printedsolid

I don't have a booth, but I'll bring some filament samples in my backpack to give out. I'll have on my gray printedsolid t-shirt with a blue targus backpack. Ideally, I'd also be carrying around a shiny new Ultimaker 2, but they will only have demo models. Nothing to buy :(

Anyone going to 3D printshow next Saturday? I'll be heading up from Newark,DE. I have a minivan and am up for carpooling with people in the Newark/Philly area to meet in a park and ride somewhere on the way. I'm also up for doing a meetup of some kind there for others that are coming in from other directions.

I've had a lot of success running the coarse with a 0.8mm nozzle around 220C with layer heights varying between 0.5mm and 0.2mm. I've actually gone through an entire spool with no clogs. Likewise, with the fine and a 0.8mm nozzle at 215-220, I've had no problems, but haven't run nearly as much. Like Xeno (assuming he's talking about woodfill and not laywood) I've found the fine with a 0.4mm nozzle seems to be doing better at higher temps (230-235), but was always able to get a single good print after each nozzle cleaning. After talking with Gijs at colorFabb I believe that leaving that letting the woodfill sit in the nozzle between prints, particularly through the warm up while I'm messing around with the files and getting ready to start, may have resulted in some material drying out in the nozzle. Since then, I've started pushing a little plain PLA through the nozzle after each print to make sure I'm starting clean. I haven't really tried much with 0.4mm since switching to the 0.8mm nozzle because the 0.8 works so well. I love the increased speed and strength. With the grain of the woodfill, you don't really miss the resolution. I've even started using it for most of my regular PLA/PHA prints.

Acetone huh? I don't think I would have tried that out of fear of killing the adhesive on the tape and then just switching from plastic peeling off of tape to tape peeling off of bed. Glad to hear it's working out well for you.

As far as I can tell, I'm an outlier in the Ultimaker community... I use a piece of plate glass clipped onto the acrylic. Coated with a few layers of Aquanet Hairspray (when I want a glassy bottom) or Elmer's Gluestick (when I don't care about the bottom finish and don't want to wait for the hairspray to dry). I'm pretty sure colorFabb uses painters tape wiped down with alcohol. I have noticed that as the weather has gotten cooler, corner lifting has gotten worse in general on the UM. I'm debating on getting something to use for a lightly heated bed (maybe like 50-55).

Finally got in some spare nozzles so I could drill out to 0.8mm. For the right print, an 0.8mm nozzle is pretty awesome. It just goes so fast! I really loved printing with the fine. Like Ian, I also fought with some clogging, but the material is just so good, that it's worth the battle. Looking back, I had no trouble on my first prints, but let the material sit in the nozzle overnight after the first prints. So, I'm guessing that was probably the issue. The coarse is pretty awesome as well, and with the 0.8mm presents no clogging issue. I've been printing up a ton of these letter bowls as gifts for xmas. This one will be filled with candy and given to my daughter's preschool teacher. Layer height on this is a super chunky 0.4mm, but the grain of the wood actually hides it pretty well until you get really close. Source files for my letter bowls are here: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:117513 (I know, I know, I'll get over to youmagine eventually)

bah! I forgot to subscribe to this topic and didn't realize anyone had replied :( Oh well. I have 4 nozzles on the way, but will check in with Illuminarti to see what he has going on as well Going to be trying things with the larger nozzle once they arrive and will report back.

I got my hands on some samples of the woodfill fine last weekend. I tried it out on the UM and a few of my other machines. The fine can run with a stock nozzle. I REALLY like this material. The surface finish just looks really cool. The grain of the fill hides the printing lines. It also does quite impressively in bridging even without a cooling fan. Here's a teaser pic at 100 microns. I also have some of the coarse, but don't have a spare nozzle. If anyone in the US is up for going in on a group buy with me for some nozzles to split up the shipping, I can drill yours out for you and send you a little bit of my sample of the coarse. Here's my blog post on the fine. http://www.printedsolid.com/testing-new-3d-printing-filament-carbon-fiber-wood-filled-xt-and-more/

I was able to get a hold of some of this material as well as some new materials from colorFabb to test this past weekend. I put up a blog post about it here. http://www.printedsolid.com/testing-new-3d-printing-filament-carbon-fiber-wood-filled-xt-and-more/ The protoplant samples I received were all 1.75mm, so I didn't test them on the ultimaker. Just for the heck of it, I did try running the 1.75mm carbon fiber in the ultimaker, but it just buckled and 'corkscrewed' at the hot end. Nothing came out. They are going to send me some 3mm when they run it, so I'll put up pics then. I did test the colorFabb materials on the Ultimaker. Their woodfill is amazing!

It's a go/no-go extruder. sorry. metrology humor.

Yo Nick! I can understand the jonesing. It's really good material. Good timing. My order is coming in Wednesday (verified with shipper). It is available for preorder now. http://www.printedsolid.com/shop/xt/colorfabb-xt-2-85mm/ If you're feeling adventurous, I have some samples of their new coarse woodfill material. It requires that the nozzle be opened up to 0.8mm. I can toss some in with any orders.

I actually just put up a blog post with some of the Halloween stuff I have been doing: http://www.printedsolid.com/halloween-ideas-for-3d-printing/ However, this is the one that I really want to show off I ran two of these. First was of the original Grumpy Pumpkin by SCAMPBELL Then I remixed it to that it can be printed hollow with a top to add in a light source. Printed at 80% scale (which pretty much fills up the Ultimaker 1) 200 micron layers in colorFabb XT. I really like the way it turned out.

Hi Nick, I'm the US distributor (http://www.printedsolid.com). I only have one sample spool of the XT myself ATM, but should have it in stock soon. Here's the link for international distributors. http://colorfabb.com/resellers.html Nicolinux, looks like there are 4 in Germany. Also, posted this in another thread, but the XT can be vapor polished for smoothing (like ABS), clarification (traditional application of vapor polishing), and some other interesting effects. http://www.printedsolid.com/vapor-polishing-colorfabb-xt/

Cool idea. I'm up for printing some pieces.

Aaron, no I looked into it after protoparadigm's blog post, but concluded that it was too expensive and too dangerous.

You guys are having way too much fun with this big reveal!

I've been playing around with testing a few sample spools of colorFabb Xt that I received. I am really liking it. Last week, I tried a few things and figured out something really cool. It can be vapor polished in acetone, but the reaction is a little different than ABS. A few cool things happen. One is that single wall prints with a very brief exposure clarify nicely. The other is that the surface lines are smoothed. Third is that flexibility increases dramatically. Some of the improved flexibility is lost within a few days, but you can see me crumbling a vase print into a ball and then unfolding it! Cool party trick if nothing else. It can be also be solvent welded with acetone or MEK based solvents. I'm guessing you'd probably also get some nice smoothing by simply painting on MEK or dipping, but I'm set up for vapor so I tried that first. Here's a blog post on my findings: http://www.printedsolid.com/vapor-polishing-colorfabb-xt/ My theory of the moment is that the clear vs white appearance after polishing has to do with the amount of moisture in the air after drying. I do a lot of investment casting with printed parts. I've tried vapor polished ABS with great results, but that's not really something you want to be burning off on a regular basis. So, I usually go to PLA printed at high resolution or hand finished. For me, this is a really great finding and I plan on using quite frequently for future investment casting and mold making.

I've tried it with fairly small objects. Kapton + Glue stick. Heated to 55C. Seemed to stick really well. Needed pliers to remove the part. Can't say how it would have worked for more challenging parts.

@Nick, sounds like a neat trick!

You could also do away with the tape entirely. I use a piece of plate glass treated with either aquanet hairspray or dilute white school glue/glue stick. I suspect a little bit of glue stick on top of the tape where the corners are peeling might also help.

I'll try a stupid answer Have you tried mousing over the options? A window comes up describing what each setting does in a fair amount of detail.

I'm a little confused by your response... Their pictures sure look like it was a reasonably effective treatment. It even has the same characteristic glove smudges you see in vapor polished ABS when you pull it out of the vapor by touching the part directly. I've used Plastruct Plastic weld, which is MEK based to solvent weld together PLA parts with great success so it's definitely doing more than just drying out the filament. That was with cheap filament though, so it's possible there was something else in the filament that was soluble in MEK.

There are other nasty chemical choices as well. Pure MEK (not the MEK substitute you can get in the paint store). Also TETRAHYDROFURAN. I don't think I'd want to keep any in my house, but hey, we're all grown ups here. http://www.protoparadigm.com/blog/2013/06/vapor-smoothing-and-polishing-pla-with-tetrahydrofuran-thf/

I don't think I would do it myself, but if you google vapor polishing PLA with carburetor cleaner on you tube, you'll find a process that reportedly polishes PLA like ABS does acetone.

I was an early backer on that project. Tim's been awesome and communicative with all of the backers so thumbs up for that. If you're going to look at a filament extruder it may be one to consider. I have heard of people having success with PLA. BUT... I actually never put mine together! I've had plenty of filament clogs from contamination in cheap filament and issues from diameter variation in cheap filament. Reality hit me that my cheap filament probably wasn't going to be any better than the cheap filament I've been burned by in the past and no longer purchase.