[PLA/PHA filament]

s the temperature it goes soft at the same?

 

Hi Owen,

Yes it's the same as standard PLA so the glass transistion temperature is around 55 C.

 

[Colorfabb – filament producer from the Netherlands!]

Interesting, and yes this is advertising but its also relevant for our community so besides the hyper-link in the signature (which is against community guidelines),I see no reason to ban it, as long as it enriches our community experience and we are talking to real people and not some anonymous entity.

 

Hi Alexander,

The hyperlink is removed, sorry about that didn't pay attention to the rules when posting it last night.

You are for sure talking to real people. I've started using an Ultimaker back in oktober 2011, did the workshop at Protospace Utrecht. I used the machine intensively for my graduation project at the faculty of Industrial Design at the Eindhoven University of Technology. I’ve been reading the forum and google groups daily ever since but haven’t been posting a lot.

I will be posting lots of our prints in our gallery and will notify the community if new exiting filament is available.

Happy printing!

Gijs

 

[Colorfabb – filament producer from the Netherlands!]

Hi Daniel,

The glass transition temperature is similar to normal PLA, so it can't withstand heat more than normal PLA. We have not yet tried any post-processing on the PLA/PHA material. But I expect that it will be similar to PLA as well.

The 'rainbow pack' is a good idea for new users to test the filament. I'll let you know soon whether we will produce such a filament pack.

Gijs

 

What is the glass transition temperature, is it higher than normal PLA (58 to 65 degrees Celsius)?

I.e. can it withstand heat more than normal PLA?

Also, what about post-processing of it compared to PLA? Is it as sensitive/picky? I think THF is one of the few solvents that can polish PLA.

Can you produce a "rainbow pack" like Faberdashery? I would order it immediately for testing....

 

 

[PLA/PHA filament]

Hi!

I just opened a new topic in the welcome section but figured that a topic in "Materials and Addons" would be nice as well. I'll go a bit more into the specifics regarding the material in this topic.

We've developed a new type of filament, it's a blend of PLA and PHA. Polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) is an biodegradable polymer produced by bacterial fermentation of sugar or lipids. The filament is tougher compared to normal PLA and therefore a lot less brittle. Normally when you would bend a piece of PLA between your hands it would snap, PLA/PHA filament just deforms instead of snapping.

The 'printablity' of the material is really nice. We've been able to repeatedly create tricky prints with lots of retraction. The filament takes the retraction very well and prints with little or no stringing. We generally print between 215 - 220 C.

 

Here are some pictures of our printlab and models printed with out PLA/PHA filament on one of our Ultimakers.

 

The PLA/PHA material is available in lots of different colors, have a look at: http://www.colorfabb.com

I will be posting updates on the development of soluable filaments and a biopolycarbonate filament.

Cheers,

Gijs

 

[Colorfabb – filament producer from the Netherlands!]

Hi folks!

My name is Gijs, (also active under the username:Gijs) since december 2012 I’ve been working for Helian Polymers testing fresh batches of PLA filament, best job ever :-P

We’ve developed a PLA/PHA compound to counteract the brittle characteristic of PLA and make it more tough. We’ve been testing our material extensively for the past 4 months in our ‘printlab’. We use 3 Ultimakers which basicly print nonstop with our material. We like to try all kinds of tricky prints but also develop our own models whenever we have a bit of time.

Here are some pictures of our print results:

Check out our gallery for even more awesome prints!

This is our printlab with lots of filament and even more printed objects.

Helian Polymers is a trading company specialized in masterbatches and additives for plastics. This means we have access to an endless pallet of colors and can experiment with lots of different materials and additives. At the moment our main focus is to get our line of PLA/PHA filament into the market in various colors. However we keep experimenting and developing new materials such as, biopolycarbonate filament and soluable filaments.

If you’re interested in our PLA/PHA filament, you’re welcome to visit our webshop at www.colorfabb.com and order yourself a fabulous 0,75kg spool of filament!

Cheers,

Gijs