Christmas Advent 3D Printing #Day 23 & 24 Advice using Taulman t-glase PETT filament

December advent calendar - modular Christmas tree

3D Printing advice #Day 23 & 24

For the background and introduction - Day #1 Post click here

Day #22 (Christmas scene) was printed in Polyalchemy natural *snow white

Christmas Advent 2017 Download on Thingiverse here - designed by Tom Van den Bon @geekc0der With some help for each day by the South African Makers team.

The original advent calendar from 2012 is on Thingiverse - designed by Peter Leppik.

It's time for Days #23 and 24

Day 23 gift is designed by Chris Venter -  It's a Heart box printed in Ruby Red Taulman3D t-glase (Red Star).

Day 24 gift is designed by Shaun Nadan -  It's a Grinch

Yes! I finally get to use t-glase, this model is perfect printed in t-glase Red Star.

Days 23 & 24 tree sections are printed in Polyalchemy Elixir.

Small rolls, but amazing filament.

t-glase from Taulman3D is one of my all time favourite materials to use. I always have some stock for projects like this. It shines and shimmers and can be used for LED light guides or just to look beautiful. 

Taulman t-glase with a Red laser beam catching the front edge.

t-glase is a PETT based material. You are more often likely to find PETG (Glycol modified) versions of polyester (polyethylene) being sold by many manufacturers.

Both PETT and PETG can print very nicely in 3D printers, I tend to use PETT for high optical clarity, bigger layers and anything using light or for beautiful objects & gifts in general. 

I will use PETG for large strong functional parts, you can get a semi-clear finish with PETG, some formulations can produce reasonable optical clarity with the right settings and nozzle size.

Back-lit with a small white led - t-glase really shines (concentric infill - see below)

For this heart I'm keeping to a chunky layer height, and a specific infill type.

Left shows traditional rectilinear infill, and right shows a concentric infill.

It's worth thinking about the first bottom layer for objects like the heart box. The lid will be the bottom face when assembled, so you want that to look as nice as possible.

Likewise, the heart box bottom is also using a concentric infill. Look at those chunky 0.3mm layers, they look amazing on an object like this.

I also printed the final gift in the tree - Day 24 - The Grinch.

I have absolutely no idea how the yellow overhang worked. This had no support and should have failed at this point, but when I came back after switching materials, it was done and asking for the next colour! I can only think it must be some Christmas Magic?

Days 23 and 24 completed.

Print advice - (Taulman t-glase - PETT material)

What settings did you use? - t-glase needs some odd slicing setting. I will talk about a few, but as they are an odd mix of tricks and balance, I'll also include the Slic3r settings I use to help you tune t-glase perfectly.

0.3mm layers (0.4mm nozzle) work really well with t-glase / 5 top and bottom solid layers.

Use an infill of under 25% to get the best optical clarity from t-glase - Using honeycomb is also important, you need an infill that does not cross over line-fill paths. (honeycomb is ideal)

Finally I'm using concentric for top and bottom layers, but that is because of the object here, you can use rectilinear if more appropriate.

Balanced with the temperature I use, you need a relatively slow speed to get the best from t-glase

Especially the first layer, you want that to be neat and tidy for this object.

Make the extrusion widths around the same size as the actual nozzle size. Normally you would go slightly bigger.

250 degrees C - it will print lower and hotter, but for the speed balance, this will give clear (not frosty) results during printing.

80 Degrees C heated bed.

This is a really important one, don;t use too much fan cooling for t-glase. Max 40% unless bridging.

Finally, this is the really odd one - For a 0.4mm nozzle you need to tell Slic3r it's 0.45mm in diameter - with all the other settings above, this produces great results.

You can go to the same layer height as nozzle size for t-glase (here we could go 0.4 layer with 0.4 nozzle)

Why use it? - It's just one of the most clear and optically interesting filaments you can get. It's also a very strong material, with great layer bonding, so making objects to use, enjoy and give as gifts is high on the list of ideal uses.

Is it strong? - Yes, it's very tough, impact resistant and just a tiny bit of flex.

Is it easy to use/print - Yes, as long as you spend time tuning the speed, temperature and odd nozzle settings I have shown above.

Do you have to dry it before/after use? - Not really, but I do dry it out before use if I want the very best clarity or optical performance. Keep it dry / sealed etc.

Do i need a 'special' nozzle? - No it's not abrasive at all. All nozzles seem to work well, Bigger nozzles are glorious with t-glase. Just try it with a 1.2mm nozzle and a 1.0mm layer height, it's astonishing.

Does it smell when printing? - No.

Does it come on a eco friendly spool? - No :( They are usual Taulman micro-spools, can be tricky to mount as they don't have a 'standard' 52mm mount hole.

Conclusion for Taulman t-glase -  If you have not tried it out yet, you are missing out. From the very first sucesful print, you will be hooked. It also not comes in more colours, that I'm going to get hold of in the New Year. It's in my top 5 list of most useful and great looking materials.

Olsson Ruby Nozzle check - 

I thought it would be good to check on the Ruby Nozzle at this point.

Olsson Ruby nozzle after ~387 Hours of printing (not cleaned)

The ruby is looking perfect! no surface wear and hole size is still 0.4mm

This was how it looked originally (still in the box)

I just removed the nozzle (when it was at full 260 Degrees C temperature). It has not been cleaned in the image above. In the image below the same nozzle has been cleaned and refitted.

'Cleaned' and fitted back into the Hot-end for another print run - I'll check again in 1500 hours.

Print time check - 

I installed this first Olsson Ruby nozzle in the summer of 2017. I reset the firmware timer at that point to keep track of the total print hours. This nozzle has now clocked up 16days 3hours 48mins.

That's around 387 hours of constant print time with almost every single type of material I have.

1.32km of filament length (1.75mm) is also around 4.2kg of filament so far.

To put this figure of 387 total hours of Ruby nozzle print time into context, this entire advent Christmas tree - printed on this Prusa i3, the Lulzbot TAZ6 (also fitted with a Ruby high-flow Nozzle) and one print made on the Sigma R17 was a total print time of - 139.5 Hours.

This splits into the following -
All Advent gifts = 44 Hours 20 minutes total print time (Excluding the top star)
Sigma Dual print (Jeep) = 2.43mins
Top star = 5.5 Hours - check tomorrows post to see that :)

All Tree sections = 88 Hours (including top tree section for star)

2/3 of all parts were done on the Prusa i3 MK2 with a V6 Olsson Ruby Nozzle fitted (0.4mm).
1/3 of all parts were done on the LulzBot Taz6 with the High-flow V6 (Volcano) nozzle fitted (0.6mm)
1 part was printed on the Sigma.

The Olsson Ruby (Volcano) nozzle in the TAZ6 has only had around 50 hours of use, so I'll check the status at around 300 Hours.

Remember this Advent tree is scaled at 150% of the original files posted. The tree sections are also scaled at 150% but only 120% in depth (to make the gifts appear to pop-out more).

Can you guess the total weight of the finished advent 2017 tree? (and also how much filament has been used)? And also how tall the finished tree is?

Send me a tweet over on Twitter @RichRap3D with your guess. I'll post the weight and filament used in tomorrows post.

Days 1 to 24 of the Advent Christmas Tree.

Today story is simply about making beautiful objects with 3D printing. What I have now is another wonderful, creative and exciting advent Christmas tree, full of stories and interesting materials. We still get out the original 2012 advent tree every year. Now we have this one too. 

I want to thank all the South African makers and designers for this amazing Christmas gift. it was a real pleasure to print these parts. I also hope you also learned some neat things to try yourself.

Christmas Day tomorrow. Have fun.

Thanks for reading and Merry Christmas everyone.

Rich.

Please join me on Twitter @RichRap3D

My profile and posts over on Google+

Files and designs shared on YouMagine

Files and designs shared on GitHub

Files and designs shared on Repables 

My Youtube channel is here, all 3D Printing and Hi-Def video content.

Universal 3D printing filament spool standard 2014

One spool to rule them all...


Coils and coils of lovely 3D printing filament, I'm usually surrounded by them, I struggle with them and often spend time and energy mounting, clamping, switching and feeding them into to various printers.

There has to be a better way. (lets please all find a better way)

* The problem *

Every single one is different, bare coils or reels, some are even different from the same manufacturer.

Just to point out here, this is only a tiny selection of 3D printing filament reels available, these are the ones I happen to still have around me. Even the long list on RepRap.org of filament suppliers is a fraction of what's actually available.

Loose coils of filament are both great (no wasted spool or extra cost to ship packaging) and also the work of the devil. You usually need to cut a random shorter length of coil off, just so you can use a section of material in a sensible way, or run the risk of getting into a tangled mess of coil and printer. You then risk not having enough material to finish the print, something that seems to happen more often than I would like.

Once when trying to use a 750gram loose coil of 1.75mm material (about 300+ meters) I had a tangle so bad the extruder pulled an entire shelf down onto a laptop below, smashing it, bending rods on the printer and also messing up a very nice print. I had mounted a home made spool holder to the shelf above the printer in an attempt to use loose coiled filament. My 20 euro coil of filament cost me over 400 in damages, I didn't do that ever again.

After a lot of messing about with making my own 3DPrinted spool holders, printing other peoples, making them by hand and using various mounting systems, I resorted to using a rack as shown above. It looks ugly, the filament gets dusty and problems like tangles still happen. But as I can't find a really good solution for various printers, this is the best I have.

The closest thing we have to a 'standard' reel is based around the use of 3mm plastic welding rod/coils for automotive repair industry, these very large coils have been used with 3D printing for many years. They have a lot of benefits, but also plenty of negative aspects. Mostly being heavy and big whilst also using more than 300g of ABS to make each one.

Recycle, Recycle- 

One of the reasons I would like to see a spool standard is that I would also like to see less waste from 3D printing, and a way to recycle items like spools and packaging.

A few manufacturers like Josef Průša have already looked at cardboard, producing filament already on lightweight recyclable spools.

In this case the center mounting hole is rather large. The inner coil diameter is big enough not to cause the filament to be too tightly wound.

Dense or corrugated cardboard what would be best?

One of the very first filament orders I ever made came on cardboard spools, since then it's all been plastic of one form or another.

Lets take a look at some filament supplied on reels -

And lots of loose coils of filament too -

Ident	Make / manufacturer	Outer size diameter	Inner coil diameter	Mount hole diameter	Notes
A	Makerbot 1.75mm (1Kg)	202mm	92mm	51mm	Makerbot seem to have a new bigger spool? Can anyone confirm details.
B	Colorfabb 1.75/3mm (750g)	200mm	105mm	53mm	Now using a clear ABS reel (same dimensions)
C	RepRapsource / GRRF	297mm	215mm	52mm	‘Industry Standard’ 2.2Kg (1)
D	PP3PD / Afinia	200mm	103mm	52mm	ABS for Up! printer
E	Prototype Cardboard	215mm	100mm	53mm	(not in production)
F	RepRap World	160mm	50mm	31mm	Manufacturer unknown
G	Taulman3D Nylon	127mm	50mm	19mm	Mini Spools
H	Taulman3D Nylon	195mm	80mm	none	Old style packets
I	eSunPLA	190mm	103mm	38mm	Various reel types used by eSunPLA
J	RepRapper	160mm	58mm	31mm	mini reel
K	RepRapper	202	78mm	52mm	new reel? (conductive ABS)
L	Unknown from eBay	200	79mm	31mm	2.5Kg spool
M	RepRap World	200	79mm	31mm	2Kg spool
N	eSunPLA				5Kg card spool
O	eSunPLA	220mm	72mm	32mm	1Kg card Spool
P	Spectrum Filament	177mm	75mm	74mm	Metal/Card ~800g spool
Supplied	as Loose Coils
Q	Faberdashery	320mm	230mm	N/A	Coil 3mm filament (100M / ~800g
R	Faberdashery	320mm	270mm	N/A	Coil 1.75mm filament (100m / ~260g)
S	Mendel-Parts	420mm	340mm	N/A	Coil 1.75mm filament (750g)
T	Hang on, that’s the same	image	as	H	Correct - It is…
U	Protoparadigm	185mm	130mm	N/A	Polycarbonate / also using spools now.
V	Unknown from eBay?	Worst	filament	ever	Can’t remember
W	BendLay (Kai Parthy)	175mm	140mm	N/A	Via 3Dfilaprint
X	PVA (Kai Parthy)	210mm	150mm	N/A	Via Orbitech
Y	LayWood (Kai Parthy)	190mm	120mm	N/A	Via Orbitech
Z	LayBrick (Kai Parthy)	200mm	140mm	N/A	Via Orbitech

(1) - These large ‘Industry Standard’ 2.2Kg spools were first used in the plastic welding industry, it's the closest thing we have to a standard.

I looks like both 30mm and 50mm mounting holes appear in many different reels, that's something 'standard'

Lots of different spools in lots of sizes - the odd looking one (middle left) is an example (one of many) of a 'home-made' spool to help make loose filament less of a pain to use.

The Question ?

Would it be possible for manufacturers to have a set filament standard for spool size, shape and mounting? Can the 3D printing community help develop that standard?
Can we make it Eco-friendly and recyclable?
Does anyone want it?

Lets find out.

Making the 'perfect' spool has a number of challenges - 

• The inner coil diameter needs to be appropriate for the type of material and size being wound.

* Bad Spool *

3D Printing filament is not like coils of wire, don't try to cram as much as possible onto a spool.

This is 3mm semi-translucent PLA, you can clearly see the bruising of the filament as it's very tightly wound around a 50mm diameter core. The last 1/3 of the spool contents are useless due to being deformed and much too tight to feed into an extruder resulting in really nasty things like lifting the entire Z axis away from the object being printed.

This started to fail before the last 1/3 of the spool, due to pull-back and carriage lifting. Lower quality prints are also often observed during the second half of a 3mm spool this tightly wound.

• Spool mounting diameter - Some physical resistance is good for spool mounting. Quite often a printed spool holder is used to mount the reels of filament, many different sizes force users to produce smaller diameter mounting rods in an attempt to be able to mount different types, often resulting in noise and rocking around as the spools unwind. Currently one size does not fit all.

Illustration of Inner diameter, Outer diameter and mounting.

• Width of spool and overall outer dimension is also important, but more in deciding how much filament is required for each spool.

We have seen a trend is supplying less filament per coil over the last few years, We started at 2.3Kg reels used by the Automotive plastic welding industry, then slowly manufacturers moved to a 1Kg reel and many now supply 750g or 500g per single reel. 

Length of coil is also used by some manufacturers, often 100M of either 1.75mm or 3mm material is a 'standard' length supplied. Many manufacturers are now also offering 50M coils often targeted at retail outlets or as a way to try out new materials and colours.

That's all quite a challenge for a standard spool, but if we were flexible on the width and possibly had two outer dimensions it would be possible to make a standard more people could easily use and manufacturers could implement. Just as important is the ability to design them into new and existing 3D printers.

• Print material - to some degree defines the minimum internal coil size. 1.75mm material can be wound in a tighter coil and materials like Taulman Nylon or Recreus FilaFlex are both so flexible they can be wound very tightly with minimal impact on the ability to print with them.

• Nylon's, flexible and PET materials also have a tendency to try and unwind from their coils so a bigger inner coil diameter could also help them be less likely to loop and get tangled.

Cost - 

Another major factor will be cost of the spool and any packaging. reducing weight is good for shipping costs and making it from materials that can be easily recycled really needs to be a major goal.
Plastic spools used today cost under $1 and in reality customers are not likely to pay a great deal more for a standard spool? but how much and can a robust spool made from materials like strong cardboard be viable?

Ideas - spark more ideas - 

We now have dimensional information above on some of the types of spools and coils available, and to get the ball rolling here are some simple ideas for filament spools I have been thinking about.

We can see that many reels already have a 50mm mounting hole diameter, so this looks like a reasonable starting point, Both the Ultimaker and Makerbot Replicator use a 50mm spool mount.

The inner inner diameter, bigger is better, but you need to allow enough room for filament without also having a very large outer diameter. A size of around 120mm for the internal seems to work well for most types of plastics and filled materials in both 3mm and 1.75mm sizes.

A diameter of 220mm for the outer will allow for a typical quantity of filament depending on the width of the spool, 75mm shown here.

Cardboard spool concept, 1Kg spool or 3 x 250g based on the same specification of mounting hole and overall size.

The plastic dust cover/case is an item I would also like to see available (or 3D printed) - make it easy to mount on / in a 3D printer and refill with the recyclable cardboard filament spools.

How you can help - 

If you want to get involved (and please do), a discussion thread on the RepRap Forum is started here.

• Start discussions wherever you want, and spread the word, lets make something happen.

• Ask your filament supplier if they can support the standard, if they say no, ask them why and let people know the reasons.

• If you manufacture a 3D printer, what do you require from a filament spool?

• Sketch or design something, say what would work for you and your 3D printer, what's not working now and how you solve it (or not).

The 3D Printing Association is providing support for this project and also looking for feedback and ideas to help with this campaign, both from filament manufacturers and everyone in the community.

Filament manufacturers response - 

I have contacted a number of manufacturers to suggest the idea of a universal or standard filament spool - designed by feedback from the community, all the responses have been very positive, with many immediately supporting the idea and wanting to help make sure it's viable for them and their customers.

Individual manufacturers (both filament and 3D printer) can submit feedback and ideas directly and I hope more will also get involved and see if this can result in something good and useful for all.


Thanks for reading.

Rich.