us at sales@colorfabb.com

colorFabb_XT is made with Eastman Amphora™ 3D polymer AM1800. Launched in September 2014, it is a fantastic functional engineering material. With colorFabb_XT we achieved to produce a filament that provides good strength and toughness, as well as certain FDA food contact compliances. It has found a wide audience amongst users looking for extra functionality. With a temperature resistance of 75+ degrees, this filament offers (aside from its high strength and very high toughness) odor neutral processing, a styrene free formulation, FDA food contact compliance and BPA (Bisphenol A ) free formulation.

You can find more about what co-polyesters are by clicking here.

 

Fully printed vise

Back in the day (September last year) we printed a vise with nGen on the Lulzbot Mini. Although nice it still needed screws. Now we have printed a vise that is 100% 3d-printed – no screw or other piece of hardware is needed to hold the individual pieces together. Pieces clip and snap together easily!

We used colorFabb_XT, nGen and nGen_FLEX for this print.

Design: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2064269

The “Yet ANOTHER Machine Vise” is designed by Christoph Laimer a.k.a. TheGoofy from Switzerland. The design was uploaded merely weeks ago, but we found it an excellent model for our various co-polyesters.

We used nGen Yellow, colorFabb_XT Light Blue and nGen_FLEX Black printing this vise.

Remember the “3D-printed Watch with Tourbillon” we printed last year? Same talented designer!

All parts were printed on the Ultimaker 2 and Ultimaker 2+ in our print lab.

 

As Christopher explains on the Thingiverse page:

“Very often people just try to 3d-print common mechanical objects. But the traditional shape of these objects is often not 3d-printable, and if an object was successfully printed, it maybe does not work, or it is not strong enough.

For mechanical objects it is therefore required to adapt the design depending on its future use. If you’re familiar with some CAD-tool, and if your creating designs for 3d-printing. I recommend to think about the special material properties of 3d-printed parts.”

colorFabb_XT is made with Eastman Amphora™ 3D polymer AM1800. Launched in September 2014, it is a fantastic functional engineering material. With colorFabb_XT we achieved to produce a filament that provides good strength and toughness, as well as certain FDA food contact compliances. It has found a wide audience amongst users looking for extra functionality. With a temperature resistance of 75+ degrees, this filament offers (aside from its high strength and very high toughness) odor neutral processing, a styrene free formulation, FDA food contact compliance and BPA (Bisphenol A ) free formulation.

colorFabb_XT was our first co-polyester based filament and we followed it up with nGen , which was released a little over a year ago. It is an all-round filament which has many advantages over, say, a PLA. The temperature resistance is over 80 degrees C and it works on most printers with a heated build plate.

nGen is a low-odor, styrene-free material uniquely suited for 3D printing enthusiasts, particularly those who need the flexibility to print within a wide processing temperature range. With nGen you will have good flow properties through the printer nozzle—even at lower temperatures than some other polymers require. These properties make nGen more workable at a wider breadth of temperatures, producing reliable results and resulting in less waste. Visual prototyping has never been better than with nGen.

nGen_FLEX was released in September 2016 at the TCT Show and is our first semi-flexible material. With a Shore A hardness of 95 it is a material that is ideally suited for functional parts. It is not soft and squishy like other flexible materials in the market, but allows for fast printing and printing on 3D printers using a Bowden tube. nGen_FLEX is a material for users looking for an engineering grade flexible filament with a high temperature resistance (over 120 degrees C) and good chemical resistance.

You can read the initial reception of nGen_FLEX here.

You can find more about what co-polyesters are by clicking here.

Pangolin

A pangolin is a mammal that is covered with touch, overlapping scales. These scales normally offer great defense against predators in the wild. This benign creature however is currently being threatened with extinction. They’re considered the world’s most hunted animal because people believe that the meat is prized for medicinal ingredient.

To get some attention for this little fella we have printed one. We challenged Niels, our new intern, with this multipart design to learn how to use the Ultimaker 2+ and our PLA Economy. It took him only a few days to get flawless quality from the Ultimaker 2+.

Design: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2064359

This print was made on the Ultimaker 2+ with 0.1mm layer height, using PLA Economy Silver.

Designed by Amao Chan from Taiwan, who has a real heart for the little Pangolin. In Amao’s words: “Pangolins now are facing critical crisis as they are closing to extinct. In fact, humans are the murderers of this disaster, superstition and greed are the main reason to cause this massacre.”

“Nowadays, the numbers of pangolins are less and less, some people eat them only for the reason of showing their ostentatious wealth, what they do to these helpless animals is to make them approach to endangered.”

About the design: “Pangolin is a really skillful and difficult work that I have spent a lot of time on it. It has been passed at least six editions before presenting to all of you. What I was trying to challenge is an artwork with both perfect appearance and function. It was a little struggle for me to share this work at the beginning since I’ve fallen in love with it when it’s first done and stood in front of me. At this moment, what I am wondering more is to let you firsthand it, holding and feeling the variation with actions. Enjoy and I believe you’ll like it.”

Well, we like it a lot! For this print we chose PLA Economy to print with.

PLA Economy was launched November 2016 and it has been a big hit ever since. Only now we are catching up with the demand for this new and great filament! We have been printing quite a lot with our new PLA Economy line. A few examples are:

We have been testing this material for the better part of last year and have found this filament a great alternative those customers who need a lot of PLA. We are initially releasing PLA Economy in four colors: White (RAL 9010), Black (RAL 9005, Red (RAL 3020) and Silver (RAL 9023). This PLA grade has been tested extensively and is being produced and shipped by the same colorFabb team you are used to so you know we are not compromising on quality. You can rely with this filament on the same high standards that colorFabb is known for. It is available only on 2.2kg spools.

PLA Economy is an addition to our range of PLA/PHA, which is available in 30 colors (and on 750 grams spools).

GoPro Bike Mount

Let’s gopro for this one and explore the outdoors. Today’s featured print is a small, but highly functional one. We have printed a GoPro Bike Mount with colorFabb_XT:

Design: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:248893

We printed this part with colorFabb_XT Red on the Ultimaker 2 with a 0.6mm nozzle. Due to the quite extreme overhang we slowed down to get the perfect overhang performance.

Such an overhang is not easily achieved, but we managed it with our colorFabb_XT, a material that keeps performing at an awesome level. You can find out how to print with colorFabb_XT in our tutorial or contact support@colorfabb.com for the most optimal settings for your printer!

We even took it for a ride outside!

One of our 3D print engineer’s (Stephan) daily bike ride to the office. Not in real time…

colorFabb_XT is made with Eastman Amphora™ 3D polymer AM1800. Launched in September 2014, it is a fantastic functional engineering material. With colorFabb_XT we achieved to produce a filament that provides good strength and toughness, as well as certain FDA food contact compliances. It has found a wide audience amongst users looking for extra functionality. With a temperature resistance of 75+ degrees, this filament offers (aside from its high strength and very high toughness) odor neutral processing, a styrene free formulation, FDA food contact compliance and BPA (Bisphenol A ) free formulation.

colorFabb_XT was our first co-polyester based filament. Our portfolio of co-polyester based filaments, made with Eastman Amphora polymers, has since extended with the all-round nGen, the high temperature resistant colorFabb_HT and semi-flexible nGen_FLEX. You can find more about what co-polyesters are by clicking here.

colorFabb_XT is available in our webshop and through our worldwide network of distributors and resellers.

 

3D Scanner

Combining several technologies is what we love here at colorFabb. 3D Scanning, smart phones and a little thing called 3D printing (you may have heard about it). We even combined two vastly different materials, namely colorFabb_XT and PLA Economy.

Today’s featured print, straight from our print lab, is Dave Clarke’s $30 3D scanner:

Design: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1762299

This scanner won the Pinshape 2016 Top Functional Design award, and rightfully so. Congrats, Dave!

You can spend a lot of money on accessories for your smart phone, but why not print a fully functional scanner? We will give the scanner and the results a spin soon, but for now we have the scanner printed:

You can find the full tutorial for this model here.

We printed on one of the Ultimaker 2+ in our print lab. For the housing parts we used PLA Economy Black with 0,6 nozzle on 0,2mm layerheight.
The technical parts and phone holder we printed with  colorFabb_XT Clear with 0,25mm nozzle on 0,1mm layerheight.

PLA Economy was launched November 2016 and it has been a big hit ever since. Only now we are catching up with the demand for this new and great filament! We have been printing quite a lot with our new PLA Economy line. A few examples are:

We have been testing this material for the better part of the summer and have found this filament a great alternative those customers who need a lot of PLA. We are initially releasing PLA Economy in four colors: White (RAL 9010), Black (RAL 9005, Red (RAL 3020) and Silver (RAL 9023). This PLA grade has been tested extensively and is being produced and shipped by the same colorFabb team you are used to so you know we are not compromising on quality. You can rely with this filament on the same high standards that colorFabb is known for. It is available only on 2.2kg spools.

PLA Economy is an addition to our range of PLA/PHA, which is available in 30 colors (and on 750 grams spools).

As said, the technical parts were printed with colorFabb_XT. We launched colorFabb_XT over 2 years ago at the London 3D Print Show together with Eastman Chemical Company. Eastman is our material partner for co-polyesters. colorFabb_XT is made with Amphora AM1800 and has a unique formulation for 3D Printing that features excellent properties : High strength and very high toughness, Odor Neutral processing, High Tg / improved temp. resistance, Styrene free formulation, FDA food contact compliance, BPA (Bisphenol A ) free formulation. It will allow the user to produce 3D printed functional products in a safe way.

Both colorFabb_XT is made with Eastman Amphora™ 3D polymer AM1800. With Amphora, items can be created that are more functional, more durable, more efficient, and attractive.

Our filaments available in our webshop and through our network of distributors and resellers worldwide.

http://colorfabb.com/storelocator/

steelFill

Back in June 2016 we announced steelFill to the world. In September we launched steelFill officially. Today we have printed an aptly themed object with steelFill : the Man of Steel logo.

Design: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:246349

Modelled by Filippo Panza, this design is based on the current Superman series and quite appropiate for our steelFill.

With steelFill we are added a fourth metal based filament to our portfolio after succesfully releasing bronzeFill in 2014, copperFill later that year and brassFill in early 2015. As with these other filaments, the key is post-processing and you can use similar techniques as with our other special metal based filaments.

You can find the full tutorial on how to print with steelFill here.

This part was printed on the Makerbot Replicator 2 with a 0.2mm layer height at 210 degrees C. steelFill is an abrassive filament and not kind to the standard brass nozzles.

For the nozzle we chose the Olsson Ruby nozzle 1.75mm version. the ruby nozzle retains the excellent heat conducting properties of brass, while being extremely resistant to wear. This means that you can print your standard materials as usual, but also very abrasive materials such as steelFill but also our XT-CF20.

The Olsson Ruby is a high-tech nozzle with a carefully designed ruby tip, which makes it have unique properties. The ruby nozzle is designed by Anders Olsson, inventor of the popular Olsson Block that is also part of the Ultimaker 2+ 3D Printers.

This nozzle was generously supplied to us by 3DVerkstan, our distributor and partner in the Nordic regiona and manufacturer of the Olsson Ruby Nozzle. For more information about the nozzle, contact 3DVerkstan: info@3dverkstan.se

There will be a separate blog about post-processing this piece later on. You can find more prints made with steelFill, which have been post-processed, here:

Yeah, we like our superheroes…

steelFill is available in our webshop and through our network of distributors and resellers worldwide.

Prosthetic design

3D printing is a technology that is perfectly suited for prosthetic and orthopedic designs. These applications require a high level of customization as well as complex shapes. We have seen this with companies like Mathis Orthopédie and organisations like Enable and 3D Life Prints.

To understand the needs and the challenges ourselves we have chosen to print a design for a prosthetic leg ourselves, using colorFabb_XT Dark Gray.

Design: https://grabcad.com/library/prosthetic-leg

This part was printed on a Swiss made Delta Tower with 0.15mm layer height. The design was altered slightly for better printing.

Please note that this model and print are made as a case study and not intended to be used in real life with a body’s weight supporting it. As you can see in the original design, the part we printed is meant to be the outer shell.

For this purpose colorFabb_XT is an excellent material.

colorFabb_XT is made with Eastman Amphora™ 3D polymer AM1800. Launched in September 2014, it is a fantastic functional engineering material. With colorFabb_XT we achieved to produce a filament that provides good strength and toughness, as well as certain FDA food contact compliances. It has found a wide audience amongst users looking for extra functionality. With a temperature resistance of 75+ degrees, this filament offers high strength and very high toughness, odor neutral processing, a styrene free formulation, FDA food contact compliance and BPA (Bisphenol A ) free formulation.

colorFabb_XT was our first co-polyester based filament. Our portfolio of co-polyester based filaments, made with Eastman Amphora polymers, has since extended with the all-round nGen, the high temperature resistant colorFabb_HT and semi-flexible nGen_FLEX. You can find more about what co-polyesters are by clicking here.

colorFabb is available in our webshop and through our worldwide network of distributors and resellers.

 

Keep checking out this site for the latest news regarding colorFabb news, tutorials and the latest prints from our print lab!