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.