FormFutura HDglass

[Sjeltur]

As a business, well thats a different regulatory nightmare.

I must say - this was a real nice piece to read. And I totally agree with you.
But my main issue is business wise.....
Yep - I have a cup, made out of PLA, and my 3 year old boy is allowed to play with it - however he want.
Same with the PET cup.....I even put water in it and sometimes he just drinks it....
No problem at all.

BUT I do have customers (companies, but also schools) who have no experience with 3d printing and they start asking about using such PET in their business - touching fruit, bread etc...
They show me the advertisement of 'food grade filament'.....
I need to point them out; 'food grade filament is filament which can touch the food while on the reel - once it has been printed......, the food grade is probably not valid anymore'.

[Wolfie]

And that too is an excellent point. Just because source material is safe for a specific purpose, doesn't mean it always remains so unless the entire process and the product it becomes is also designed properly. 3D printing leaves microscopic (and frequently much larger) pits and spaces. Injection molding doesn't usually. Same source material, different manufacturing technique both yield completely different levels of food safety.

As a business, yes, there are whole different risks involved. From a personal standpoint, not nearly so since we control the situation. As a business, what the customer dose with what we sell them is beyond our control but the business ends up being responsible anyway. I give you the paint industry. Paint is not a food product. They got sued many times over because people ate paint chips. The product was used in a way in which it was not designed and they were still blamed. I give you McDonalds. They make coffee. Nobody considers hot coffee a crotch ointment. It says "HOT" on it. They still got sued because someone poured coffee in their crotch. Sue happy BS. Take responsibility for being stupid people.

And you are correct as well, the filament is food safe in that it imparts no chemicals into it at any time (ie BPA but there are other hazards). The printed item may not be food safe because it fails the bacteriological aspect because of the way its manufactured, not what it was manufactured from.

[Rspraggjr]

Amen Wolfie. Well said.

[Bassna]

Back onto the clear filament, I ordered a sample of the red and clear. Will prolly be about 2 week's in delivery, but I will come back with pic's and review.

[curious aardvark]

cool - be interested to see how it prints too.

[ralphzoontjens]

Migration of particles depends on the time of contact, surface area and solubility.Hardly any particles will migrate from the 3D printer into your product, with a teflon tube and stainless steel nozzle you will most likely be safe.As said before, use the same nozzle for all your food-grade parts and replace them regularly.If the filament is foodgraded, you can definitely sell products on your business' responsibility.Has anyone seen the FDA approval for HDGlass though? The datasheet has no information on that.