Feb.18, 2013
Artistic
618’s semi-translucent surface properties have provided artists with a unique addition to their creative tools. 3D Printing is the latest “canvas or clay” in their transitions from imagination to real art. Ben Malouf, Creative Designer and Artist who posts several artistic designs on thingiverse.com, designs and sells 3D printed art.
Ben Malouf : Before I started working with taulman 618 material I had never 3D printed anything I really considered beautiful with my RepRap printer. Didn't really matter how nice the design was, the materials all looked cheap. The 618 looks amazing right off the printer and can be dyed any shade of any color with common fabric dye. Add the additional durability to the mix and I feel like I'm making objects people will actually want to display in their homes as works of art.
"This changes everything!"
As noted, the human body tolerates nylon well. In addition, a wide range of harsh chemicals do not affect nylon. The solvent acetone would dissolve current 3D Printed plastics yet nylon is unaffected by acetone along with most other solvents. Now parts can be printed and used where the chemical environment within the assembly would be detrimental to other 3D Printed materials. Nylon’s slippery surface texture not only allows for gears to be printed needing no lubrication, but also the direct printing of molds for fiberglass and epoxy resins where no mold release is required.
Released less than three months ago, 618 is a new material for all reprap style 3D Printers and truly raises the bar on functionality for 3D Printed parts. 618 is designed for the inventor, engineer, designer, artist and machinist that has an older or newer 3D Printer. 618 has been completely tested by the 3D Printing community and costs no more than current 3D Printing materials. Users simply change from their current material to 618 and continue printing. A consistent reaction by those that have printed parts in 618 is:
“This changes everything!” To quote Mike Moseley, a CNC house operator, “In 30 minutes, we went from a part we were afraid to drop on the floor, to one we can slam with a sledge hammer!”
"Time to market"
One of the most surprising outcomes from the release of 618, was the huge number of information requests that came not from the users already within the 3D Printing community, but from the medical, clinical and high tech industries. Engineering managers, lead designers, development engineers, doctors and technical specialist were quick to ask about the specifications of 618 and it’s possible use within their specialty. It became clear that while these designers do not normally post to the forums, IRC channels and blogs, they do indeed watch and read every bit of available information, check out every upload and read every post. As one executive told us… We are a development company and it’s 2013. We have one razor-focused goal. “Time to market”. Or in slang….”He who gets there first, Wins!” If we can 3D Print a usable complicated part in one hour and it takes our competition a week in the CNC shop, guess who gets the contract?
These contacts afforded us the ability to ask some general questions of industry executives about their use of 3D Printed parts. The one significant question on the mind of most 3D Printing houses is: “Why doesn’t industry use more 3D printed parts in limited or small production runs?” We received the same answer from at least four different design executives. “While these parts may look acceptable for use internal to an assembly or product, quite simply, they will not consistently survive a consumer product drop and shipping test. Say what you will, but if a unit comes back to service due to a faulty electronics part, that’s one thing, but if it comes back after a support boss has broken when someone moved the unit to dust behind it, that is a significant failure. Those types of failures get you bad press.”
Since the release of the open source reprap 3D Printer, there has been a constant stream of technical improvements to the 3D Printing “machine”. According to 3D Printer price compare, there are currently 15-20 sub $3,000.00 printers available based on the reprap basic operation. The 3D printing material of choice for years has been the standard plastic ABS. A type of plastic, toys and other general consumer products are made from. Stronger materials have required the design of a considerably more expensive 3D Printer. The nylons have been tried in the past, but proven to require much higher print temperatures. Even with these higher temperatures, consistent bonding from layer to layer was still an issue. Reprap style 3D Printer users have been aware of the structural limitations of ABS from their first few prints and with no new materials; they concentrated on machine improvements as a goal to making more esthetically appealing parts.
618 along with the newer reprap style 3D Printer now allows the designer to meet all three manufacturing goals. The newer units are fast, reliable and have repeatability on all axis for printing to a specific “form”. These new units have resolutions in the 20 micron Z axis and .2mm XY axis range allowing them to consistently print accurate curves and holes for “fit”. And with 618, the printed parts are capable of high strength, pliability, chemical resistance and excellent surface textures completing the “function” requirement.
Additional information is at www.taulman3d.com.
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Posted in 3D Printing Materials
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