3D printing filament is the thermoplastic feedstock for fused deposition modeling 3D printers. There are many types of filament available with different properties. [1]
Filament comes in a range of diameters, most commonly 1.75 mm and 2.85 mm, [2] with the latter often being confused with the less common 3 mm. [3]
Filament consists of one continuous slender plastic thread spooled into a reel. [4]
3D printing filament is created using a process of heating, extruding and cooling plastic to transform nurdles into the finished product. However, unlike a 3D printer, the filament is pulled rather than pushed through the nozzle to create the filament. The diameter of the filament is defined by the process that takes place after the plastic has been heated rather than the diameter of the extruder nozzle. A different force and speed is applied to the filament as it is pulled out of the extruder to define the width of the filament, most commonly 1.75 mm or 2.85 mm diameter. [5] [6]
The plastic nurdles are always white or clear. Pigments or other additives are added to the material before it is melted to create coloured filament or filament with special properties, e.g. increased strength or magnetic properties. Before the filament is extruded the nurdles are heated to 80 °C to dry it and reduce water content. The nurdles must be dried as many thermoplastics are hygroscopic and extrusion of damp plastic causes dimensional flaws (this is also the case when the finished filament is being printed [7] ). From there the nurdles are fed into a single screw extruder where it is heated and extruded into a filament. [5] The diameter is often measured by a laser beam(not melting) as part of a quality control mechanism to ensure correct diameter of the filament. The filament is then fed through a warm water tank which cools the filament which gives the filament its round shape. The filament is then fed through a cold water tank to cool it to room temperature. It is then wound onto a spool to create the finished product. [5]
DIY filament production machines use the same method as FDM 3D printers of pushing the filament through the extruder to create the correct diameter filament. There are several DIY filament machines available as both open source plans and commercially available machines.
A food dehydrator can be used to remove water from hygroscopic materials at above 70 °C. [8]
The process of transforming 3D printing filament into a 3D model
| Filament | Special Properties | Uses | Strength | Density (kg/m3) | Flexibility | Durability | Difficulty to print | Print Temperature (°C) | Bed Temperature (°C) | Printing notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PLA |
| Consumer Products | Medium | 1240 [9] | Low | Medium | Low | 180 - 230 | No heated bed needed or, 60-80C are recommended also | |
| ABS |
| Functional Parts | Medium | 1010 [10] | Medium | High | Medium | 210 - 250 | 50 - 100 | |
| PETG (XT, N‑Vent) |
| All | Medium | 1270 [11] | High | High | Medium | 220 - 235 | No heated bed needed | |
| Nylon |
| All | High | 1020 [12] | High | High | Medium | 220 - 260 | 50 - 100 | Hygroscopic, keep sealed when not in use |
| TPE |
|
| Low | High | Medium | High | 225 - 235 | 40 | Print very slowly | |
| TPU |
|
| Low | High | Medium | High | 225 - 235 | No heated bed needed | Print slowly | |
| Wood | Wood-like finish | Home Decor | Medium | 1400 [13] | Medium | Medium | Medium | 195 - 220 | No heated bed needed | |
| HIPS |
| Support structures when using ABS on a dual extrusion printer. | Low | 1040 [14] | Medium | High | Medium | 210 - 250 | 50 - 100 | |
| PVA |
| Support structures when using PLA or ABS on a dual extrusion printer. | High | Low | Medium | Low | 180 - 230 | No heated bed needed | Hygroscopic, keep sealed when not in use | |
| PET (CEP) |
| All | High | High | High | Medium | 220 - 250 | No heated bed needed | ||
| PLA Metal | Metal Finish | Jewelry | Medium | Low | High | High | 195 - 220 | No heated bed needed | Use hardened nozzle | |
| PLA Carbon Fiber |
| Functional Parts | Medium | Low | High | Medium | 195 - 220 | No heated bed needed | Use hardened nozzle | |
| Lignin (bioFila) |
| Medium | Low | Medium | Low | 190 - 225 | 55 | |||
| Polycarbonate |
| Functional Parts | High | 1180 – 1200 [15] | High | High | Medium | 270 - 310 | 90 - 105 | Use enclosed heated chamber at ambient temperature of around 60 °C |
| Conductive (usually a graphite-plastic blend) | Conductive | Electronics | Medium | Medium | Low | Low | 215 - 230 | No heated bed needed | Use hardened nozzle | |
| Wax (MOLDLAY) | Melts Away | Lost wax Casting | Low | Low | Low | Low | 170 - 180 | No heated bed needed | ||
| PETT (T‑Glase) |
| Functional Parts | High | High | High | Medium | 235 - 240 | No heated bed needed | ||
| ASA |
| Outdoor | Medium | Low | High | Medium | 240 - 260 | 100 - 120 | ||
| PP |
| Flexible Components | Medium | 1040 [16] | High | Medium | High | 210 - 230 | 120 - 150 | |
| POM, Acetal |
| Functional Parts | High | Low | Medium | High | 210 - 225 | 130 | ||
| PMMA, Acrylic |
| Light diffusers | Medium | Low | High | Medium | 235 - 250 | 100 -120 | ||
| Sandstone (LAYBRICK; styled plastic) | Sandstone Finish | Architecture | Low | Low | Low | Medium | 165 - 210 | No heated bed needed | ||
| Glow-In-The-Dark plastic | Phosphorescence | Fun | Medium | Medium | Medium | Low | 215 | No heated bed needed | Use hardened nozzle | |
| Cleaning | Cleaning | Unclogging of Nozzles | N/A | N/A | N/A | Low | 150 - 260 | No heated bed needed | ||
| PC-ABS |
| Functional Parts | Medium | Low | High | High | 260 - 280 | 120 | ||
| Magnetic (PLA blend) | Magnetic | Fun | Medium | Medium | Medium | High | 195 - 220 | No heated bed needed | ||
| Color Changing (plastic blend) | Thermochromism | Fun | Medium | Medium | Medium | Low | 215 | No heated bed needed | ||
| nGen (co-polyester) |
| All | Medium | High | High | Medium | 210 - 240 | 60 | ||
| TPC |
|
| Low | High | Medium | High | 210 | 60 - 100 | ||
| PORO-LAY | Partially Water Soluble | Experimental | Low | High | Medium | Low | 220 - 235 | No heated bed needed | ||
| FPE | Flexible | Flexible Parts | Low | High | High | Medium | 205 - 250 | 75 [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] | ||
| PEI |
| Functional Parts | High | 1270 | Medium | High | Medium | 340 - 380 | 180 - 200 | Use enclosed heated chamber at 220 °C |
Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) (chemical formula (C8H8)x·(C4H6)y·(C3H3N)z ) is a commonly used thermoplastic polymer. Its glass transition temperature is approximately 105 °C (221 °F). ABS is amorphous and therefore has no true melting point.
3D printing or additive manufacturing is the construction of a three-dimensional object from a CAD model or a digital 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is deposited, joined or solidified under computer control, with the material being added together, typically layer by layer.
S. Scott Crump is the inventor of fused deposition modeling (FDM) and co-founder of Stratasys, Ltd. Crump invented and patented FDM technology in 1989 with his wife and Stratasys co-founder Lisa Crump. He is currently the chairman of the board of directors of Stratasys, which produces additive manufacturing machines for direct digital manufacturing ; these machines are popularly called “3D printers.” He took the manufacturing company public in 1994 (Nasdaq:SSYS). He also runs Fortus, RedEye on Demand, and Dimension Printing – business units of Stratasys.
Plastics extrusion is a high-volume manufacturing process in which raw plastic is melted and formed into a continuous profile. Extrusion produces items such as pipe/tubing, weatherstripping, fencing, deck railings, window frames, plastic films and sheeting, thermoplastic coatings, and wire insulation.
Digital modeling and fabrication is a design and production process that combines 3D modeling or computing-aided design (CAD) with additive and subtractive manufacturing. Additive manufacturing is also known as 3D printing, while subtractive manufacturing may also be referred to as machining, and many other technologies can be exploited to physically produce the designed objects.
MakerBot Industries, LLC was an American desktop 3D printer manufacturer company headquartered in New York City. It was founded in January 2009 by Bre Pettis, Adam Mayer, and Zach "Hoeken" Smith to build on the early progress of the RepRap Project. It was acquired by Stratasys in June 2013. As of April 2016, MakerBot had sold over 100,000 desktop 3D printers worldwide. Between 2009 and 2019, the company released 7 generations of 3D printers, ending with the METHOD and METHOD X. It was at one point the leader of the desktop market with an important presence in the media, but its market share declined over the late 2010s. MakerBot also founded and operated Thingiverse, the largest online 3D printing community and file repository. In August 2022, the company completed a merger with its long-time competitor Ultimaker. The combined company is known as UltiMaker, but retains the MakerBot name for its Sketch line of education-focused 3D printers.
Printrbot is a 3D printer company created by Brook Drumm in 2011 and originally funded through Kickstarter. Printrbot printers use fused deposition modelling to manufacture 3-dimensional artifacts.
The Lyman filament extruder is a device for making 3-D printer filament suitable for use in 3-D printers like the RepRap. It is named after its developer Hugh Lyman and was the winner of the Desktop Factory Competition.
Ultimaker is a 3D printer-manufacturing company based in the Netherlands, with offices and assembly lines in the US. They make fused filament fabrication 3D printers, develop 3D printing software, and sell branded 3D printing materials. Their product line includes the Ultimaker S5 and S3, Ultimaker 3 series, Ultimaker 2+ series and Ultimaker Original+. These products are used by industries such as automotive, architecture, healthcare, education, and small scale manufacturing.
ROBO 3D was an American 3D printer manufacturer located in San Diego, California and traded in Australian Securities Exchange under symbol ASX: RBO.
A recyclebot is an open-source hardware device for converting waste plastic into filament for open-source 3D printers like the RepRap. Making DIY 3D printer filament at home is both less costly and better for the environment than purchasing conventional 3D printer filament. In following the RepRap tradition there are recyclebot designs that use mostly 3-D printable parts.
This article contains a list of 3D printers.
Zortrax is a Polish manufacturer of 3D printers and filaments for SMB market and rapid prototyping for industries, including robotics and automation, architecture, industrial design, engineering, aviation, industrial automation. Zortrax machines work with dedicated software, firmware and filaments.
Fused filament fabrication (FFF), also known as fused deposition modeling, or filament freeform fabrication, is a 3D printing process that uses a continuous filament of a thermoplastic material. Filament is fed from a large spool through a moving, heated printer extruder head, and is deposited on the growing work. The print head is moved under computer control to define the printed shape. Usually the head moves in two dimensions to deposit one horizontal plane, or layer, at a time; the work or the print head is then moved vertically by a small amount to begin a new layer. The speed of the extruder head may also be controlled to stop and start deposition and form an interrupted plane without stringing or dribbling between sections. "Fused filament fabrication" was coined by the members of the RepRap project to give an acronym (FFF) that would be legally unconstrained in its use.
The Prusa i3 is a family of fused deposition modeling 3D printers, manufactured by Czech company Prusa Research under the trademarked name Original Prusa i3. Part of the RepRap project, Prusa i3 printers were called the most used 3D printer in the world in 2016. The first Prusa i3 was designed by Josef Průša in 2012, and was released as a commercial kit product in 2015. The latest model is available in both kit and factory assembled versions. The Prusa i3's comparable low cost and ease of construction and modification made it popular in education and with hobbyists and professionals, with the Prusa i3 model MK2 printer receiving several awards in 2016.
A variety of processes, equipment, and materials are used in the production of a three-dimensional object via additive manufacturing. 3D printing is also known as additive manufacturing, because the numerous available 3D printing process tend to be additive in nature, with a few key differences in the technologies and the materials used in this process.
A 3D printer extruder is a filament feeding mechanism used in many fused filament fabrication (FFF) 3D printers. There are several types of 3D printer extruders. A Bowden extruder is a type of extruder that pushes filament through a long and flexible PTFE (Teflon) tube to the hot end. An alternative type of extruder which is also widely used in filament 3D printers is the direct-drive extruder, which sits closer to the extruder hot end.
A slicer is a toolpath generation software used in 3D printing. It facilitates the conversion of a 3D object model to specific instructions for the printer. The slicer converts a model in STL (Stereolithography) format into printer commands in G-code format. This is particularly useful in fused filament fabrication and other related 3D printing processes.
Material extrusion-based additive manufacturing (EAM) represents one of the seven categories of 3d printing processes, defined by the ISO international standard 17296-2. While it is mostly used for plastics, under the name of FDM or FFF, it can also be used for metals and ceramics. In this AM process category, the feedstock materials are mixtures of a polymeric binder and a fine grain solid powder of metal or ceramic materials. Similar type of feedstock is also used in the Metal Injection Molding (MIM) and in the Ceramic Injection Molding (CIM) processes. The extruder pushes the material towards a heated nozzle thanks to