World Map

 

Every material has its right application. Our woodFill is mostly decorative and we came across a great world map that begged to be scaled at 300% and put up as a fitting decoration for a baby’s nursery.

Design by 2c2know (design link)

Lasting for over 75 hours, it took quite a while to print dozens and dozens of parts. (Add to that the 3+ hours to organize and put up this puzzle). We printed on the Stacker S4 XL, its largest model, with a 0.8mm nozzle and at 0.35mm layer height (with 15% infill). The print temperature was 220C and we had the bed heated at 65C

Launched in 2013, woodFill was our first special 3D printing filament. It has been a bestseller for over 6 years and we fully understand why: the ease of printing, the authentic wood structure and the smell of wood while printing make it a fan favorite. Read more about woodFill and its origins in last year’s blog.

As with most large prints we printed this world map on the Stacker S4 XL. It is next generation industrial grade 3D printing, based on the technology and experience of the S2 and S4 printers. Featuring unique closed loop servo motor system and a massive 61cm build space (in all directions), the Stacker S4 XL is the ultimate production platform within FDM for large scale and small series 3D printing. As you can see it also works very well for decorative printing, like this world map where needed a certain size!

 

 

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. We recently published two blogs about Dutch companies Optima and Mifa and their use of Stacker 3D printers.

 

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!

Lithophanes

The art of making lithophanes is about 200 years old. It consists of etching an image in very thin translucent porcelain and use a light behind it to make the art visible. Historians claim that the idea originated from China, a thousand years ago or even longer. It used to be a manual process with, admittedly, stellar results. It made (and still makes) for great personal gifts.

With the growing popularity of 3D printing we have seen an increase of lithophanes posted on social media. The treshold is lower to start making one and the results can be amazing. Mind you, it still takes some skill to make them truly astonishing. Below are a few of the examples we have seen over the past few years. A special shout-out to Steve McGarr from Carlow, Ireland who has been posted quite a few and offers the designs in his Gadunky webshop. You should definitely check his work out and get his amazing designs.

Not only do our all-round PLA Economy White and PLA/PHA Standard White give great results, as you can see below our users have made lithophanes with nGen and colorFabb_XT as well!

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bup5gRjn352/

 

I’ll post this again; Happy Birthday Stan
byu/Retropally in3Dprinting

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/B1ADCFDInWL/?igshid=1n6wkihtskvxk

 

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

 

https://twitter.com/TreeTopArts/status/895105988142915584

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/B0FevrEC-7_/?igshid=7wzzy2q56i8j

 

 

https://twitter.com/smcgarr/status/1073752469468004353

 

 

 

One thing has not changed since the early days: creating lithophanes is still a craft and it takes some skills to make it look great! You can easily click on the images above to go straight to the orignal posts made on social media.

All the mentioned materials are available in our webshop and ship daily, worldwide and from stock. Find out more about the filaments and their properties here:

Our print team is currently working on some prints as well. Stay tuned for more from our print lab.

Heroes

“… I won’t say a hero, ’cause, what’s a hero?”

Heroes are big right now. Super heroes mostly. Marvel, DC, Star Wars… Our screens are filled with them and looking at the social media feeds we see them coming by regularly. So we printed our own heroes. Not for the first time and  not for the last time. And we like to print BIG! So we printed all these busts on various Stacker 3D Printers with our signature PLA Economy filaments.

PLA Economy is a great all-round high quality 3D printing filament, available from stock. Only available on large spools it is perfectly suited for the maker making large, long or a lot of prints and in need of reliability and quality.

Meet the heroes

We’ll start with the Merc with the Mouth, Deadpool himself:

Printed with PLA Economy Red, 32 cm high

And yes, we have printed Mr Pool before… This 32cm print, designed by David Östman, is nothing to scoff at, but the smallest of the prints we made for this occasion.

Next up: Everybody’s favorite neighborhood Spider-Man was printed with PLA Economy Red as well on the Stacker S4 and it measures almost 46cm:

Spidey was also designed by David Östman, known under his online moniker Eastman (not to be confused with the chemical company). You should definitely check out his collection of amazing designs on MyMiniFactory and give it a try yourselves. The large Jon Snow bust we printed a few months ago was also designed by him.

 

Finally we have the most recent hero: beloved bounty hunter and Baby Yoda’s surrogate dad The Mandalorian:

It took 120 hours and a whopping 3.5kg of PLA Economy Black filament to print this 49cm high statue. This print was designed by Rober Rollin, who – like David Östman – has a terrific collection of super hero, game and Star Wars related designs on MyMiniFactory.

 

Design credits

The amazing designs of these heroes were made by:

 

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!

 

B25j Mitchell model plane

We have posted about model planes and drones before and know the model plane and drone communities are avid 3D printers. We saw a great model of a B25j Mitchell plane on Facebook recently and asked the maker, Coen Loos, for more information. He was kind enough to share some more details.

Printed by Coen Loos / design by 3DLabprint / all images by Coen Loos

Coen works at a school and got in touch with 3D printing there. He has been an avid 3D printer ever since 2015 and specifically focusses on model planes. He mainly uses designs by 3DLabPrint, specialist in 3D printable plane models. Coen was the first one using 3D printing with his local model plane club and people were skeptic at first… until he flew his printed plane!

The classic North American Mitchell B25j was mostly printed on the Prusa i3 Mk3 and made with our PLA Economy filament. Coen says: “colorFabb is my prefered brand due to its good service, reliable filament and perfect printing results.” Always glad to read that! Some smaller items were printed with nGen and Ninjaflex filament on the Ultimaker 2+.

The print settings for the main parts on the Prusa were:

  • Layer height 0.25mm
  • Nozzle temp 230c
  • Bed 55C
  • No cooling fan
  • Single perimeter of 0.42mm

Coen has chosen PLA due to its reliability but sees the need for more specific filaments. For that reason we sent him spools of our LW-PLA and varioShore TPU for further testing and we look forward to the results of that!

You can find this and many other plane models available for purchase at the 3DLabPrint website.

The results are amazing and Coen is planning on the maiden flight soon and we’re sure we’ll update you on that! Thanks for sharing, Coen!

 

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.

Sport Seat prototype

When it comes to prototyping, 3D printing has already earned its stripes over the past years. Designers and manufacturers have seen the benefits of how 3D printing technology allows for faster and cheaper prototyping and having a first (or second or third) proof of concept ready for their customers in mere days instead of weeks or months in those pre-historic days. As a demonstrator we printed a sport seat prototype:

The sport seat was designed by Pete S and you can find the original files at Grabcad. Scaled at 50% the print is 360x290x430mm.

We used our PLA Economy Light Gray filament for this print on the Stacker S2 printer. The print took about 60 hours to complete with a 0.2mm layer height and printing with a 0.4mm nozzle. We used approximately 570 grams to complete the print.

PLA Economy Light Gray is the latest addition to our PLA Economy range of filaments. We released it last year and has proven to be a very popular filament. It is not an exact match, but very close to RAL 7035. PLA Economy is very reliable and works extremely well for long projects!

With the addition of this very nice subtle gray shade we offer our users another much requested color. 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.

The sport seat was printed on the Stacker S2. The Stacker S2 and its larger siblings (Stacker S4 and Stacker S4 XL) 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.

Interested in the Stacker printers? Get a quote or contact us!

XXL spool holder

Size does matter it seems… Back in the day we started out with small spools containing 750 grams of filament (7 years ago now, man time flies…). Over the past few years we have made materials available as 2.2kg, 4.5kg and 8kg spools. More and more customers need a steady flow of filament, but most printers do not support large spool formats of themselves. That’s why we have adjusted our Duck Spool holder for XXL spools (containing 4.5kg of quality colorFabb filament):

Download your XXL spools holder here

Our filament spool holder is a remix of the FIlament Duck by Lukas Rambold (original design here) and already our third iteration:

(We currently do not have any plans to release one for our 8kg spools)

We printed the XXL spool holders, which we actively use in our own print lab, with PLA Economy Red on the Stacker S4 XL. This print was made with 0.2 layer height, 20% infill and a 0.6mm nozzle.

Please note: 2.2kg, 4.5kg and 8kg are mostly available in our Economy range of filaments (PLA and PETG). Please check stock levels per individual article for availability. We can produce most of our materials on larger spools, but lead times of up to several weeks do apply. Contact us for the options.

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.

About Stacker S4 XL

The Stacker S4 XL is the latest offering in the Stacker portfolio. It is next generation industrial grade 3D printing, based on the technology and experience of the S2 and S4 printers. Featuring unique closed loop servo motor system and a massive 61cm build space (in all directions), the Stacker S4 XL 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. We recently published two blogs about Dutch companies Optima and Mifa and their use of Stacker 3D printers.

 

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!

Mosaic Palette

The Mosaic Palettes are perfect tools to create multi-color and multi-material prints, even (and especially) when you have a single nozzle extruder. We have created two examples of how you can make great looking prints on most printers which handle 1.75mm filament.

Handle Bosch Rexroth by Sidnei Willians Nurchi (link)

Screwdriver (VDE) Phillips by Matt Davey (link)

 

During Black Friday 2019 we offer a 10% discount on both the Palette 2 and Palette 2 PRO

Both prints were made with PLA Economy and PLA Semi-Matte Black using the Mosaic Palette. We used an Tripod Maker with various DIY adjustments as the the primary printer, which worked very well.

 

Both designs were originally single color, but we used the paint feature in the Mosaic CANVAS software to determine the various materials and colors for the prints. Users are able to digitally paint models in CANVAS. This makes it easier than ever to create multi-color designs.  Palette 2 made a significant step toward making multi-color printing accessible to a new community. However, designing parts was still a challenge. There are millions of 3D models available on the internet, but only a small percentage are split into multiple pieces for printing in multiple colors. Designing these models would typically be significantly harder than their single color counterparts. While the library of color models is growing, it’s still in the early days. This has put a damper on one of the unique value-adds of 3D printing – the ability to create unique and custom objects.

You can read more about the paint feature in CANVAS on Mosaic’s blog.

 

The Palette 2 and Palette 2 Pro take up to four filaments and combines them into a single filament strand. This strand is then fed to your printer, enabling your single-extruder printer to create multi-filament prints!

Mosaic is a digital manufacturing company creating the next generation of product delivery systems. Founded in 2014, Mosaic began by enabling 3D printers to create substantially more useful and valuable products. Now, they’re working to scale this technology to help millions of people get value from the upcoming waves of customization and personalization.

We’re proud to be Mosaic’s partner in their quest to increase the flexibility of 3D printing for our users worldwide.

PALETTE 2

Palette 2 combines four filaments and feeds them into your printer in real time, no modifications required.

  • Print impossible overhangs with water-soluble support.
  • Make heat- and water-resistant models in four colors of durable PETG.
  • Create functional, end-use products by combining PLA with a flexible TPU.
  • Improved hardware design helps to create consistent and reliable bonds between filament.
  • Color touchscreen includes built-in Gradient and Pattern modes.

PALETTE 2 PRO

Palette 2 Pro includes all of the above and:

  • All aluminum Splice Core Pro allows for faster splicing and cooling, improving the overall print time
  • Includes additional parts to ensure optimal performance and maintenance
  • Sleek all-black casing

During Black Friday 2019 we offer a 10% discount on both the Palette 2 and Palette 2 PRO

Motorcycle suspension part

As we add more materials to our portfolio we see more possibilities. With our proven XT-CF20 and the recently added Igus Iglidur I150 for instance. We printed a motorcycle suspension linkage prototype:

Design by colorFabb

Both materials were printed on the Ultimaker 2+ with the Olsson Ruby Nozzle. Both components were press fitted together with a tight tolerance. This model was made as a fitting prototype and was not part of a working motorbike. We used the following print settings:

XT-CF20
Nozzle diameter: 0.4mm
Layerheight: 0.2mm
Printing speed: 40mm/s
Nozzle temperature: 255C
Bed temperature: 80C
Infill: 90%

Igus Iglidur I150
Nozzle diameter: 0.4mm
Layerheight: 0.2mm
Printing speed: 40mm/s
Nozzle temperature: 255C
Bed temperature: 90C
Infill: 60%

About the filaments

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.

A special point of attention is the abrasive nature of the carbon fibers. In general these fibers will accelerate the nozzle-wear of brass nozzles, much faster than unfilled filaments. Therefore we  recommend to use hardened steel nozzles. XT-CF20 is available online

 

igus filaments are all about functionality. The iglide® range of filaments are 3D printing materials for maximum service in moving applications. You can create custom parts with significantly higher wear resistance than standard filament. The iglide materials benefits include:

  • High degree of wear resistance, similar to that of injection molded iglide® components
  • Igus has more than 30 years of experience in the development of high-performance plastics for moving applications
  • Tested in Igus’ own laboratory

Components made of igus® Tribo-Filament are up to 50 times more wear-resistant than standard materials for 3D printing and therefore have an extremely long service life. Due to their excellent tribological properties, they are suited for 3D printing of replacement parts, for example bearings, drive nuts, gears and other wear parts. The igus® Tribo-Filaments can be processed on 3D printers that are based on the fused-deposition-modelling method (FDM/FFF) and that allow the nozzle temperature to be set as required.

Longboard Wheels

In recent months we have added quite a few new materials in our webshop. To showcase two of them we have combined them into one functional print. We used Iroprint F80213 by Huntsman and our brand new Tough PLA to print longboard wheels.

The Street Wheels for Longboard were designed by Zenjota (link)

The two components are printed seperately and assembled after printing:

 

Iroprint F80213 features good abrasive resistance amongst other key features. In this case the tire feels grippy and offers dampening due to the infill and shore A85. It is a polyether-based Thermoplastic Polyurethane (TPU) for Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) with shore A85. Key features, aside from the abrasive resistance, are high elasticity, cut and scratch resistance and good low temperature performance. Being polyether-based, it offers a good hydrolysis resistance. Developed by chemical specialist Huntsman, Iroprint F80213 stands out in our range for delivering prints with a mat finish, resulting in a high-quality touch and feel of the final object.

Iroprint F80213 by Huntsman is one of the materials which settings can easily be accessed in the Ultimaker Market Place in Cura.

The inner rim is printed with colorFabb Tough PLA. We decided for a 100% infill to achieve maximum stiffness with this material and at the same time toughness. The part was printed at 230c and 0.2mm layerheight.

Our Tough PLA is a custom blend which retains the ease of use of PLA but adds serious toughness to the material. As a result the material is a lot less brittle than regular PLA filaments and has a higher impact strength.

The recommended printing temperatures are 210C-230C and 50-60C heated bed temperature. The print speed can be set to 40-50 mm/s. For better overhang performance we recommend using slower outer perimeter speed, 20-30 mm/s.

We release Tough PLA in two colors: black and white, which are available now and ship from stock.

Car parts made with PA-CF Low Warp

There are as many uses for our filaments as there are 3D printers and users in this world. We love to come across great applications for our materials. Applications we could not think of when we developed and produced the filaments. Or could think of but never thought we would actually see it. Enter John Pham from Brisbane, Australia, who prints car parts with our PA-CF Low Warp filament.

 

3D printed velocity stacks, all images made by John

We came across these prints on Reddit and contacted John about the amazing quality and practical use of his prints.

Check out the original Reddit post!

John considers himself a hobbyist and has printed about 10kg of PA-CF Low Warp. He has declared it his favorite filament so far to use.

Spacer and velocity stacks, aluminium inserts used to add strength to the parts

 

John is a 3D printing enthusiast who happens to love cars. He adds: “I took this opportunity to try design and print as many parts for my modified Mazda MX-5 as possible. My main printer is a modified Tevo Tornado with a E3D Titan Aero hotend/extruder and 0.5 mm NozzleX, I print at 0.2mm and 0.1mm layer height depending on the parts function. My printing material of choice for functional car parts has always been carbon fiber nylon, and in my opinion colorfabb PA-CF produces the best results. Consistent printing results for myself and customers, good strength, excellent resistance to heat, fuels and oils. It also prints very easily, purple gluestick on 55C glass, no warping, flawless supports, excellent surface finish and dimensional accuracy.”

As you can see, John has quite the skills to print with our engineering grade filament. PA-CF Low Warp is a carbon fiber infused polyamide material with the mechanical properties of a PA6 and excellent printability because of extremely low warp.

The material can be printed on desktop FFF 3D printers, which have a temperature range of at least 260°C on the hot-end and the ability to mount an abrasive resistant nozzle. PA-CF Low Warp excels in tensile and impact strength and allows continues use at 120°C while retaining sufficient properties for the intended application. The formulation has been modified to reduce uptake of moisture and it also takes about 4 times longer to reach the saturation point compared to unmodified PA6. This makes PA-CF Low Warp less affected by moisture then most other nylon filaments available in the market.

It’s not only the velocity stacks that John printed: “I’ve used colorfabb PA-CF to print intake velocity stacks, bulkhead plates, side mirror mount, bonnet prop, work jigs, mounting brackets, 3D printer parts, and electrical connector housings.”

Visit John’s blog for more of his work!

PA-CF Low Warp was developed and released two years ago with LEHVOSS Group. The material shows good results when printed at ambient temperature, or cold bed. The advised processing temperature for this material is set between 260C and 280C. You can find more information about the printability of PA-CF Low Warp on our dedicated landing page.

PA-CF Low Warp is available at colorFabb and ships worldwide from stock.

Curious how to print with PA-CF Low Warp? Here is our tutorial!

 

Disclaimer: 3D printing is subject to various factors: material, processing, printer, settings, etc. Using printed parts like car parts or other parts that are used in real life are at the user’s own risk. We recommend expert level printing, like this example, and extensive testing before use.