I printed weed-wacker line.

[www.amazon.com]

I dried it in the oven for 24 hours at 180F. I still saw small puffs of steam, so I would dry it twice.

The build plate is glass with a section of rip-stop BDU pants (65% Polyester, 35% cotton) spray-mounted to it.

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[www.matter-replicator.com]

You're a brave man. Hope you have lots of ventilation in that room.

Myth.

This test was able to detect 0.1 part per million. That is one part per 10 million or 1/100 of what OSHA allows an eight-hour exposure to.

[www.instructables.com]

[www.osha.gov]

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[www.matter-replicator.com]

I was confused, i thought "that thing isnt a weed whacker".. Also, instead of screenshots, why dont you do file->export config and upload that file as attachment, that'd be much easier to handle!

Pretty cool, 23$/3lb~23$/1.3kg ~17$/kg looks cheap to me. I suppose we dont know what material the factory produces exactly, some kind of nylon i suppose hence the drying of the filament.

Did you get at the extrusion multiplier by experimentation? Any idea why that particular value otherwise.(ftr: the diameter entered is consistent with the label, suppose the actual iameter is too? Can barely measure such thicknesses though) I dont see much about it in the wiki, but the symptoms of there being water in there may account for some inflation.(Not that water is bad if it isnt a problem) If it were slipping a bit on the filament drive you'd have a >1 multiplier i suppose. This other thread has filament_diameter=2.65 ; extrusion_multiplier=0.8 (I suppose he filled in the right diameter and didnt change E-steps per length; M92)

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/19/2013 09:19PM by Jasper1984.

Water causes steam, and that can put bubbles into the print, making it cloudy and not as strong. While it worked fine, I did see some steam, and so I put the spool back in the oven and will try again tomorrow.

I measured the line to get that value and did not go by what the label said.

The extrusion multiplier is what I had just tested my PLA for, and used the same setting. At some point I will test this material for the exact setting.

As for uploading the profile - I don't expect people to use my profile exactly as is, for the reasons of things like the extrusion multiplier being specific to one printer. I really just wanted people to be able to look at the settings.

For example, the number of skirt-loops - 4, is important because it takes a while for the pressure to equalize.

The retraction is set to 6 - due to the viscosity.

Other stuff, like permitters and top layers - that was just specific to the model.

After you use this and want to change back to PLA or ABS, heat up the extruder to 240C or so, then purge it with the new material. The first time I changed back to PLA, the print looked good for 2 layers, then the extrusion stopped. I heated back up to 240, purged more, and I saw a bit more nylon come out. Then it was ok.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/19/2013 09:27PM by rsilvers.

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[www.matter-replicator.com]

Quote

Myth.

I'm getting tired of beating this dead horse. I'll lay out my argument as clearly as I can, and then from here on just link people back to this post when this comes up.

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String trimmer line is not what you would call high quality plastic - very often the suppliers will throw in scraps, rejects, other plastic they have laying around because the chemical composition of string trimmer line simply doesn't matter in its normal use case, and they like to use up scraps when possible to save cost. So it's probably mostly nylon, but you have no idea of what else is in there.

This means its chemical composition can vary widely from supplier-to-supplier. It also means the chemical composition can vary widely from batch-to-batch from the same supplier.

So yes, the single batch and single supplier that was tested in that instructable didn't produce fatal amounts of HCN. This does not mean that all string trimmer line is safe to use. And even if it doesn't produce HCN, they did not test for other potentially dangerous gases.

Given that the volume of plastic we melt is small compared to say, something like an injection molding machine, you're probably not going to kill yourself as long as you have moderate fresh air ventilation in the room in which you are printing. But I would strongly advise against printing in an enclosed space that has no ventilation.

Good ventilation is something like a box or window fan pulling air out of the room. If you close the interior doors to the room, you will create a slight negative pressure which will help prevent the fumes from spreading to the rest of the house. The ventilation fan for a HVAC system is not good ventilation, because it does not move much air, and recirculates the air back inside the house, so the fumes are never actually removed from the building.

"String trimmer line is not what you would call high quality plastic - very often the suppliers will throw in scraps, rejects, other plastic they have laying around because the chemical composition of string trimmer line simply doesn't matter in its normal use case, and they like to use up scraps when possible to save cost. So it's probably mostly nylon, but you have no idea of what else is in there. "

True, but I am printing novelty gears and vases with it, not aerospace parts or medical implants. People here make 3D printers from materials completely inappropriate for such use, such as ordinary threaded rod and nuts instead of ball screws and ball nuts. So experimenting with alternate materials is part of the fun.

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[www.matter-replicator.com]

rsilvers Wrote:
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> The build plate is glass with a section of
> rip-stop BDU pants (65% Polyester, 35% cotton)
> spray-mounted to it.

Now i can tell my girl: "take your pants off - i need to print something".

... 3d printing never been better

[www.youtube.com]

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[www.matter-replicator.com]

rsilvers Wrote:
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> True, but I am printing novelty gears and vases
> with it, not aerospace parts or medical implants.
> People here make 3D printers from materials
> completely inappropriate for such use, such as
> ordinary threaded rod and nuts instead of ball
> screws and ball nuts. So experimenting with
> alternate materials is part of the fun.


Yes, but I believe you want to keep your lungs working as long as possible :-)
If you insist, do yourself a favour and don't never, ever, use black trimmer line.

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no toys here...sorry

Surely we can print an air-duct to your window to get rid of the fumes..

About heating it in the oven, might fumes come out at that point? Can it contaminate the oven, would the oven still be good for food? Any measures to take to improve that?

@rsilvers, quite aside, but seems a bit strange to use a forum as a blog. (but whatever floats your boat)

Jasper1984 Wrote:
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> About heating it in the oven, might fumes come out
> at that point? Can it contaminate the oven, would
> the oven still be good for food? Any measures to
> take to improve that?

180F is no hotter than an attic can get, or a car dashboard in the summer.

> @rsilvers, quite aside, but seems a bit strange to
> use a forum as a blog. (but whatever floats your
> boat)

I want others to post in my forum, but it is not happening yet. 3D printers are like home computers in 1979. There are decades of growth coming.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/20/2013 09:25AM by rsilvers.

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rsilvers Wrote:
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> 180F is no hotter than an attic can get, or a car
> dashboard in the summer.

180 F is 90% of the T required to boil water.
Is your attic really that hot ?

Anyway, I wouldnt' dry *any* filament on my oven. I like my pizza to taste tomato, not an unknown oil from overseas. :-)
And there are plenty of cheap semi-toy ovens (50..80 US$) on any cheap store around the country, or that you can won sometimes with morning snacks (here in Europe).

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no toys here...sorry