Any new news on the Carbon Fiber Reinforced PLA?

[vinay 1]

Proto Pasta is offering a carbon fiber filament is there any new news on it? I saw the updates on the kickstarter, has anyone tried it on the Rep2 or Ultimaker 2? I want to see some real world test on some test objects we all know will...

 

I could think of alot of applications you can add strength too with carbon fiber wondering what would you use it for and how would it change the landscape of 3D printing?

 

To get some ideas started imagine what you can print by using carbon fiber filament or just saying Its made of carbon fiber alone is a self selling point by it self..

 

common examples

 

carbon fiber phone cases

carbon fiber gun parts

carbon fiber glasses

carbon fiber car parts

carbon fiber toys

carbon fiber airplane parts

and so on...

 

Do you think this stuff would be easy to break or brittle will also be light weight?

I hope someone comes out with a flexible carbon fiber filament because It would make alot of money don't you think?

 

I would call it Flex carbon fiber filament changing the landscape of 3D printing.. LOL hint hint someone make it happen already! Makerbot, Utimaker someone!!

 

The kickstarter is offering it in 1.75 and 3 mm filaments.

 

 

here's the link to see what I'm talking about all opinions is welcomed....

 

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1375236253/proto-pasta-gourmet-food-for-your-3d-printer

 

[vinay 1]

Ultimaker hehe

 

[vinay 1]

NO I am NOT in anyway affiliated with kickstarter project or proto pasta in anyway! This is a interesting subject lets make this clear...

 

[lohiaprateek 0]

They have mentioned a lot of the specs on the page, do learn to read and understand prior to showing your excitement

 

[vinay 1]

lohiaprateek Wow that why your are here LOL... anyway here some tests on the carbon fiber filament....

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/qu-bd/qu-bd-one-up-open-source-production-ready-3d-print/posts

 

[duesentrieb 0]

Interesting material, for sure. It is carbon fiber reinforced PLA, yes. It seems to be stronger than normal ABS or PLA, yes. And I totally like the idea to develope new and better filaments. I also think that these guys know what they are doing and have a strong engineering background, which is good.

Carbon fiber reinforced polymeres consist of two parts. The matrix (bonding polymere, in this case PLA) and the reinforcement, carbon fiber. The higher the percentage of the reinforcement, the stronger the material. But the percentage of carbon is only 15% on this reinforced PLA.

Another factor is the orientation of the fibre. When you design CFRP parts, the orientation makes a large difference, because the optimal direction of force for carbon is along the fibre. Means if you try to pull it into the direction of the fibre you need a lot more force, than you need when you try to bend it. So CFRP is mostly used in fabrics and these fabrics are orientated so that they can take the maxiumum amount of force. But on this material the fibres aren´t even woven into a fabric. And they are short. They are short multidirectional fibres. Makes a large difference.

What they are making is Fibre-reinforced plastic (FRP), it is stronger than normal plastic, but not as strong as CFRP. Means short cut fibres are being mixed into the PLA, as they discribed. And because of the printing process the fibres can only be directed in the layer, but they do not bond together the layers, so the material won´t have the same characteristics in each direction. When you look at their test set up, what they measured was the force in layer direction but not 90° to it. So carbon fibre is not carbon fibre.

Maybe you mixed up the two of them. Perhaps reading the attaced links will lessen your excitement.

CFRP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_fiber_reinforced_polymer

Fibre-reinforced plastic (FRP) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibre-reinforced_plastic

 

[vinay 1]

This characteristic could make this plastic useful for making motor/gear mounts for mechanical applications.

toybuilderlabs offer some testing results..

http://toybuilderlabs.com/blog/2013/11/8/carbon-fiber-reinforced-filament

I am not in anyway affiliated with kickstarter project, proto pasta or toybuilderlabs..

 

[duesentrieb 0]

Well this material is definitely interesting. Would be interesting to testprint parts with it. Let´s see what it is good for and waht people make of it. For experiments it´s to expensive to ship sth. from the States to Europe, but I don´t think that it´s that tricky to produce this kind of filament. So if it is that good as it promises to be, others will also produce it. Or if you have got a filastruder, maybe do it yourself... Keep us posted if you find sth. new about it.

 

[vinay 1]

I found another hands on review of the carbon fiber filament..

 

http://www.zatopa.com/blog/video-review-of-proto-pasta-carbon-fiber-impregnated-pla/

 

 

 

 

I am not in anyway affiliated with kickstarter project, proto pasta, toybuilderlabs, zatopa and this is not my YouTube video... if anyone has any video and hands on test results post it here...

 

[printedsolid 3]

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!