colorFabb_HT – made with Eastman Tritan™

colorFabb_HT empowers professional users to create more durable and useful items, making prototyping truly functional. This opens up new areas in which 3D printed applications can be successfully applied. With certain FDA approvals and chemical resistance it is an engineering grade material that has been in high demand with the professional users and hobbyists alike.

 

Print near transparent parts with colorFabb_HT (original blog post here)

colorFabb_HT: Tritan Technology

colorFabb_HT is made with Eastman Amphora™ HT5300 and is a low-odor and styrene-free material uniquely suited for advanced 3D printing users, particularly those who need their models to exhibit excellent durability, toughness and high temperature resistance with a Tg of over 100⁰C. Amphora is Eastman’s brand of co-polyesters dedicated for 3D printing. Our nGen, colorFabb_XT and nGen_FLEX are also made with Amphora materials.

Image result for eastman amphora

colorFabb_HT is enabled by Eastman Tritan™ copolyester technology. Tritan is Eastman’s flagship product and has been succesfully added to the 3D printing portfolio with colorFabb_HT. Learn more about Tritan on Eastman’s dedicated website.

You can find more documentation here:

  • Technical Data Sheet (TDS)
  • Safety Data Sheet (SDS)
  • Product Regulatory Information Sheet (PRIS)

 

Copolyesters explained

The way we see it, FDM 3D printing filaments will be all about functionality in the future. How you are going to use your prints in the real world will define what material you choose. We have found a lot of characteristics in Eastman’s range of Amphora co-polyesters that offer functionality, durability and efficiency. Added benefits compared to ABS are the low-odor while printing and that Amphora based filaments are styrene free.

Compared to PLA, Amphora features a much better heat resistance, starting at 75C for colorFabb XT, 85C for colorFabb nGen and 100C for colorFabb HT. Below is a chart how our range of co-polyesters compare to other materials like PLA and ABS:

Learn more about co-polyesters in our previous blog.

 

High tech clamps, printed with colorFabb_HT on the Leapfrog Bolt by Peter de Corte

colorFabb_HT is uniquely suited for advanced 3D printing users, particular those who need their creations to exhibit excellent durability, toughness and temperature resistance. You can find more information on our dedicated landing page.

 

 

colorFabb_HT prints

One of the unique features of colorFabb_HT is the ability to print near transparent parts. Due to the high flow characteristics it is now possible to print parts that are almost see-through. Check out the blog we wrote about it previously here.

 

Original post

Another aspect of the filament is its ability to print extremely detailed prints, like seen below:

Tiny Hellboy by Geoff W. / Hex3D. Original post 

Although our range of co-polyesters already look extremely good, there are quite a few way how you can perform so-called secondary operations, like glueing, painting, etc. Click the image below for more information:

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Below are some of the prints we made in the past few years with colorFabb_HT:

Old and broken laundry dryer part left, new printed one on the right. Original post

 

 

Air gun adapter by colorFabb. Original post

 

Brushless motor by MakeSEA, colorFabb_HT print in combination with steelFill. Original post 

 

Vertical windmill by Michael Broderick. Original post

 

Dremel tool holder by mitchnajmitch, printed with colorFabb_HT and woodFill. Original post

colorFabb_HT is available in five colors, as 700gr and 2kg spools. It ships daily and from stock. Click here to go to our webshop.

colorFabb_HT is available in Clear, Black, White, Light Gray and Dark Gray

Air gun adapter

Nozzles need cleaning. It is a fact of 3D printing life. An innovative way to clean nozzles on a 3D printer is to use an air gun. We have air guns in our production facility and use them to keep our operations dust free. To use the air gun to clean the nozzle one would need an adapter to make a perfect fit between the air gun and the push-fit connector of the bowden tube.

As for the material, we used colorFabb_HT – our high temperature resistant engineering grade filament.

The adapter was designed by the colorFabb team for this particular application.

We printed this part with colorFabb_HT Dark Gray on the Ultimaker 2+ with a 0.25mm nozzle. The layer height is 0.06mm and we chose 100% infill for maximum strength and almost airtight threads.

3D printing has allowed for the creation of gadgets, cosplay and other fun stuff, but materials like colorFabb_HT, enabled by Eastman Tritan™ co-polyester technology, allow for truly disruptive uses in day to day life.

colorFabb_HT is made with Eastman Amphora™ HT5300 and is a low-odor and styrene-free material uniquely suited for advanced 3D printing users, particularly those who need their models to exhibit excellent durability, toughness and high temperature resistance with a Tg of over 100⁰C. colorFabb_HT empowers professional users to create more durable and useful items, making prototyping truly functional. This opens up new areas in which 3D printed applications can be successfully applied.

colorFabb_HT is uniquely suited for advanced 3D printing users, particular those who need their creations to exhibit excellent durability, toughness and temperature resistance. You can find more information on our dedicated landing page.

Aside from its functionality in practical prints, colorFabb_HT Clear also allows to print near transparent prints. Another feature, as a recent post shows, is the ability to print with extreme detail.

colorFabb_HT is available in our webshop.

Drain exit

In Western Europe the weather is erratic at best. With leaves ending up in the gutter, we want to avoid that they clutter up the drains. One of our colleagues, Jos,  ended up designing and printing his own drain exit:

Design by Joshyu: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2308895

It is a practical piece, printed on the Ultimaker 3 with colorFabb_XT Dark Gray. It took approximately 12 hours to print this part.

We launched colorFabb_XT almost 3 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.

You can find the data sheets and other documentation on our website: http://colorfabb.com/Materials/

colorFabb_XT is available in 14 colors, including clear.

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. 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.

A little over a year ago we followed that up with colorFabb_HT, a high-temperature resistant filament that allows for functional engineering projects that need lasting parts. colorFabb_HT is enabled by Eastman Tritan™ copolyester technology.

At last year’s 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.