US colorFabb - New types of filament at Printedsolid.com

[PrintedSolid]

Hello, We are the US reseller for colorFabb filaments and are focused on getting new innovative materials into the US market.

Check us out at printedsolid.com. You can check out this material for cheap with our sample packs. http://www.printedsolid.com/product-...t-sample-pack/

colorFabb makes four unique filaments with a major focus on quality control. All filament (with the exception of the woodfill) is guaranteed to a tolerance of +/-0.05mm, but is typically even tighter. The 3mm is nominally 2.85mm for optimal Bowden performance. All materials are focused on environmentally sustainable materials.

Soft Touch PLA/PHA is a PLA that is modified with PHA to improve it's toughness and elongation to break. Similar to PLA, it prints at 175-210, prints on the same base (i.e. blue tape or similar), has low warping, and requires no heated build plate. It is available in numerous Pantone colors, which means that (for example) every spool of traffic red is exactly the same color no matter when you order it. This material is ideal for anyone who likes printing in PLA, but want to get a little bit closer to the flexibility of ABS while still maintaining the higher strength and low warp of PLA. Check out some info on my blog here. http://www.printedsolid.com/testing-...fabb-filament/

XT amorphous transparent copolymer is a biopolymer based material. It is 'extra tough' and 'extra transparent'. Flexibility is very good, comparable to or more so than ABS. Layer adhesion is also amazing. When printed in single layers, clarity is impressive. It prints at a little higher temperature than PLA (210-240C), but can still be printed on an unheated build plate with minimal warpage. Bridging is great. In addition, it can be vapor polished with acetone, although the result is slightly different than with ABS. More info here: http://www.printedsolid.com/vapor-po...-colorfabb-xt/

Finally, they are about to release (and are taking preorders for) two new woodfilled material. Woodfill fine in 1.75mm and 3mm and woodfill coarse in 3mm only. This material is a pine wood particle filled PLA. It is about 30% filled. The resulting print material maintains some nice flexibility relative to some other filled materials. The fine can be printed on standard 0.4mm nozzles. The coarse comes with a drill to open the nozzle to 0.8mm. This material gives some amazing bridging performance due to the fill. Check out my testing here. http://www.printedsolid.com/testing-...d-xt-and-more/

Thanks for your time and happy printing!

[Rob65]

Product promotions by manufacturers and resellers is great but they of course all state their material is fabulous

But this material really is.
I started with a spool of sky blue (colorcode: RAL5015). The color of the original filament as well as printed parts looks exactly the same and it prints as a high gloss part (still with the 3D printing lines of course). I already had a spool of mid-blue ABS but compared to this sky blue the ABS blue looks a bit dull greenish tinted. I have seen samples from a lot of other colors and all colors look very good. UP's orange was the best orange I have seen up to now but the ColorFabb orange looks a bit brighter and seems to shine even more. The transparent green ... looks like other transparant green I have seen but comparing this with other transparant colors (I think these were MakerBot's) this is a bit more transparent with a very nice deep green color.

After testing I immediately went back to buy white (RAL9010 - so not paper white but a warm white) and Lila (Pantone 2725C).
The Lila is different from white and blue: on the spool it has a semi gloss finish (in Dutch it's called "egg gloss") and it prints with the same finish. Otherwise it feels and looks like the same material.

ColorFabb PLA/HPA has "extended elongation". PLA and even ABS break fairly easily when I make a sharp bend (bend around a fingernail) and then straighten it again but it seems like this material is that tough that it is even harder to break than ABS.

The inter-layer bonding seems to be very good. Like Matthew describes on his blog I also like to break things, this is the only way to see some of the real properties when printed. I had some thin structures that I broke (on purpose of course). I have to do a real comparison but it is at least as strong as ABS, maybe even stronger.

The _XT material is specified to have a Tg (glass transition temperature) of 75C, unfortunately ColorFabb does not specify the Tg for their other materials - it would be great to add those to the specs.

It is available in numerous Pantone colors, which means that (for example) every spool of traffic red is exactly the same color no matter when you order it.

Both Sky Blue and Standard White are specified as RAL colors - fine to me since RAL color cards are easier to get than Pantone cards.
I did however not find any reference on ColorFabb's website to the RAL or Pantone colors used, or the fact that these colors are guaranteed the exact same in a new batch. They do mention that the Pantone color is stated on the label, it's a good idea when the products mention these colors too.

Rob

[PrintedSolid]

Hi Rob,
The PLA/PHA has about the same Tg as standard PLA. Around 60C.

ColorFabb has now added a wood composite material to the line. This material is 30% pine wood in PLA/PHA. It is different than other wood materials available right now.
Here is a link to the product in 1.75mm (3mm coming soon) http://www.printedsolid.com/shop/175-pla-pha/wood/
We also sell it as part of a sample pack if you don't want to commit to a whole spool. http://www.printedsolid.com/shop/175-pla-pha/explorer/

-color is consistent across temperatures. So, the ringing effect that people get with laywood is not going to work. This may be a pro or a con depending on your perspective.
-the material is fully cured as soon as the print finished. Other wood composite materials are gummy and take a while to cure after the print is finished
-it is a little tougher (although still more brittle than non-filled filaments) than other wood filament I have seen
-I've heard that it produces less nozzle clogs than other wood, but there is definitely a learning curve. Occasional nozzle clogs will still happen with any material that you fill with 30% material that doesn't melt though, but I've found that paying careful attention to settings really helps. I've been printing with it for about 2 months now and I rarely have clogs.
-It is provided on a spool! No more having to deal with a tangle of loose filament for your wood.
-Pricing is actually pretty reasonable for a specialty filament. We sell a .75kg spool for $60. I've seen other wood filament typically sold in a .25kg loose bundle for $30-$50. So, you're looking at $80/kg vs $120-$200 per kg.
-It smells like wood. The shop smells like wood while it's printing and the printed object smells like pine.
-bridging is insane. Check out my test print on the blog post here. http://www.printedsolid.com/testing-...d-xt-and-more/
-surface finish is absolutely amazing. Here is a picture of a Cushwa owl that I printed on my ultimaker at 200 micron layer height.
2014-01-14 20.07.18.jpg

Here's a video from Barnacules Nerdasm on his experience with the material.

[Rob65]

Meanwhile I figured the Tg of the PLA/PHA material was about the same as regular PLA.
In fact, I discovered an easy way to determine the (approximate) Tg temperature: just put a piece of filament on the heated build tray and then heat it up. As soon as Tg is reached, the material is getting really floppy like a string of rubber.
This is then also the right temperature to set the bed (or possibly a bit lower) while printing. The floppiness of the material will make sure it sticks very well.

I still have about 8 kg of ABS in my filament rack, but nowadays I almost print everything with the ColorFabb material.
The WoodFill is indeed also great - the filament breaks easier than the regular PLA/PHA filament. I can break the WoodFill by hand, leaving a nice straight edge that I can feed into the extruder. The PLA/PHA really requires a wire cutter otherwise it is hard to break. Still, after cooling down the WoodFill forms very tough objects. The material has a very good layer bonding and is hard to break.

Flame polishing (I mentioned this before somewhere else) works well with this material. To get the best effect, don't overdo this or you will get a plastic look, a small torch at a low setting will reduce the layering that is already less visible than with normal plastic materials. Unfortunately I am still having problems printing WoodFill on my Leapfrog Creatr with the standard 0.35mm nozzle (ColorFabb suggest 0.4mm or bigger) so I am going to drill a nozzle up to 0.5mm
Don't leave the WoodFill in a hot extruder too long, it really becomes a messy goo substance that may be hard to get out: the oily substances in the wood settle to something that resembles accroides gum.

The _XT material is also very nice, it gives a nice shiny glassy texture to objects even more than PET does.

Too bad ColorFabb has no water soluble material yet but I heard they are hard at work to find a solution for this.

Rob