Sep 21, 2018 | By Thomas
Prusa Research, the Czech 3D printer manufacturer behind the Prusa line of RepRap 3D printers, has unveiled Prusament, a new brand of filament that is developed in-house at its new filament factory. The company is also the only 3D printer manufacturer that has its own in-house filament production.
According to Prusa, filament quality can be determined by its physical measurements, such as diameter precision, ovality, consistency of color and material properties, printing properties affected mainly by the resins and additives, quality of care in manufacturing which includes perfect winding for tangle-free unspooling.
"Some manufacturers care so little about the diameter consistency," explained Josef Prusa, CEO and Founder of Prusa Research. "We went a little further and we collect all the diameter measurements (more than 4700× per second) in our database together with all the extrusion line parameters. This was perfect for fine-tuning everything. Therefore, our manufacturing process allows us to guarantee the state-of-the-art precision of ±20 µm or better on every spool."
The new line of filament aims to achieve a consistent diameter and eliminate lumps.
“This is very important, because even the industry standard of ±50 µm may result in up to 11.4 % variation in volume, which means the diameter can be anywhere between 1.70 mm and 1.80 mm. In layman’s terms: it can lead to major problems regarding the printed object quality. That’s why our system will not allow any spool to be packed and shipped even if there’s only a single spot that is not within the 20 µm tolerance,” Prusa added.
Prusa and his team are very confident in the quality of their filament that each spool will have a scannable QR code, each of which includes an individual report of manufacturing specifications with a graph and data analysis.
"We are the first manufacturer to ever do this, because we feel that it’s time to stop the bullshit specs that you can see pretty much everywhere, and step up the game," stated Prusa.
This feature allows its users to check out the specifications of each spool, including weight, length, Basic diameter, maximum deviation, standard deviation and ovality of the spool. This feature can also calculate how many meters/feet are remaining on your spool by entering its the weight in kg/lbs.
To keep the color and material properties consistent throughout the whole spool of filament, Prusa and his team have also created an online monitoring system based on the CIELAB spectrum, a color space defined by the International Commission on Illumination, which describes all the colors visible to the human eye and was created to serve as a device-independent model to be used as a reference. The system constantly monitors the color tone of the filament, and the spool is automatically rejected if it is not within its specifications.
At the moment, Prusa Research is only launching PLA filament in Silver, Galaxy Black, Lipstick Red, and Azure Blue, but plans to greatly expand the color range. The company also plans to release PETG and ASA in the near future.
Prusament filaments are available for purchase on its e-shop for 24.99 USD/EUR (VAT incl.) right now, and will also be available on Amazon within a month.
Posted in 3D Printing Materials
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C’mon Joe, Make us a good PACF material so we can down to business... Talk to us, captain.
Andy wrote at 9/21/2018 3:46:42 PM:
Reprap.cc is having inhouse deluxe material manufacturing with this specs since many years.... and its also a printer manufacturer..
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