Rolling Jack

With a lot of 3D printing tools at our disposal it becomes easier (and more fun!) to print large, multi-material prints. As a visual prototype we printed this rolling jack with various materials in our print lab on the Stacker S4 XL.

Design by Sevatar (Grabcad link)

We printed on the Stacker S4-XL with a 0.6mm nozzle for an optimal balance between speed and quality. It took quite some time to print this one:

  • Main body: 70 hours – 1kg material used
  • Other silver parts: 65 hours – 850 gr. material used
  • Black parts: 20 hours – 280gr
  • White parts: 12 hours – 140gr
  • Handle: 2,5 hours – 30 gr.

The rolling jack is entirely made out of PLA and we used various PLA grades from our portfolio where they would fit best, aesthetically:

All these materials are available in our webshop and ship from stock! All parts of the rolling jack were glued together with Loctite glue, which is now also available in our webshop! Check out the accessories we currently offer by clicking here.

 

ABOUT STACKER 3D PRINTERS

The Stacker 3D printers are industrial grade FFF 3D printers. Recently the even larger Stacker S4 XL was added to the portfolio. 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.

The Stacker printers on display in our print lab

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 6 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.

Interested? Get a quote or contact us!

Surfboard fin

3D printing has been used for prototyping since the dawn of mankind. Literally. We have found that with certain prototypes weight is of the essence and with our brand new lightweight filament LW-PLA we have solved the problem of many prototypers: weight reduction. A great example of this is this in-house designed surfboard fin, part of a bigger project. Weight was of the essence and we needed the part to be as light as possible.

As you can see, the weight has been reduced significantly. It is not the weight of the world in absolute terms, but with print jobs where every gram matters, like these foam core parts LW-PLA is the solution for a lot of users.

We printed this surfboard fin on the Stacker S4 with 0.2mm layer height, 250C and 40% flow.

Curious how the print with LW-PLA? Learn more here!

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

“ColorFabb came up with something really special and in my opinion a real game changer.”  – Bart Tangermann

Read Bart’s review of LW-PLA here.

Decreasing flow means using less filament. Therefore users can expect to print 2-3 times more parts using LW-PLA compared to a regular PLA spool. LW-PLA prints in a fantastic matte looking surface finish and is very easy to post process. Any oozing or stringing artifacts rub right off and the surface is easily sanded for a smooth finish.

LW-PLA is available in Black and Natural and is available now. We ship daily, worldwide and from stock.

“We need challenging materials, we need to work with or find ways around the limitations and allow more people to experiment with exciting developments like this foaming PLA.” – Richard Horne

Read Richard’s review of LW-PLA here.

 

Benchy test print on the Stacker S4 XL

Earlier this week our first Stacker S4 XL arrived in our warehouse:

The Stacker S4 XL, next to the regular S4 and the S2. Spool box for scale.

As Stacker’s European distributor we had been eagerly awaiting this beast of a machine. 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. You can find more technical specifications in our catalogue.

Of course we had to try the latest addition to our print lab for a test and we combined the latest addition (the printer) with our very first filament: PLA/PHA. As the first print we chose JUN, the Jungle Queen visual benchy by vandragon_de – whose has an exceptional collection of ships in his Thingiverse account.

For these prints we used a 0.4mm nozzle on all 4 nozzles and a 0.16mm layer height – using standard PLA settings on the printer. It took 6 hours to print the ships.

PLA/PHA is our signature PLA filament which we exactly launched 4 years ago this month. The added PHA makes our grade of PLA tougher and less brittle than generic PLA grades in the market. PHA (polyhydroxyalkanoate) is like PLA a bio-polyester, so our unique blend is still 100% biodegradeable. This material is available in 30 colors. During the summer of 2018, if you buy 4 spools of PLA/PHA, you only pay 3! Use BUY4PAY3 as the coupon code when checking out.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2811241

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 5 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.

The Stacker S2 and S4 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 Minneapolis, USA, based manufacturer produces highly reliable printers 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 (S4 XL will be added soon).

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!

Camera housing

Today’s featured print serves two goals. First of all, we’re always looking to use our filaments to make the best use of it. In this case we have used PLA Economy to make a prototype of a security camera housing. The second purpose was to make our new intern Pierre known with the Ultimaker 2 and Cura slicer software. We can safely say both goals were met.

 

Designed by Toby Lankford: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:993974

Working from a design by Toby Lankford, Pierre made this model in 3 days. It was a perfect model for Pierre to get the printer and slicer known and to print multiple parts.

We used this case to welcome our new intern Pierre. This was a perfect project to get to know the Ultimaker 2 and Cura slicer software. Pierre also used a Raspberry Pi to show how the internal parts should be mounted.

Printed on the UM2 with PLA Economy Silver. Everything is printed at 0.2mm layerheight, 210/125C and 60C bed temperature.

We used PLA Economy as it’s perfect for making a first visual model of a new product. For outdoor use we would not advice using PLA Economy if durability is important, but it has proven to be an excellent filament for indoor use and visual prototyping.

PLA Economy is a fantastic PLA grade which we launched in November last year. Initially we released four colors: white, red, black and silver.

Recently added the always popular Dark Blue, which is similar to our very own Ultra Marine Blue that we offer in our portfolio of PLA/PHA filaments.

PLA Economy offers a great value for your money. One spool consists of 2.2kg of filament for a dirt cheap price of a little over € 35 (ex VAT and shipping). It is a different grade than our range of PLA/PHA, but we guarantee the same colorFabb quality. Our filaments are readily available from our webshop.

Here are some print settings to get started:

Adviced 3d printing temperature: 195C-220C

Adviced 3d print speed: 40 – 100 mm/s

Advised Heated bed (if you have one, not strictly necessary): 50-60C

Cooling fan: 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.

Or: You can use the standard PLA settings if your printer has these pre-defined and these should work fine.

You can also opt for the PLA Economy Value Pack: order four spools as a value pack and receive an immediate 10% discount!

Buy PLA Economy                                      Buy PLA Economy Value Pack

PLA Economy is very well suited for the maker who needs quality at an affordable price. It is a perfect filament for large volume and small series production, made with the guaranteed colorFabb quality that we are known for.

VTOL Drone

From time to time we feature prints that have not originated from our own print lab, but were printed with our filaments. We love to see user cases like the one that follows which show the potential of 3D printing. In this case, our carbon re-inforced filament XT-CF20 was used to bring a prototype for a VTOL drone to a customer in the shortest time possible.

fg7a8760

The company responsible for this is nSize, located in Rotterdam. They produced the VTOL drone prototype for Aerovinci in Delft. In their own words:

“AeroVinci is a company based in Delft, whose mission it is to build a fully autonomous network of drones, able to deliver data and services without human interaction. On their delegation to Israel with the Dutch Embassy they showcased their VTOL drone that should work with their drone-in-a-box concept.”

“BerkelaarMRT teamed up with nSize to build this prototype. With a wingspan of exactly one meter, flight case restrictions and a short deadline this was not an easy task. We chose to print this on our Ultimakers in carbon filled filament. This material is strong, creates consistent prints and is easy to sand. We’ve managed to complete this project in just over two weeks.”

“First task was to make the prototype fit in a standard Pelicase flight case, without having to charge for extra oversize luggage. So we had to split the model, which needed to be assembled and disassembled on site without any tools. We opted for some strong magnets and metal pins, carefully aligned. We have had some good results in the past with pausing prints, inserting magnets with our project for Boskalis.”

fg7a8816

“With our first split lines in place, we set out to further divide the wing in more parts so that they fit our printers. Respecting of course the print direction so there was minimal overhang. We carefully crafted some extra splits and insert parts to keep all the surfaces as clean as possible. We ended up dividing the total wing into 27 pieces.”

img_1237

“In less than one week we had printed all the parts with the colorfabb XT-CF20 filament, with only one misprint due to power outage. Next step was to glue the components together and fill up the remaining gaps with some black filler. The real reason we chose this filament was down to the last step; it was easy to sand and gives a killer look!  With some days left in our process we’ve added some extra details as wiring and presented the wing to AeroVinci.”

You can find more information about nSize on their company page.

XT-CF20 was introduced early 2015 by colorFabb and is based on colorFabb_XT with 20% carbon fibres.  This filament is perfect for parts which need high stiffness. XT-CF20 has a beautiful matte surface finish when printed.

XT-CF20 is available in our webshop and through our network of worldwide resellers.

fg7a8744

fg7a8756