instas "filaments that work on the M2" thread

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insta
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instas "filaments that work on the M2" thread

Post by insta » Wed Feb 18, 2015 1:02 am

Until Rick yells at me for abusing moderator powers I'm going to abuse my moderator powers and lord over this particular thread with an iron fist, to try and keep it on-topic.

There is no canonical source of materials that can be printed on the M2, and lots of misinformation as well (especially around NinjaFlex!). So, please help me build a list. If you want to add a NEW filament (or configuration) to the list, please copy the following template -- having 13 different "here is my good looking MakerGear red PLA+ part with the stock M2 settings in S3D" posts will make it harder to see the spectrum of plastics we can use, please by all means be the first one but don't be the 13th.

If you want to start a discussion about a particular print, take it to PM or start a new thread.

Template below:
Filament name: PLA, PETG, Laywood, etc.
Filament vendor: Please factually state the vendor the filament came from, and keep it neutral. No endorsements or bashing, the pictures will speak for themselves.
Hotend used: V3b, V4 PTFE, V4 metal, E3D, other (please specify)
Nozzle diameter: 0.35mm, 0.4mm, etc.
Layer height: 0.1mm, 0.2mm, etc.
Printing temperature: 220C, 240C, etc
Other information: retraction, z-hop, slicer used, profile used, etc
Then, attach or inline photos of the print. No links offsite to view the pictures, but you may link your pictures to an offsite album (like a Flickr album with more photos, for instance). Please (ahem jimc), please no photos of post-processed prints. It's misleading.
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insta
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Re: instas "filaments that work on the M2" thread

Post by insta » Wed Feb 18, 2015 1:06 am

Filament name: PLA (silver)
Filament vendor: Ultimachine
Hotend used: V4 PTFE
Nozzle diameter: 0.35mm
Layer height: 0.1mm
Printing temperature: 220C
Other information: no z-hop, 1mm retract @ 40mm/sec (too little for this part, it was a bit stringy). This was my first v4 print. The bed was hairspray on boro @ 60C.
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insta
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Re: instas "filaments that work on the M2" thread

Post by insta » Wed Feb 18, 2015 1:10 am

Filament name: ABS
Filament vendor: [unknown, sample roll]
Hotend used: V3b
Nozzle diameter: 0.5mm
Layer height: 0.2mm
Printing temperature: 240C
Other information: evaluation of an unnamed vendor for a 3rd party, filament had a lot of moisture in it. 0.2mm z-hop, 2mm retract @ 40mm/sec. Bed was ABS-juiced Kapton tape.
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Ronnien55
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Re: instas "filaments that work on the M2" thread

Post by Ronnien55 » Wed Feb 18, 2015 5:14 am

Filament name: NinjaFlex, Midnight, 1.75mm, .50kg
Filament vendor: Fenner Drives
Hotend used: V4 PTFE
Nozzle diameter: 0.35mm
Layer height: 0.15mm
Printing temperature: 250c, bed temp 80c 1st layer only
Other information:
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IMG_0885.JPG
Casing Brakes
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JohnnyRobot
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Re: instas "filaments that work on the M2" thread

Post by JohnnyRobot » Wed Feb 18, 2015 8:51 pm

Filament name: PETG (Reflex Blue)
Filament vendor: eSun
Hotend used: V3b
Nozzle diameter: 0.35mm
Layer height: 0.18mm
Printing temperature: 250C
Printing speed: 40mm/sec
Other information: Sliced in S3D, No Cooling fan, 3 solid bottom layers, spiral vase mode.
Attachments
3d-print-petg-filament.jpg
3d printed with petg filament
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insta
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Re: instas "filaments that work on the M2" thread

Post by insta » Wed Feb 25, 2015 6:08 am

Filament name: Polycarbonate
Filament vendor: Ultimachine
Hotend used: V4 metal
Nozzle diameter: 0.35mm
Layer height: 0.1mm @ 80% infill
Printing temperature: 300C, bed 118C
Other information: 1mm @ 60mm/sec retraction, 0.2 zhop, PC slurry (dimethylether instead of acetone) on Kapton

PC likes to warp. Badly. The parts themselves came out really strong, but man this stuff likes to curl -- the last shot, that's supposed to be symmetrical :cry:
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IMG_20150224_230000.jpg
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jimc
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Re: instas "filaments that work on the M2" thread

Post by jimc » Wed Feb 25, 2015 3:11 pm

Polycarb i think you are going to find super hard to print with because of the warping. I use it in sheet form here in the shop for some different projects. The thickness of them change bigtime depending on temp. As you play with it more let us know how that goes and what you find.

rsilvers
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Re: instas "filaments that work on the M2" thread

Post by rsilvers » Tue Apr 07, 2015 6:35 pm

Five successful prints with GizmoDork black PC, even though one was 0.5 lbs and over 160mm tall. Had to use a brim to control lift on the big part. A short part worked with no brim. These parts all had 99% infill, because, why bother with PC at 50% infill if you could have just used ABS with 99% infill and been stronger and cheaper? PC is for when other plastics are not strong enough when close to 100% infill.

Requires hot-end that can do close to 300C. I printed at 290C with an E3D and 0.4mm nozzle at 80mm/sec and 0.320mm layers. Print speeds of 60mm/sec were nicer around inner-perimeters, so I recommend 60mm/sec or less.

I used an Ikea enclosure with a 120C bed. A 110C bed also worked. I started a print at 90C before it was warmed up to 120C, and that worked.

My enclosure gets up to 60C inside. I have not tested PC without an enclosure. It may work, I am not sure.

0.15mm, 0.25mm, and 0.320mm layers all worked.


For example, MakerGear M2 with E3D, 1/10 scale, 290C, 50 micron layers, GizmoDorks Polycarbonate, 60 mm/sec (I think I limited acceleration to 1200).

Image

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Jules
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Re: instas "filaments that work on the M2" thread

Post by Jules » Mon Jun 22, 2015 5:16 pm

Filament name: Wood-Natural
Filament vendor: eSun
Hotend used: V4 PTFE
Nozzle diameter: 0.35mm
Layer height: 0.2mm
Printing temperature: Bed 40°C, Extruder 190°C
Other information: Retraction - 1.4mm, Skirt 3+, Infill > 50%, Speeds: Printing 60 mm/sec, X/Y 60mm/sec, No odor

Some things to watch for: It's hard to get the flow started evenly through the small nozzle, so use a skirt of 3 or more to get it flowing well, depending on the footprint of the part. (Using a larger nozzle might help, but it also might just let the filament drip out - it's very runny) There are a lot of fine ooze travel strings, but increasing the retraction did not help with this filament, it already has a hard time staying put in the nozzle. Print speeds are slow. (They could stand to be slower.) There were a few boogers, but not consistent ones, leading me to think there was an occasional plug pushed out of the nozzle.

It sticks fairly well to itself, but i had a hard time bonding the first layer onto a Kapton-taped bed. (Might have been a slight leveling problem in that case.) Increasing the heat on the bed to 60°C did not improve the first layer adhesion. Use a sticking agent (hairspray - several coats, sanded) and slow the speed of the first layer down to about 40%. I did use 100% cooling for the print shown, but I might try it again with no fan later, to see how it works.

The extruded thread is stiff, and it is excellent on overhangs. Bridging is absolutely no problem with this filament, it does not sag at all. No warping or cracking whatsoever. Support is easily removed.

At low infill rates, the material can both delaminate and break, just like wood. At higher infill it is fairly strong, somewhat flexible, and feels almost like wood. Sanding is very easy (like wood, not plastic), and after sanding away the layers, it resembles wood completely - anyone looking at it won't be able to tell it isn't wood. Even the weight of the piece resembles wood weight and texture.

Okay, now the bad news......The main print went fine, but when I started playing with the settings (coasting and retraction, etc.) to print the barrel rings, i started seeing a lot more problems with extrusion - basically the thread coming out was so thin that it wasn't sticking to anything. I could visibly see that it wasn't extruding enough, and had to kill the print half a dozen times. And while it never clogged the nozzle, I did manage to jam up the filament drive with the softer cleaner filament that I ran through to switch out the filament, so it's probably a better idea to either clean out the nozzle with a length of PLA, or print this on a 0.5mm nozzle. I just wanted to see if it could be done with a 0.35mm and it can. Love this filament, it's just like printing wood. But this is going to be one of those filaments that require you to get it dialed in just right, so plan on a bit of fiddling.

Update: I've changed the recommended printing temp down to 190°C - it cuts way down on the stringing (although there is still some), and it doesn't seem to impact the flowrate.
Barrel1.jpg
very oozy/stringy
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Barrel3.jpg
breaks/splinters at low infill just like wood
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Barrel2.jpg
PLA on the left, Wood on the right
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Last edited by Jules on Thu Oct 22, 2015 12:14 am, edited 6 times in total.

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Tim
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Re: instas "filaments that work on the M2" thread

Post by Tim » Wed Jun 24, 2015 4:43 pm

Filament name: Bronze
Filament vendor: eSun
Hotend used: V4 PTFE
Nozzle diameter: 0.35mm
Layer height: 0.2mm and 0.1mm
Printing temperature: Bed 50°C, Extruder 220°C
Other information: Retraction - 1.4mm, Skirt 1, Infill 30%, Speeds: Printing 100 mm/sec (with a Smoothieboard), X/Y 100mm/sec, No odor

Filament weight/density is about the same as other types of PLA, not significantly heavier like the ColorFabb bronzefill. It has a lighter color than the ColorFabb, a bit more greenish, not so much dark brown. The metallic look is distinctly visible under strong direct light, not so much under normal interior lighting conditions (which is also true of the ColorFabb). Attempts to polish it were unsuccessful, but then I didn't make a particularly concerted effort, either. What works best is to finish the piece with a layer of gold paint. The underlying base color is a similar enough color that it works very well with the paint. A single light coat of paint gives it a darker color that is pretty realistic without additional finishing.

I found the filament to be rather brittle, although others have had a different experience with it. The brittleness may have been due to my very low infill percentage. In most ways, the filament behaved like standard PLA, with good adhesion to the bed and very little stringing. When printing at 0.2mm layer height, the layer boundaries are very distinct at shallow angles (which is typical of PLA). When printing at 0.1mm layer height to reduce those artifacts, the overall resolution was not as good. The reduced quality of the fine details was countered by the improved surfaces at the shallow angles, so overall it's a wash. You can see these effects in the photos.
Attachments
bronzefill1.jpg
Bronze filament as it appears unfinished. The camera flash gives it a more metallic look than it has under natural light.
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knights2a.jpg
(rightmost two pieces) Bronze filament finished with Testor's gold enamel paint.
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