Makerbot's new 'Flex' and dissolvable filaments...

Hey Everyone,
I noticed that Makerbot are making two new kinds of filaments:

• Flexible
• Dissolvable (HIPS) Which dissolved in Limonene

What do we think about this? How do you think this will affect Reprap and 3d printing in general?


[www.3dppvd.org]
[www.makerbot.com]
[www.makerbot.com]

Dissolvable filament... sure can dissolve your bank account at $65 US für ein kilo!

This kind of stuff isn't new though, hasn't it been available(expensively) from other companies for years?

---

Yvan

Singularity Machine

Hahah

Well I guess it isn't new, but it isn't popular though..
When makerbot adopts this as their own idea, reprap will soon follow, right?

That dissolvable filament is HIPS, which has been available for a little while now for much cheaper than MakerBot sells it. See [ultimachine.com] . Flexible materials have been available too. MakerBot isn't any sort of leader in 3D printing.

Their soluble filament is HIPS, which Ultimachine and others have carried for quite a while. Lulzbot has done dual extrusion experiments with it in the past. MBI's price for it is outrageous - Ulti sells it for roughly the same price as their ABS spools.

Quote

When makerbot adopts this as their own idea, reprap will soon follow, right?

LOL no. As usual, MBI is late to the ball game.

LOL I know that reprap was there first! Reprap is always there first!
What I'm saying is, with makerbot's marketshare and popularity among people like architects etc, will the reprap begin to adopt this as a standard, because currently everything's experimental

Have I got this wrong, is makerbot merely putting it on sale as an experiment, or actually supporting and recommending it?

I guess that's the new Stratasys pricing?

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- akhlut

Just remember - Iterate, Iterate, Iterate!

[myhomelessmind.blogspot.com]

I've been using HIPS for a few months now. What I find expensive is not the HIPS but the limonene to dissolve it. The HIPS reels if I remember cost about he same as ABS reel for the same weight. I bought one from Italy and one from the UK.

I found that unless I use new uncontaminated limonene it will severely weaken and sometimes distort the ABS parts, so I cannot re-use the limonene. For every kG of HIPS I will probably need a few litres of limonene unless I can purify and re-use it.

At first I used to just use the same limonene over and over again until it became so dense that it would not dissolve any more HIPS but then I started to realise how much damage it was causing and later figured out that it was only used limonene that caused the damage. Fresh limonene out of the bottle seems to cause no ill effect.


For flexible filament I've seen somewhere (on youtube I think) that you can make parts out of PLA and then dunk them in some solvent, I think it was carburettor cleaner but not sure. After some time soaking they become very flexible, enough to make things such as drive belts, tyres and such.


Edit: just found the prices I paid for HIPS - it is actually more expensive than ABS - Euro 48 + 19 for shipping from Italy compared to the latest ABS filemanet I bought at Eur 26 + 19 for shipping from Denmark

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/05/2013 05:40AM by lister6520.

FWIW, wholesale HIPS is less than ABS, IIRC.

Just to add some info here, I would bet good money that the flexible filament they are peddling is just rebranded Polycapralactone (PCL) - which is actually one of the first EVER materials extruded on RepRap during the very early Bath Uni development days.

You can find good info here:
[reprap.org]

Some people might be more familiar with it under the name "polymorph" or "instamorph" and other similar names for a low-temp manipulatable modelling plastic. You can buy it on amazon as granules.

@ Sanjay

I was thinking the same thing but couldn't find any links at the time of my post, so I left it out. If it's true that drastically decreases the appeal of the material, given its low melting point. Sure with MBI would post some technical details on their materials, rather than just "look at this new magical mystery material!"

There is already flexible PLA sold by several companies. TPU round belting also works but it is very fickle to print and needs more experimentation/documentation. There is also a flexible filament I've seen on Thingiverse made by a European company, claiming up to 50mm/s print speed. Bet it's a modified TPU as well but who knows....

The Makerbot flex filament is either Capa 6500 or Capa 6800 resin from what I can tell (look at the MSDS's from each and compare - they're exactly the same except Makerbot omitted the "Capa" trade name from their PDF):
[www.perstorp.com]

They have 1kg samples and it's biodegradable and pretty non-toxic from the looks of it, in case anyone wants to do some experimenting.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/20/2013 12:35AM by Eric Young.