A good summary of (nearly) all the different filaments available, their pros and cons. I love these videos because I always find a couple that I've never heard of that I want to try. Anybody else try PCTG yet?
What shall we do with a 3D printer...early in the morning!
- Thread starter amberwolf
- Start date
A good summary of (nearly) all the different filaments available, their pros and cons. I love these videos because I always find a couple that I've never heard of that I want to try. Anybody else try PCTG yet?
Haven't seen that specific video yet, but the others from him on "every filament ever made" (or whatever he called the series) were interesting, if not very detailed.
If you watch his quick overviews and one of the filaments he mentions looks interesting, head over to CNCKitchen, because Stefan likely has done a much more thorough review on the specific filament you want to know more about. For example, I went there to find more about PCTG:
Essentium PCTG Review — CNC Kitchen
PCTG in its full, written form is hard to pronounce but it’s similarly to PETG and also a glycol modified Copolyester for better printability and material performance. It claims to be an alternative to PETG only with better impact strength, surface gloss, and for me, more importantly, almost perfect
www.cnckitchen.com
nicobie
100 MW
I would trust Stefan before anybody else when it comes to printer filament.
Perhaps a useful drybox is the GammaVault pet food / etc airtight container system:
endless-sphere.com
I already have "a few" of them, so I'll try it out as I don't have anything else ATM that is sealable like these are. Dunno why I didn't think of it myself.
They're certainly big enough to hold a stack of filament reels.
Shelf live of Silicone (RTV) after opening
When you need RTV, have you run into one that's been opened sitting in your tool box for a while (months/ years) but the stuff inside has cured so it's useless? That's happened to me quite a few times. This tube is at least 3 years old and is 1/2 full. The stuff inside is still fine and flows...
endless-sphere.com
I already have "a few" of them, so I'll try it out as I don't have anything else ATM that is sealable like these are. Dunno why I didn't think of it myself.
They're certainly big enough to hold a stack of filament reels.
Attachments
Turns out the big shell I made to keep the dog hair / etc out didn't work nearly as well as I'd intended, so I removed it for easier access to the printer, and to take up 2/3 less space on the table. Then I moved it to a "new" table:
I got a shipping crate that was being tossed out that was made from decent plywood, though poorly assembled using staples and nails that didn't really hold it together. I reassembled it slightly differently than it came (the large plywood piece was the bottom, just above the "pallet jack" boards), to turn it into a table to use just for the 3D printing stuff (to free up my worktable for it's original purposes). I used drywall screws (salvaged mostly from other tossed-out fixtures, etc) to reinforce the insufficent nails/staples and make it a nice solid structure, moving the long crossboard from the "front" to the "back" to better triangulate it, and the front and top center crossboards to the ends to better triangulate those.
So now the broken printer is on the left end of the table, the stack of filament is in the middle, and the working printer is on the right end. I haven't gotten to putting the filament into the gamma vault with saved dehydrator packets to keep it dry, and putting the GV under the table; or mounting the power strip(s) to the table, and a light strip over it, and adding a little toolbox to store all the things used with the printer, spare parts, etc.
I also have a heat lamp I may add to the table on a gooseneck to keep the printing area warmer to help certain prints.
I have some clear plastic I may make a less bulky enclosure for the printer to help with that (even if it doesn't keep dog hair out).
JellyBean's waterbowl is still to the right end of the table (at the end of a long carpet to catch her drips as she walks away from it), and I"ll probably need to add a shield to the end of the table so when she lifts her head out of the water and shakes it, it doesn't splatter all over the printer(s). Can't really move the bowl, as it has to be at the end of that carpet so she doesn't leave a slime trail....
I got a shipping crate that was being tossed out that was made from decent plywood, though poorly assembled using staples and nails that didn't really hold it together. I reassembled it slightly differently than it came (the large plywood piece was the bottom, just above the "pallet jack" boards), to turn it into a table to use just for the 3D printing stuff (to free up my worktable for it's original purposes). I used drywall screws (salvaged mostly from other tossed-out fixtures, etc) to reinforce the insufficent nails/staples and make it a nice solid structure, moving the long crossboard from the "front" to the "back" to better triangulate it, and the front and top center crossboards to the ends to better triangulate those.
So now the broken printer is on the left end of the table, the stack of filament is in the middle, and the working printer is on the right end. I haven't gotten to putting the filament into the gamma vault with saved dehydrator packets to keep it dry, and putting the GV under the table; or mounting the power strip(s) to the table, and a light strip over it, and adding a little toolbox to store all the things used with the printer, spare parts, etc.
I also have a heat lamp I may add to the table on a gooseneck to keep the printing area warmer to help certain prints.
I have some clear plastic I may make a less bulky enclosure for the printer to help with that (even if it doesn't keep dog hair out).
JellyBean's waterbowl is still to the right end of the table (at the end of a long carpet to catch her drips as she walks away from it), and I"ll probably need to add a shield to the end of the table so when she lifts her head out of the water and shakes it, it doesn't splatter all over the printer(s). Can't really move the bowl, as it has to be at the end of that carpet so she doesn't leave a slime trail....
Back when I posted that, I put all my opened filament in one of those and have been putting all the "dri-pack" dessicant packets we toss out at work from various shipped products in it, and it has helped keep the filament a lot drier than before, so it's printed better in my few practice pieces I have had time to work on (though none of them correctly finished due to problems with my file setup; still working that out).Perhaps a useful drybox is the GammaVault pet food / etc airtight container system:
Shelf live of Silicone (RTV) after opening
When you need RTV, have you run into one that's been opened sitting in your tool box for a while (months/ years) but the stuff inside has cured so it's useless? That's happened to me quite a few times. This tube is at least 3 years old and is 1/2 full. The stuff inside is still fine and flows...
I already have "a few" of them, so I'll try it out as I don't have anything else ATM that is sealable like these are. Dunno why I didn't think of it myself.
They're certainly big enough to hold a stack of filament reels.
So i highly recommend some type of sealed container and adding dessicant to it, to keep your filament more printable.
If discarded dessicant packets are not readily available, there are numerous silica cat litters and plant-soil-enhancers that work the same way that can be purchased relatively cheaply.
Eviltwin68
10 mW
A couple of parts I printed for my latest acquisition, a Hase Kett Wiesel delta trike. Deltas and tadpoles are notorious for not having anywhere to mount stuff and I found these on Thingiverse and printed them on a Bambu P1S. The part closest to the motor is for a garmin style mount. The other is more generic and I put an old Timex to good use. I like having a way to see the time when I ride.
