Faberdashery Sells PLA With a Twist

A new service for 3D printer owners has emerged: Faberdashery. They sell plastic filament that's suitable for use in several types of popular 3D printers, including MakerBot, Bits From Bytes, Ultimaker and the many variants of RepRap. 

 

The difference at Faberdashery, beyond their broad color selection and exclusive sales of PLA, is that they sell filament by the meter. Now you can buy exactly what you need and won't end up with half-used spools of Bile Green laying about your work area. 

 

We discussed their operation with Faberdashery's Clare Cunningham: 

 

Fabbaloo: Who is behind Faberdashery? What motivated the creation of the service? 

 

Clare Cunningham: Faberdashery is a family-run business of 3D print enthusiasts from various backgrounds, both creative and scientific. We had been playing around with 3D printing for a few years and came to appreciate the importance of using quality print materials. We decided that was a good place to begin and built Faberdashery from there. 

 

Fabbaloo: We're curious: was your geographical proximity to RepRap/Bits From Bytes (near Bristol) a factor in the creation of Faberdashery?

 

Clare Cunningham: The South-West of England really is a hub of innovation for 3D printing. The RepRap labs at University of Bath, RepRap Ltd. and eMAKER are all based in the South West. Faberdashery have worked closely with the RepRap team at the University of Bath to develop our materials to the highest quality. We are now excited to supply our filament to the university as well as RepRap Ltd. and eMAKER. 

 

Fabbaloo: You sell only PLA filament. Tell us why you don't also sell ABS filament? 

 

Clare Cunningham: Firstly, PLA is an excellent print material. It is less prone to warping and gives fantastic quality prints. Secondly, it is a plastic with unique environmental credentials. It is not fossil fuel based and has the potential to eventually biodegrade. A criticism frequently levelled at 3D printing is that it is creating more plastic stuff for landfill. We feel that PLA provides a credible answer to this complaint. There may be a time when we do stock ABS (we never say never) but for the moment we are focussed on developing our PLA filament.

 

Fabbaloo: From where do you source the PLA? 

 

Clare Cunningham: All of our manufacturing is done within the UK, giving us tight quality control over our products and excellent results. Our raw PLA, from US-based Natureworks, is one of the few things we source from abroad. However we are talking with some exciting new UK companies who we hope may provide us with a more local solution in the future. 

 

The concept of selling filament by the meter seems to be unique, as most other shops sell by weight or spool. What is the thinking behind this approach, and has it been successful? 

 

As keen fabbers ourselves we were always frustrated that we had to buy large reams of one colour material, which would then gather dust on a shelf while we experimented with the latest stuff. What we really wanted was small quantities to play with. So for Faberdashery to sell print material by the meter seemed the perfect approach. 

 

We have had a really positive response from the fabbing community. The 3D print community is one that naturally embraces innovation and so instantly got what we were trying to do. We want Faberdashery to be known as a company that meets the demands of the community and feel we have made a good start.

 

Fabbaloo: What's next for Faberdashery? Will you sell other products? 

 

Clare Cunningham: Our aim is to support the innovations of the fabbing community by providing the best materials to work with. We are currently developing new materials that we think people will find very exciting. However for Faberdashery print materials is just the starting point. Our vision is to give a true haberdashery-like experience to digital crafters. In the future we see ourselves providing both tools and filament, alongside content creation. Faberdashery will always strive to be as innovative as the community it serves. It’s a hugely exciting time for the digital craft movement and we can see limitless possibilities. 

 

Via Faberdashery

i.Materialise Glitters with Gold and Silver

3D print service i.Materialise now offers printing in Gold and Silver metals. They're not the first service to offer this ability, but it's wonderful to see another golden service. 

 

Specifics: In addition to the sterling silver, there are three colors of 14 kt gold offered, bright yellow, reddish tinge and white gold available. Prints can be made with up to 0.3mm resolution. The maximum size of these prints is only 88x63x125mm - but if it wasn't limited by size, it would be limited by your pocketbook, as printing in gold and silver is quite expensive. 

 

There's one catch: the i.Materialise print farm doesn't actually print gold and silver directly. Instead, they print a wax model of your design first, and then they use the "lost wax casting" method to produce an actual metal object made of solid gold (or silver). Finally, they finish it off with a lot of hand polishing, which should take out any lines from the 0.3mm resolution printing. 

 

Actually, there are two catches. The second is that the lost wax casting method cannot be used on arbitrary shapes. Any embedded or looped objects just won't work. i.Materialise says, for example, that the "ball within a ball" or "chain links" are forbidden. Polishing also requires the ability to reach all surfaces. A detailed design guide describes all these nuances in detail for designers.  

 

We foresee a great deal of imaginative jewelry appearing now that there are good gold/silver 3D printing options available to designers.   

 

Via i.Materialise

Gray Materialises

Who likes gray? It's a dull, less-than-noticeable color that blends into any background. A gray car? Never! However, there's something intriguing about i.Materialise's new 3D printing material: Prime Gray. Objects just seem to look terrific in this color. According to i.Materialise's Joris Peels: 

 

Some of us (OK, me) we’re skeptical about the gray color. But, we evaluated it and it turned out to also be a very nice and classy looking material for design and art pieces as well as character models.

 

We were skeptical too, with other online 3D shops offering flashy materials such as the near-radioactive Nuclear Green, and similar products. But when you look at gray printed objects, they just look great. We suspect it has something to do with natural shadows being shades of gray, giving the object an eye-pleasing uniform color set.

 

i.Materialise is offering Prime Gray on a trial basis for one month, as is customary.

  

Via i.Materialise

Fiberglass Reinforced 3D Printing?

We ran across what appears to be an experiment by remote control flyers who are trying to hack super-strong airplane parts. The video doesn't really explain what's going on, but it appears that they might be trying to sandwich some strong fiberglass fabric within a 3D print. If so they'd have to design their model appropriately and then somehow slip the fiberglass onto the print as it takes place. 

 

Maybe someday we'll be able to print fiberglass on a second print head and this would be quite a bit easier. 

 

Via YouTube and RCGroups

Shapeways Glazes Over

We are continually amazed at the ingenuity of the Shapeways 3D print service; they seem to come up with new materials for their service almost every other week. Typically they experiment with them to see how well they are accepted and then decide whether and how to continue offering them. In the past they've pioneered the use of metals and various types of plastics. 

 

Today's new material is quite different: Glazed Ceramics. You can now print an actual coffee mug that would be no different than the one in your cupboard. The technology is a mix of 21st century CE and 21st century BCE. A very fine ceramic powder is mixed with a binder and then 3D printed into the desired shape. This unfinished model is fired and glazed in the traditional manner to produce the final ceramic object. 

 

As usual, there are some peculiar restrictions when using Glazed Ceramic, simply due to the physical properties of the print material. You must have walls at least 3mm thick and you cannot print objects that interlock with each other. You also must be careful to provide at least some spot on the bottom where the object can rest while being fired.

 

The most interesting aspect of this material is that Glazed Ceramic prints aren't priced by weight or even by volume. No, instead they are priced by surface area! We suspect this is due to the fact that the surface itself might be the primary cost driver as glaze must be applied and fired. 

 

Looking forward, we're really, really hoping Shapeways will test Firm Dark Chocolate soon. 

  

Via Shapeways

3D Printed CubeSat

You may have seen a freight train pass by hauling endless standard-sized shipping containers. Those containers make freight economical because the entire transportation system can safely assume their characteristics and adapt appropriately. 

 

There's a similar standard for space satellites: CubeSat. It's a one-liter 10 x 10 x 10 cm cube that can weigh no more than 1.33Kg. CubeSats are typically used by academics to prepare scientific payloads for use in space. Launch vehicles are able to accommodate the CubeSats because they all have the same physical standards.

 

Now we see a team has developed a CubeSat using 3D printing. A team including people from Project Starshine, Planetary Systems Corporation, The University of Arkansas, Colorado Satellite Services, Morehead State University, Montana State University, Air Force Research Laboratory/Space Vehicles Directorate, CRP USA, LLC;, Analytical Graphics, Inc., United States Air Force, Universal Space Network and Space Dynamics Laboratory CRP built a 2U (two units) CubeSat to investigate the inner Van Allen radiation belt. Their satellite, called "RAMPART" (RApid prototyped Mems Propulsion And Radiation Test CUBEflow SATellite) measures particle flux and other dangerous stuff high in the sky. 

 

Needless to say, in such an endeavor equipment will face significant thermal, chemical and mechanical stress. They also needed to design a CubeSat with as low mass as possible. To meet these challenges, one of the key technologies used was a special material developed by CRP called Windform XT, a polyamide-based material. 3D printing was done using powder-based laser sintering. The final CubeSat was plated with High Phosphorus Electroless Nickel, apparently to provide a target for radar tracking. 

 

This shows the potential for 3D printing when different materials are specifically designed for a unique purpose. One can imagine this and other powerful materials available for use by 3D printers, enabling a much wider set of possible printable objects. 

 

Via Additive3D and WindForm

Shapeways Introduces New Detail Material

Shapeways, one of the leading 3D print services, is trialing a new pair of print materials that are specially designed for high detail. They're taking cues from a survey in which clients demanded more detail and smoother prints.

 

The new materials, dubbed eloquently in the typical Shapeways style, are "Frosted Detail" and "Frosted Ultra Detail". What's the difference? "Frosted Ultra Detail" has even *more* detail: it has a minimum detail thickness of a mere 0.1mm, whereas the not Ultra material has a mere 0.2mm detail. For that extra level of detail you'll pay USD$4.39 per cc, or USD$2.89 per cc for the less detailed material. 

 

This is an experiment, as Shapeways correctly prefers to do. They're testing this material and looking for feedback for only eight weeks, after which we presume they'll decide whether to continue providing it. 

 

We're very happy to see Shapeways experimenting. Remember, without experiments, no progress will be made.

 

We're hoping to see "Frosted Ultra Super Amazing Detail" soon. 

 

Via Shapeways (Hat tip to Duann)

Variable Steel Print Pricing At i.Materialise

When i.Materialise introduced stainless steel printing earlier this year they used a very straightforward pricing scheme: price by volume. Now they've announced a new scheme in which you're encouraged to print larger steel models because the price drops as you increase the size of your model. 

 

The new pricing scheme is slightly more complex: 

 

• Up to 5 cm3 model volume : 35$
• For every extra cm3 above 5 cm3 till 40 cm3 : 8 $
• For every extra cm3 above 40cm3 : 7.5$

 

But wait - that's not quite it. They also offer a discount for "compactness". That is by increasing the ratio of material to space within an imaginary cube surrounding your model, you'll get a break. It's not quite clear to us how this is computed. 

 

But don't worry - they've simplified the computation of estimated print costs by including an online calculator. Upload your model and it will compute an accurate steel print cost for you. 

 

We're wondering if this is the future of competitiveness for 3D print services: increasingly complex pricing schemes. We're hoping this market doesn't emulate other price-competitive markets, like mobile phone plans that often confuse consumers. On the other hand, if it's cheaper, it's better!

 

Via i.Materialise