The most prominent 3d printing event in Eastern Europe is coming!

Additive manufacturing and 3d printing is an amazing technology with unrivaled capabilities. There is no need to provide anything less than the unvarnished truth. When additive manufacturing’s advantages are wanted and needed, the facts will not dissuade potential users. Yes, it may lead to specific technologies being eliminated from consideration, but that is for the best for everyone involved. If you are interested in 3D printing, come and join the Budapest 3D Printing Days 2014 to get some really close experiences about this fascinating technology.

Whether you just want to see a real 3D printer in action for the first time or share your success with an advanced application, the best way to experience this technology is in person. In the company of engineers, designers and 3D printing experts around the globe, you’ll find out how to make the most of additive manufacturing in your scene.

When starting with this article, I was wondering about the 3D printing bubble – the theory surrounding the exponential rise in popularity the technology has seen in recent years, in particular the saturation of the desktop 3d printer market – is becoming a victim of its own success. Because the realm of 3d printing is no longer consigned to the underground-hacker-maker RepRap 3D printer community and/or industrial powers of this world, and because everybody from Barack Obama, Jay Leno to that chap from Made In Chelsea seem to have one, is 3d printing loosing it’s ‘coolness’?

If you want to get a bigger view from the exponentially growing scene, you should visit us at Budapest 3D Printing Days in June (check out the program), where you can see all the applications and innovations of this mysterious brand new domestic home manufacturing system. The organizers have developed a special program for professionals who want to learn and/or want to start with 3D printing, but don’t know where to start,  as the applications for this technology are so broad. The event will showcase the countless possibilities of 3D printing technology and gives a preview of where it is headed in the near future.

3D printing technology has advanced greatly in the past couple of years — it’s now used to create body parts, robots, jewelry, and houses. In June at the Budapest 3D Printing Days, vendors will showcase their creations, ranging from art and human body part reproductions, to life-size industrial prototypes, wearable art and fashion at the Design Terminal in Budapest.

3d printed generative bracelet by parametric | art

GigamaX3D and parametric | art will be partnering with Design Terminal’s Budapest 3D Printing Days (the most prominent 3D printing event in Eastern-Europe) with a short-but-sweet conference session that continues our mission to inspire people to design and make – with a little help from generative 3d design and open-source affordable 3d printing.

The event will see presentations from many different users in the form of: Varinex’s György Falk, György Simó from Freedee, David Lakatos from Formlabs, David Pap from Fablab Budapest and Peter Varo from the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design Budapest and Peter Szabo (me) from parametric | art and GigamaX 3D Printing Technology.

In addition to the presentations and workshops, visitors to this year’s Budapest 3D Printing Days will be able to experience the various applications of the 3D Printing technologies, from industrial to commercial and domestic use, while showcasing fresh innovations from the region.

GigamaX 3D Printing
http://gigamax3d.com

GigmaX3D are specialists in desktop 3D printing with a wide range of open-source affordable 3D printers, FDM machines for the consumer and prosumer user community, including custom built FDM 3d printers for special applications. They also carry premium quality 3d printer filaments in a wide range of thermoplastics, including special materials like conductive ABS or luminous glow-in-the-dark plastics. In action at the show will be RepRap 3d printers, Flashforge machines, colorful 3d filaments, 3d scanning and showcasing 3d printed design objects. New to the line-up is the professional 3d printer line of Leapfrog, which are dual-head, multi-material desktop 3d printers with the largest build volume on the market that is capable of printing in PLA and ABS but also Laywood, Laybrick, HIPS or Nylon – and can use dissolvable PVA 3d printer support material. 

The small design studio, parametric | art will showcase some of its most unique designs including generative 3d printed jewelry, organic 3d printed lampshades, parametric geometrical 3d printed objects all made with affordable (and sometimes modded or hacked) desktop 3d printers using special materials like wood or sandstone. At heir booth at the Budapest 3D Printing Days they will wowing visitors with live demonstrations of their latest projects including generative 3d modeling with free and open-source tools like Grasshopper and Meshlab, and showcasing the 3d printing capabilities of custom built affordable desktop 3d printers. 

The workshops and seminars are free with a registration and open to show visitors how 3D printing works, with a live demonstration so exhibition visitors can experience it first-hand. Technicians from parametric | art and GigamaX3D will produce various objects and projects for visitors to pick up and assemble. The parametric | art booth will also have a gallery space where products made during the exhibition will be displayed. 

There are also opportunities to find out how the boundaries between designer, manufacturer and consumer are disappearing, with a growing movement of ‘hacktivists’, who share and download digital designs online so they can be customized for new uses.

Several workshops and seminars will give you a broad insight in the 3D printing market. You can attend one, but you can attend them all as well. GigamaX3D will do a seminar about open-source 3d printing solutions, you know, the movement which started with Adrian Bowyer’s RepRap 3d printer machine and is the first successful open-source and open-hardware project on the globe. If you want to create your own digital 3d designs for 3d printing, you should attend at the workshop by parametric | art, where you can learn basic 3d modeling tips and tricks and get an insight of generative and parametric 3d modeling techniques.

 

© photo by: Federico Gaudino

The event is divided into three thematic days. The lectures and conferences will cover the past, present, and future of 3D printing presented in text, image, and video. The best way to understand 3D printing is to see it in action. If you want to meet us, create something unique with the help of our designers and technician, or simply just want to buy an affordable desktop 3d printer or some special plastic filaments for you 3d printing machine, visit us at Design Terminal during the Budapest 3D Printing Days from 5-7 June! Peace;)

Which filament is the best for your desktop 3d printer?

From engineers, plane- and car manufacturers to architects, artists and other product designers, they all use 3D printing to test if their designs come out the way they were intended. Thanks to the winde range of open-source and affordable desktop 3D printers and cheap 3D printing materials, schools, students, small offices, makers, enterpreneurs and professional designers are now able to set up a studio full of 3D printers to have their students or consumers (workshop participants) experiment on their own. In this article I’m going to discuss the most important facts when choosing the filament for your 3d print. There is a huge amount of companies and webshops offering PLA and ABS filaments for 3D printing, but if you aren’t carefully enough, you can get some really serious issues with bad filaments.

Most desktop 3D printers use the fused deposition modeling (FDM) technology, which means, that they all work with plastic filaments with 3 mm or 1.75 mm diameter. The hot end of the 3D printer heats the filament which melts before being extruded from the nozzle. Most 3D printing plastics have a melting point from 180 to 240 Celsius. After 3000 hrs of 3D printing on my Makerbot Rep2 and several types of RepRap 3D printers, my tip would be: if you want to start 3D  printing, you have frustrations enough (mechanical and electrical issues), spend a few extra bucks to eliminate possible filament issues. I’ve tried several suppliers of 3D printing filaments last year, from the cheapest ones to the premium quality spools as well. The moral of my story is:  you get what you pay for, buy materials from a trusted and verified supplier where you know who makes it, and watch out what you put in your 3D printer. 3D printing is already hard enough without nozzle blockages to deal with.

Unfortunately, the nozzles of the usual desktop 3D printer setups aren’t self-cleaning, so you can have some dust or particles while feeding the filament into your extruder head. Accumulated dust/dirt on the filament, or even actual debris inside the filament, can partially or fully block the narrower output end of your nozzle. High quality filaments come vacuum-packed and sealed for your security, but I’d suggest to check it before you put anything into your 3D printer. I’ve found some really cheap stuff on ebay as well, but the pain of clogged nozzles and wasted failed 3D prints its not worth it.

Some 3D printer extruder constructions might be sensitive to the diameter of the filament, it may be have problems if your roll of filament varies widely in diameter.  I’ve had some bad experiences with the Formfutura supplier, although I’ve ordered several spools from them. With the FlexPLA and the Laywood, I haven’t got any problem, but with their normal PLA spools I have discovered some irregular values after measuring the diameter. I mean, the cross section of the filament should be round with a diameter of 1.75 mm, but mine looked like an ellipse with 2.05 mm along the longer axis. Unfortunately, the hot tube of the extruder of the Replicator 2 has only a 2 mm hole in it, so the filament just got stuck int he hot tube while feeding.

I had to take my 3D printer apart, remove the clogged filament and clean all the parts before re-assembling. Sometimes, the diameter variation could be gradual; in this case, you might have great print jobs for a long time, and then unexpected as the filament gradually gets narrower, you have an extrusion issue.  Or, as the filament gets wider, you start to have an over-extrusion problem. I’ve already read some reports about knots ont he spools, int hat case, those plastic spools weren’t originally manufactured for 3D printing, maybe they are common plastic welding rods sold as 3D printing material. If you have experienced knots or stuff like that, you’d better switch to higher quality filament (like the filament that Gigamax3D sell) that is made specifically for 3D printing. I’ve found that supplier a couple of months ago, and I’ve been really glad because they are from nice quality for an affordable price. I’ve tested them before buying, because they have a store in my country so I could measure the diamter of the sealed spools. They have allowed me to test every spool I wanted, and their filament passed the tests with my micrometer. It was the first time I bought some HIPS spools, and they worked fine as well.

Gigamax-supplied filaments have been tested to conform with all the common desktop 3D printers’ specifications and work best for most applications.I you already have some experiences with desktop 3D printers like RepRap machines, Makerbots, Leapfrog 3D printer or any other FDM 3D printer, you might have discovered as some filaments won’t work fine or can cause serious damage to the extruder head and machine. The quality of your 3D prints depends ont he quality of your 3D printing material as well. That’s why it is important to use high quality filaments for 3D printing. Gigamax offers an array of plastic filament colors. If you visit the Gigamax 3D print webshop  you can see the full range of colors and special materials like glow-in-the-dark PLA or HIPS filaments in bright colors. All Gigamax 3D printing filaments come in a vacuum-packed foil bag with a desiccant pack to keep the ABS, PLA and HIPS spools dry during storage.

They also sell PVA material, which can be really useful if you have a dual extrusion 3D printer like Leapfrog Creatr or a multimaterial RepRap machine like the Tricolor Mendel. 3D printing with FDM technology is really popular because of the simpliness of the process. There is no finishing necessary when 3D printing with extruded PLA, ABS or HIPS filaments. After the FDM extrusion process, the plastic solidifies right away. No chemical reactions, resins, etc. and no further post-processing and/or finishing needed. In case you use a 3D printer with multiple extruder heads with the water-soluble plastic PVA plastic as a support material, you have to dissolve the PVA in water after your print is finished. PVA is an amazing material, unfortunately it only can be used with at least 2 extruders and costs a little bit more than usual 3D printing plastics.

Since I switched to Gigamax3D filaments I haven’t got any issues with filament diameter and clogged nozzles, unless I unloaded the HIPS filament and loaded some Laywood and Laybrick material. I think that some particles may have stayed in the brass nozzle and that’s why it acts like a barrier and the plastic cannot extrude. You know, 3D printing can be sometimes really frustrating, especially if you don’t know the reason for the problem. I’ve had several issues along the months, I’m going to post about typical issues with my Makerbot soon (problems with the Delrin plunger, broken cables, SD card reading errors and wrong plastic pulleys… c u next time;)

3d modeling for 3d printing

If you want to design a 3d model for a rendering or video game, you don’t need to pay any attention to reality. You can completely ignore the physical world. Most 3d scenes and objects will only contain the outer meshes and layers that are visible, objects don’t need to really connect, and there can be some acceptable topology issues, bad meshes and dupklicated vertexes as well, which won’t affect the end results. Some of you might have already experienced, that once you start working with 3d printers, this is very different!

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almost ready #mini #reprap #mendel #huxley #3dprinter #opensource #assembly #diy #kit #arduino #melzi #solder #pcb #hardware #affordable #3dprinting #calibration #test http://parametric-art.com

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There are several software needs for 3d printer users: open-source 3d modeling tools, like OpenSCAD or Blender, slicing tool, to “compile” the 3d geometry to a set of G-Code instructions for the toolpath of the extruder tool of the 3d printer, such as Skeinforge or Slic3r; and finally a 3d printer controller program, such as Printrun, Cura or RepetierHost.

Whether you use a web-based (webGL or html5) 3d modeler optimized for 3d printing (such as Leopoly) or a professional CAD tool like Rhinoceros, 3dsMax, Maya, SketchUp or Blender, designing objects for 3D printing demands expertise in everything from structural engineering to material science.

Most common basic 3D software which are available out there are tools like Blender or SketchUp, which have a freely available version, and they are really easy to learn because there are a plenty of well-documented tutorials available online. There are also sites like Leopoly (click here) and Tinkercad, which are in browser based 3D modeling tools that allow you to rapidly create and download a file that you can 3d print on your desktop 3d printer. If you want it to get more advanced you can get into things like Rhino and Grasshopper or Solidworks which are professional level engineering softwares. Or you can go into the AutoCAD suite where you have things like 3D Max, Maya, and AutoCAD.

3d modeling for 3d printing with Blender

Blender is an open-source 3d modeling software that you can use to create your very own models for 3d printing. It is completely free, and there are a plenty of good sites and tutorials if you want to learn how it works. The latest edition came with a 3d printing toolbox as well, designed especially for the needs of modeling for 3d printing. At the beginning, we have to set up the scale and dimensions of our scene. Metric units are easier to notate in blender than imperial units, and the most common 3d printing services use metric measurements (meters and centimeters) rather than the standard blender unit.

You also can scale your 3d model by its volume, it can be useful if you want to optimize your cost of 3d printing (most services charge by volume and material, and you don’t want to pay a huge amount of money just because you haven’t optimized your .stl file the right way). You can check the volume of your object in the 3d print toolbar, and if it is too big, you can actually scale the model automatically so that it is exactly a certain volume. To do this, under the Print3D tab, find Scale To and click volume. Then you have to type in your desired volume in cm3, and it will automatically scale down your model for you. If the volume values are pretty high, your 3d printed object would be quite expensive, so you’d better fix that by making the model hollow.

Common FDM 3d printers can only print things down to certain dimensions, so you should check your machines technical boundaries. Minimal wall thickness, best resolution (minimal layer height) and additional supports (if needed) are the most important aspects of optimizing your 3d model for 3d printing. If you want to add thickness to your mesh surface, select your 3d object in your scene, then add the Solidify modifier. After these steps, you only have to export your 3d model as an .stl file. Before doing this, please double check your measurements and dimensions to make sure everything is at optimal scale, and then above the export button, designate a file path and click export. You should now have a .stl file at your designated location, which can be prepared for slicing and generating the g-code, just like I have described it in the last blog post about checking .stl files before 3d printing.

3d modeling for 3d printing with SketchUp

If you want to get started making awesome models for 3d printing, SketchUp might be a nice and free tool at the beginning. It is the 3d modeling tool of Google, which can help you to design some objects and then 3d print them. Whatever you’re designing, keep in mind the real world. Your 3d model will become an actual object, so you must consider dimensions, strength and gravity. Unlike Blender, SketchUp doesn’t have a 3d printing toolbox, you have to set the parameters for 3d printing manually or use some nice open-source plugins. For example, Cura can directly import the “.dae” file format that SketchUp natively export to. We only have to define the inside and outside of our closed mesh.

Does our computer actually know what is the inside or outside? This important thing should be clear to us, but most computer software needs you to specify this, this is called ‘orienting the faces’ in SketchUp (or ‘unify mesh normals’ in Rhino). There usually is a front and a backside to a ‘face’. In SketchUp there is a slightly different color for the front an back sides. The inside and outside are not understood to a ‘dumb’ computer, so you have to help it! There are some nice tutorials here.

3d models for 3d printing must be “watertight” or “Solid” to be 3d printable. This is by far the most common problem beginners have when modeling for 3d printing. If you were to fill it with water, none would drain out, and the model must not have any extra lines or faces. If you make your object into a group or component, Sketchup will indicate when its solid in the Entity Info dialog box (Window > Entity Info). Plugins can also help you work faster or do things that Sketchup simply can’t do. Solid Inspector is a great tool for detecting bad meshes and topology issues that prevent your geometry from forming solids. The parameters are the same just like in Blender: wall thickness, scale and print material specifications and limitations should be checked before exporting the .stl file. For exporting, there is a great plugin called SketchUp STL Exporter. There is a great tutorial by Shapeways here.

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#3dnyomtatás #3dmodel #architecture #concept #design #generative #parametric #building #skin #algorithmic #3dprint #3dprinting #designed by Levente Gyulai #3dprinted by #parametricart http://3dprinted.tumblr.com

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3d modeling for 3d printing with Rhino and Grasshopper

3d design using ‘visual programming’ for 3d printed output might be really cool, but actually, it isn’t available to output a Grasshopper design to be printed with a 3d printer, but the visual programming language of this awesome tool allows us to create some custom mesh optimization algorithms and then bake the results in the Rhino environment. There are some really useful mesh analysis tools to detect and remove bad meshes and we also can check the curvature of the object for additional supports. Grasshopper runs within the Rhinoceros 3D CAD application, which is a professional NURBS 3d modeling environment but without ‘explicit history’ feature or parametric tools.

Rhino is basically a surface modeler, but it can work with solids as well.  By putting components on the canvas we can make some really useful definitions to optimize our model for 3d printing, and those fluid forms created with mathematical algorithms look really fancy if realized. These are the most useful components and plugins which can help us to give thickness to our mesh surfaces and make them watertight like Weaverbird and MeshAnalysis.

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3D printing plastics – PLA vs ABS in practice

Welcome on my blog! Today, we are going to go on with the differences of the most common 3D printing materials, the ABS and PLA plastics. The most desktop 3D printers can work with these materials, last week’s post was about the main characteristics of the two filament types, today it’s going to be about some special aspects of use in practice. I want to discuss some important things about these 2 materials, I mean the shrinkage factor, rigidity, bio-degradability and heat resistance.

Rigidity

A fact is a fact: PLA is a much more rigid material compared to ABS. If you compare ABS and PLA by applying a progressive force, ABS will start to bend and finally will break; while ABS is bending, PLA on the other hand will hold it’s shape (it’s very rigid and doesn’t flex). Actually, this one is the reason for the design fail of the plunger construction of the MakerBot Replicator 2. The guys at MakerBot have set the old plunger construction used in the Replicator1 and other RepRap 3d printers. But those all work with ABS filament, which is . as mentioned above – not as rigid as PLA. After 100 hrs of 3D printing with my new Replicator2 desktop 3D printer, the filament has cut a hole in the plastic cap of the plunger. It’s okay – I thought – and I have tightened the screw on the plunger a little. I got another 100 hrs of 3D printing, but after that, another hole has appeared. There is a much better – a spring loaded – construction for that, you can download the upgraded plunger form Thingiverse and 3D print your own.

PLA is more rigid and its surface is harder as well. When applying more force, after a certain point it will eventually break before bending. You often need more force to break a PLA part than an ABS one especially if you have a thick part.

Something about the shrinkage factor of PLA for 3D printing

Fact: PLA has a much lower shrinkage factor than ABS. Usually it means that it is MUCH easier to use in the most common desktop FDM 3D printers: unlike ABS, PLA deforms definitely less and suffers from very little layer detachment leading to a much higher success rate on your 3D prints. I’ve 3D printed my most beautiful parts all with PLA, ABS isn’t the right choice for fine surface finishes.

With ABS, even a relatively small part will deform when printing if you don’t have a heated bed and/or a heated building environment. With the RepRap machines like the Felix or the Prusa model, it is really hard to get a tempered 3D print environment, because the working area of the 3D printer isn’t closed. (I’ve never managed it to heat it up to 100 Celsius as suggested, my maximum of bed temperature has been 80 Celsius with my RepRap.) With the more expensive desktop 3D printers like the MakerBot Replicator 2X it would be better: the tempered chamber of the 3D printer allows you to control the temperature of your prints immediately.

Are you interested in painting of your 3D printed plastic parts? I have really good news for you: both usual 3D printing materials – PLA and ABS – can be painted and post processed (sanded) if needed. First thing is first… Preparation. There are some Items that you need when prepping the plastics to paint. This first step is really important, because if you missed it, the primer didn’t bond well with the ABS plastic and tended to flake off.

Bio degradability

PLA is a bio degradable material. This means it will resist for very long in indoors use and occasional outdoors use but permanent exposure to the elements will eventually start to degrade it. It is not suitable, for example, for parts that need to stay outdoors 365 days a year; for these applications ABS is preferable.From what we’ve seen over the years we’ve been selling 3D printers there are 3 very specific cases where ABS is preferable over PLA:

Outdoors use

I’ve had a customer a couple of weeks ago who has asked me to 3D print build enclosures for electronics modules that were going to be left outside for many years. In that case ABS was the better choice because it’s not biodegradable, so it is more durable for outdoor use.

Flexible parts

Another customer needed to build supports for DIN rails. The support needed to flex enough to fit into the DIN rail. I have 3D printed the same part in PLA and ABS. PLA, caused by its rigidity, wouldn’t flex so ABS was the right material because of its flexibility. In the last couple of weeks, some flexible PLA materials have appeared on the market as well; I’ve already ordered some spools for testing but I haven’t got any experiences with them yet. I’m looking forward to see the results.

Temperature and heat resistance

Fact: ABS has a higher melting temperature so if you need plastic parts that need to deal with high temperatures (about 100 Celsius or more), than ABS is also preferable over PLA because of its higher melting point.

 

My conclusion: all in all PLA is not a “one size fits all” but it will meet the needs of 95% of the 3D printing enthusiasts and – from experience – it is so much easier to 3D print compared to ABS.

That’s it for today, I hope this posts helps clear out some questions about the right choice of material for 3D printing. In my next post, I’m going to write about some really special, experimental materials which can be 3D printed as well, just think about some wood or sandstone 3D printed things. It sounds awesome, doesn’t it?

 

Some facts about the most common 3D printing materials: PLA vs. ABS

Hi there, it’s me again. Today we’re going to discuss some myths and truths about the most common 3D printing materials used in FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) technology, which is applied in the usual affordable desktop 3D Printers like my MakerBot Replicator2, Cube, Solidoodle, RepRaps, uPrinters and so on…

© parametric | art

Honestly I felt – based on your questions and feedback – that it would be really necessary and important to clarify some key facts about PLA (Polylactic acid) and also the pros and cons, I mean the the advantages and disadvantages of PLA vs ABS (Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) when used on FFD printers (such as the Makerbot Replicator2, Thing-O-Matic, Cupcake, Mendel, Felix, Rostock, UP!, etc.).

At first, I really would like to say that PLA is an absolutely strong and very durable material for 3D printing.

There are a couple of myths around this great material (PLA):

Some of you think that PLA will dissolve in water and/or will degrade in moist or wet environments. That is totally false. The 3D printable plastic, which is often used as a support material with dual extrusion 3D printers and which dissolves in water is PVA (Polyvinyl alcohol), not PLA.

© parametric | art

Another fake myth is the durability of this great material. Some people – even some 3D print enthusiasts – are afraid from PLA, because they think that it will self destruct and simply become undone in a matter of months, just because PLA is biodegradable. I have to repeat myself, again, not true.

© parametric | art

“Biodegradable” means – in my opinion and literally as well – that the product is strong and performs its function very well but when you throw it in a landfill or soil it will ultimately break down, of course not instantly, it takes a couple of years to complete the biodegradation process.

© parametric | art

This is actually much more environmental-friendly comparing to ABS which takes over hundreds of years to break down. In addition PLA is made from natural resources such as corn starch or sugar cane, which makes this great material the right choice to create plastic parts at home. Just think about it, what if it will be true and the revolution of additive manufacturing and desktop 3D printers was going to escalate, everyone would like to be a designer and will print the own ideas day and night. We should be more responsible for our mother nature and not 3D print too much ABS junk. (Although we have to recognize, that ABS and PLA could be recycled as well.)

© parametric | art

Some people claim that ABS is much stronger than PLA. That’s a little bit more complex, because the sentence mentioned above is absolutely true. This is the most recurring myth in the PLA vs ABS war and it’s also absolutely inaccurate: if you compare injection molded parts, ABS parts are pretty much stronger than it’s PLA counterparts; however we’re doing our 3D printed prototypes layer by layer, not injection molding and this changes things considerably:

A 3D printed part in PLA is MUCH stronger than a part printed in ABS. This is because PLA has much stronger layer bonding than ABS.

© parametric | art

Let me tell you some words about layer bonding: unlike injection molding, FDM printers  3D print layer by layer so layer bonding is what determines the part strength.

If you are familiar with 3D Printing you’ll know that the strength of a 3D printed plastic part changes depending on the direction: if you pull perpendicularly to the Z axis – I mean vertically – (where layers are deposited), they will detach; if you pull in any other direction the part is much stronger. It behaves a bit like wood, this kind of anisotropy is really characteristic for natural wood products, and for 3D printed wood as well.

© parametric | art

Because PLA has much stronger layer bonding it’s almost as strong in all directions (even when pulled in the Z axis).

ABS on the other hand, will detach layers much faster and much easily than PLA, making 3D printed ABS parts less strong. (they aren’t weak either; PLA parts are just stronger).

In my next blog entry, I want to discuss the PLA vs ABS thing in practice; there will be a lot of useful information about the shrinkage factor, rigidity, post-processing/sanding and melting temperature, so stay tuned;)