Swapping filaments mid print?
Hello,
I was reading about electrically conductive print filament, and I thought it might be an easy way to make simple PCBs at home. The idea would be to print a base non-conductive layer and then print the traces with the conductive material. Seems like you would need a multi material setup, but I was wondering if instead of a multi material extruder you had the printer pause after printing the base material so you could change over to the conductive filament?
Re: Swapping filaments mid print?
Hello:
You can certainly change filaments while printing. It is easy as going to the LCD and going to tune change filament. I have done it frequently.
The only catch is the filaments need to be like in temps and printing settings. Like, going from PLA to ABS wont work as the temps and materials are quite different. PLA to glowfill or woodfill works as they are like print temps and other settings.
Unsure what the conducive filament properties are, but as long as you have similar filament properties it should be doable. what type of conducive filament are you thinking of?
Strange women, laying in ponds, distributing swords, is hardly a basis for a system of governance!
Re: Swapping filaments mid print?
you can 100% do it. just a small game with telling slicer you have 2 filaments. it works great. and keep in mind the conductive filament seem to have high resistance, and are brittle.
but if you have 2 stls 1 board, and one trace. if its setup correctly it will ask for a filament change.
it works good.
just don't go over like 10 layers. without a wipe tower stuff gets blobby.
I have a Prusa,therefore I research.
Re: Swapping filaments mid print?
you can 100% do it. just a small game with telling slicer you have 2 filaments. it works great. and keep in mind the conductive filament seem to have high resistance, and are brittle.
but if you have 2 stls 1 board, and one trace. if its setup correctly it will ask for a filament change.
it works good.
just don't go over like 10 layers. without a wipe tower stuff gets blobby.
Wipe tower?
And yeah, the resistance is high but it shouldn't (fingers crossed) be an issue for the stuff I want to make. Just simple circuits. I'll keep the brittleness in mind though, thanks for the tip.
Re: Swapping filaments mid print?
Hello:
You can certainly change filaments while printing. It is easy as going to the LCD and going to tune change filament. I have done it frequently.
The only catch is the filaments need to be like in temps and printing settings. Like, going from PLA to ABS wont work as the temps and materials are quite different. PLA to glowfill or woodfill works as they are like print temps and other settings.
Unsure what the conducive filament properties are, but as long as you have similar filament properties it should be doable. what type of conducive filament are you thinking of?
The filament I'm looking at comes in both PLA and ABS versions, and it says it should have the same properties so hopefully its close enough.
Re: Swapping filaments mid print?
hopefully you can figure out the setting needed in slicer, if not I might be able to upload a config later when I get home.
my advice is to let it purge twice. it seemed to help with the blobs.
I have a Prusa,therefore I research.
Re: Swapping filaments mid print?
The filament I'm looking at comes in both PLA and ABS versions, and it says it should have the same properties so hopefully its close enough.
Matt:
Sounds like a good time for you to be a beta tester! Just make sure you document and make a post to educate the rest of us so we can get in on the action after you pave the way! 😀
Seriously, I would do a small test print with each filament first to ensure there is no suprises and then go for it! PLA is less nasty than ABS and easier to print and probably less expensive...
Sounds like toaf has experience to help if you get stuck, but I would looking forward to seeing your results. That is the great thing about 3D printing, it has so many possibilities and is a relatively new and this forum is an awesome resource...
Strange women, laying in ponds, distributing swords, is hardly a basis for a system of governance!
Re: Swapping filaments mid print?
don't be doing a crazy layer manual MMU and try to keep it to 2 materials. once it goes to 3 materials with manual mmu it's a big game on what filament it will want loaded. it doesn't say "load filament 1,2 ,3 ect ect. but temp setting and speeds from slicer work.
I have a Prusa,therefore I research.