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!

3D Maps

Another application that 3D printing has made more accessible is the creation of 3D maps. We all have seen the 3D maps at tourist attractions and information centers of mountainous regions. Making these maps is quite expensive. We were recently approached by a customer to look into the possibilities of making a 3D map for the region he is active in. We may publish about that project later, but in the meantime we produced a map of our own, using the full print bed of the Stacker S2 and using PLA Economy White. When choosing a mountainous region to print we settled for nothing less than the mountain range on this planet – the Himalayas to be exact.

The black thread indicates the Everest base camp trek, approximately, and in real life takes about 8 days.

The region printed here is the Sagarmatha National Park in Nepal, the region where one can walk the Everest Base Camp trek. From Lukla airport, at the bottom of the print it takes up to 7 or 8 days to reach base camp – a stunning trek in real life and marked in black on this printed model.

We created the file by using Terrain2STL – a great online application to make your own custom 3D maps. We printed on the Stacker S2 at 0.16mm layer height, using a 0.8mm nozzle. The making of the print took 67 hours, using the full print bed size of the S2.

 

For this print we used our trusted PLA Economy, a highly popular filament used for bulk projects by many of our users… and ourselves.

PLA Economy is a fantastic PLA grade which we launched in November of 2016. 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. 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.

 

About the Stacker

Both the Stacker S2 and its larger sibling Stacker 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 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 S2 in the middle

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.

Interested? Get a quote or contact us!

Stacker deal at the TCT Show

Third and final day at the TCT Show today. We are at stand H39 and feature four printers on our stand: The Lulzbot TAZ 6, Stacker S2, Robo R2 and the Prusa i3 mk2 – the latter two are printing with our brand new nGen_LUX filament which was announced last week and will be available in November. The TCT Show is the first show you see this new filament in real lifel and the reactions have been universally positive. “This just looks too good” may be one of our favorite reactions!

Today we highlight the Stacker S2 printer. In the next week, as from now, we offer the Stacker S2 and Stacker S4 at discounted prices:

Stacker S2: Was € 7,495 / is now € 6.500

Stacker S4: Was € 10.995 / is now € 9.500

This discount lasts until end of next week and applies to all order firm orders placed before then. Prices are excluding VAT and shipping. Contact us at sales@colorfabb.com for the details. Alternatively, visit us at the TCT Show today or at the Kunststoffenbeurs in Veldhoven, the Netherlands, where you can see the Stacker S4 at the stand of our sister company Helian Polymers.

The Stacker S2 (and its larger sibling the Stacker S4) is an industrial grade FFF 3D printer. Multiple print heads and a large build volume make it a versatile printer. 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.

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 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.

One great way to use 3D printing, and the Stacker in combination with our signature PLA/PHA, is investment casting. Using 3D printing in investment casting reduces cost and adds flexibility to the process. PLA is a natural choice for this process where the entire print is burned out.

This is being done in real life by companies like Spectra3D, as highlighted in last year’s blog.

And for the filaments we have a discount this week as well: 10% off on all 3D printing filaments. Use coupon code TCT2017 when checking out.

Post-processing a teapot

The special filaments are truly unique 3D printing filaments. Our first special, woodFill, was released in the fall of 2013. Not the first wood filled filament in the world, but one that made people notice colorFabb more. From there we knew that special filaments would be one of the focal points of the years to come. In May 2014 we released our first truly special filament: bronzeFill. As printed, bronzeFill already looks great: a rough and distinctive surface and of course four times heavier than a regular printed object. Now, where the metal filled filaments truly shine (yes, that is a pun and we’re proud of it) is the ability to post-process them and bring out the metal particle aspects of the filament.

For today’s showcase we have chosen Makies Tea Pot by Makies, part of the Makies tea set. Not only is it a great model, it also fits the material from an aesthetical point of view. We used the second metal filled filament, copperFill, for these prints.

Design by Makies: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:178668

We printed these little tea pots on the Stacker S2. Where we normally focus on big prints, functional prints or a lot of prints (small series production) on the Stacker printers, the special filaments also work very well on the industrial grade line of printers.

We used two ways of post-processing. One tea pot was manually polished. We did this the same way we did the gCreate Rocket Ship a long time ago (read the original post here). Manual polishing takes a long time, but it gives such a beautiful result it is well worth that time. Most people do not even believe such a print is even a print and reckon it was store bought!

Another way we post-processed (and give it the old patina look) was by using salt and vinegar. To achieve accelerated aging, add salt to the vinegar until the salt does not dissolve anymore and the vinegar is saturated. The Lulzbot team already did an extensive blog about this, which you can read here.

copperFill was launched in the fall of 2014 and it was our second metal filled filament, after bronzeFill. The red shine that comes from the copper after post-processing has made it a fan favorite ever since. As with our other metal filled filaments, the aesthetics and weight are the key factors for choosing this filament and these characteristics make it a perfect filament for fidget spinners, for instance.

There are several five star reviews for copperFill on our website:

Learn more on how to print with copperFill with our handy tutorial. You can learn more about post-processing our metal filled filaments by visiting our blog or FAQ page on this topic. We will post more blogs with tips & tricks in the time to come about post-processing our special filaments.

 

These prints were made on the brand new Stacker S2.

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.

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 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)

Both the Stacker S2 and Stacker S4 ship from stock right now!

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 .4mm to 1mm
  • Comes with a license of Simplify3D slicing software
  • Includes a sheet of BuildTak print bed surface but will accept glass

You can find more information on the dedicated Stacker page or contact us directly to get a quote at sales@colorfabb.com

Moveo upgrade

A project we have been working on for quite some time now is the Moveo Robotic Arm by BCN 3D Technologies in Barcelona. It is a great project which we already teased in November and December.

Original design: https://www.bcn3dtechnologies.com/en/bcn3d-moveo-the-future-of-learning/

Almost a month ago, during the RapidPro in Veldhoven, we showed the functional arm to the audiences of that show:

But this project is far from finished. We have decided to upgrade the robotic arm with some new parts:

The parts we printed on the Stacker S2 are:

Mantis Gripper by 4ndreas (Andreas Hölldorfer – http://chaozlabs.blogspot.nl/)
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1480408

Moveo Adaptor plate for Mantis Gripper by drmaettu
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1783754

Moveo 5th axis body piece to replace current print.
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1693444

The Mantis gripper allows for a more versatile grip for the Moveo robot arm and it looks cool. Andreas even has the gripper picking up a full mug of coffee on his YouTube video in his blog:

And that’s exactly what we need here at colorFabb: More efficient ways to get our coffee! Using the Adaptor plate designed by drmaettu we should be able to mount it easily to the Moveo Robot arm.

We will write a final and complete blog post on the entire project soon.

As with the previous parts, we have printed with colorFabb_XT Yellow and Dark Gray.

Our range of Amphora based co-polyesters are perfectly suited for a project like this. In 2014 colorFabb teamed up with Eastman Chemical Company to develop unique grades of co-polyesters suited for 3D printing. Eastman Amphora™ 3D polymer are a low-odor, styrene-free choice that is uniquely suited for 3D printing applications. With Amphora, items can be created that are more functional, more durable, more efficient, and attractive.

So far we have launched four grades, starting with colorFabb_XT in 2014, which is a fantastic functional engineering material. Late 2015 we follow this up with nGen, our next Generation general purpose filament and a drop in replacement for PLA. A wide processing window and perfect reliability make this filament a very popular one in our portfolio.

In 2016 we followed that up with colorFabb_HT, a high-temperature resistant filament that allows for functional engineering projects that need lasting parts. Half a year ago at the TCT Show in Birmingham we introduced nGen_FLEX to the market, a flexible filament with a Shora A hardness of 95 allowing for functional and flexible parts to be printed.

More information can be found in the blog we wrote about co-polyesters last summer.

You can find our entire portfolio of co-polyesters in our webshop or via our distributors and resellers worldwide.

We printed these parts on the brand new Stacker S2. The S2 is still available on Kickstarter, but only for a few more hours.

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

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!