CreateItReal and WEISTEK have partnered on a new joint venture to develop high speed PLA filaments for their lightning fast machines.
The two companies have already collaborated successfully in the past: CreateItReal produces a unique “real time processor” control board that enables 3D printers to reliably run much faster than typical machines, currently up to 450mm/second during print operations. Shenzen-based WEISTEK is one of a few select companies that have incorporated CreateItReal’s control board into their 3D printer. We saw this machine in action and it is indeed quite fast.
One problem facing ultra-fast plastic extrusion machines is the properties of the plastic. Some plastics are difficult to extrude at high speeds, so it is our understanding that ABS is often used. However, there are many good properties to using PLA, but “high speed enabled” PLA filament hasn’t been commonly available.
Now the two companies have joined their expertise to form a joint venture called “CreaTEK 3D”, a company dedicated to “develop and sell special and high speed 3D printing filaments.” It seems their first product will be a special high-speed PLA filament that would, of course, be quite suitable to run in WEISTEK’s supercharged 3D printer. CreaTEK 3D will be based in Denmark, coincidentally the home of CreateItReal, too.
The new product will be based on high-end PLA resin from NatureWorks with very high geometric tolerances. CreaTEK 3D intends on producing three initial products: a “standard” high speed PLA filament; a flexible regular speed filament, and a wood-filled composite regular speed filament. We can expect additional filaments to appear in the future. We asked CreateItReal’s Ghislain Gauthier about plans for future materials:
Not only high speed, but also specialized filaments like wood, flexible, metal and many others we have in the lab at this stage. But of course because of Create it REAL unique technology HS filaments will be a key range in our product line. The thing is that when working on the IdeaWerkspeed as you know we realized that Weistek had very high production standards for filament as they are also producing for famous brands as OEM, and we in CIR, wanted to move to the filament market to offer a complete solution around high speed (and we also have a lot of ideas in general as a R&D center). So it made sense to us to join our forces to push again the limits of 3D printing.
But will they pursue speciality filaments, such as those including metal?
We believe the printer market will have no other choice to increase the speed as it is a key issue today, so yes ultimately we will offer such exotic materials.
On whether the high speed filament will be made available only to CreateItReal-enabled machines, Gauthier explained:
Filaments will be sold to public, via distributors or directly online from our web site. High Speed filament will fully make sense of course on Create it real machines but it will compatible and we will check if it can brings benefits on “standard” machines.
These products will be of great value to those using newly emerging very high-speed 3D printers, particularly those using the CreateItReal accelerator, such as WEISTEK, Dynamo3D and Aye Aye Labs.
At this point there is no word yet on pricing of the filament, but we are led to believe the pricing will be comparable to “what you can find on the market” today.
Via CreaTEK 3D
