FDM Polymers - A Technical Reference
I've assembled (with two LLM's) all of my hand written notes (i.e. typed), TDS sheets and other sources with an outline into a single document (128 pages). I've been very careful proofreading all of it by hand to ensure accuracy and no slop. What this document is not: it is not a tutorial for FFF/FDM beginners, not a comprehensive print-failure troubleshooting guide, not a recommendation engine for specific projects, and not a substitute for per-spool calibration on the actual machine. It's a technical guide on filaments.
Please have a read and let me know if any corrections are needed. Besides some very minor formatting issues I think it is pretty solid at this point.
RE: FDM Polymers - A Technical Reference
This is really excellent and I was happy to see you covered the Igus materials near the end. I'm a big fan of those. As a Core One owner, it also points out what filaments to avoid like the plague. Things like PEEK and Ultem probably shouldn't be printed at home at all. As for corrections, that will take some serious reading- it's a great job.
RE: FDM Polymers - A Technical Reference
For all German-speaking users, I had the text translated using my Deepl account.
Of course, as Hyiger already mentioned, this is provided without any guarantee of accuracy or completeness.
RE: FDM Polymers - A Technical Reference
For all German-speaking users, I had the text translated using my Deepl account.
Of course, as Hyiger already mentioned, this is provided without any guarantee of accuracy or completeness.
Thank you Jan! I was going to do the same but since my German never progressed past high school I didn't want to put my trust fully in a machine translation without the ability to proofread it.
RE: FDM Polymers - A Technical Reference
If my English were as good as yours, I wouldn't need AI. Unfortunately, I've gotten lazy, and my comfort zone has high walls.
Of course, I'm reading the document right now... 😉
I'm always excited and surprised whenever you post something new!
Best regards, Jan
RE: FDM Polymers - A Technical Reference
This is incredible, thanks!
I've assembled (with two LLM's) all of my hand written notes (i.e. typed), TDS sheets and other sources with an outline into a single document (128 pages). I've been very careful proofreading all of it by hand to ensure accuracy and no slop. What this document is not: it is not a tutorial for FFF/FDM beginners, not a comprehensive print-failure troubleshooting guide, not a recommendation engine for specific projects, and not a substitute for per-spool calibration on the actual machine. It's a technical guide on filaments.
Please have a read and let me know if any corrections are needed. Besides some very minor formatting issues I think it is pretty solid at this point.
RE: FDM Polymers - A Technical Reference
@hyiger Not sure if you want to turn it into War & Peace, but a chart or comment for each filament on adhesives would be useful. I don't know if surface energy numbers are available, but my chats with Copilot suggest that PCTG is low on the list. Right now I'm doing molds where I don't want good adhesion, so I'm trying that (for RTV) but other times I'm looking for decent adhesion with epoxies, cyanoacrylates or other goos and glues. AFAIK, most filaments aren't great in the gluing department, so I tend to use dovetails and pound things together with a hammer. 😆 I have access to plasma cleaning, which can perform miracles, but most don't. OTOH, a brief flame treatment might be beneficial. Any general guidance would be a great addition. (Forgive me if there's something in there and I missed it.)
RE: FDM Polymers - A Technical Reference
@hyiger Not sure if you want to turn it into War & Peace, but a chart or comment for each filament on adhesives would be useful. I don't know if surface energy numbers are available, but my chats with Copilot suggest that PCTG is low on the list. Right now I'm doing molds where I don't want good adhesion, so I'm trying that (for RTV) but other times I'm looking for decent adhesion with epoxies, cyanoacrylates or other goos and glues. AFAIK, most filaments aren't great in the gluing department, so I tend to use dovetails and pound things together with a hammer. 😆 I have access to plasma cleaning, which can perform miracles, but most don't. OTOH, a brief flame treatment might be beneficial. Any general guidance would be a great addition. (Forgive me if there's something in there and I missed it.)
That's a good call out. I do have a section on adhesives but as they pertain to sticking to a build plate and not to each other... For my functional parts I tend to use screws and heat set inserts over adhesives but I have experimented. If you are looking to bond PCTG specifically then a two part acrylate is probably the best (which I've tried). I've used 3M Scotch-Weld DP8005 with PETG which will work with PCTG as well. For low surface energy polymers PP I've also been able to get them to bond with 3M Scotch-Weld. With PP I was also successful using a torch and a single part CA. I tried the same for POM but nothing worked.
If you are doing a mold then the filament with one of the lowest surface energies that I'm aware of that is approachable would be PP followed by POM. The later is very extremely difficult to print but will give you the best detail. I would start with polypropylene.
Wow.... Hmmm... Now you really have me thinking about this. Maybe I'll do a separate report on solvents and adhesives. I recently bought lab grade: Acetone, Ethyl Acetate, MEK and Dichloromethane to experiment with vapor smoothing. For the later two, I plan to do it outside with full PPE.
RE: FDM Polymers - A Technical Reference
It wouldn't be unreasonable to suggest people stick (no pun intended) with screws and inserts for most things.
We us an older version of this at work on Delrin and other things. It probably doubles or triples the strength of epoxy bonds to Delrin, but that's still not enough for many applications. It also allows you to write on Teflon sheet with a marker! I'm guessing one of those high voltage wands we used in high school physics class (second link) would also work, at a far lower price. Printing POM on the Core One seems possible, but I'm not that much of a masochist.
https://www.plasmaetch.com/atmospheric-plasma-wand-cleaner.php
https://www.electrotechnicproducts.com/bd-10a-high-frequency-generator/
RE: FDM Polymers - A Technical Reference
Printing POM on the Core One seems possible, but I'm not that much of a masochist.
You can print POM up to a point. I generally haven’t been able to print anything > 100mm. Here is a write-up I did: https://forum.prusa3d.com/forum/filament-materials-and-techniques/how-to-print-pom-acetal-delrin-on-a-core-one/#post-784451