What are the most advanced or highest performing materials available for consumer-level FDM machines?
When I say "highest performing", I mostly mean mechanical or thermal properties, but also perhaps anything that really stands apart from conventional materials like PLA or ABS in physical properties of a finished part.

I've been doing a lot of googling and reading, and the ones I've come up with are:

Polycarbonate
Carbon-fiber impregnated ABS (I won't include that MarkForged printer which uses long continuous fiber meant only for itself)

What else is there?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/07/2014 12:15AM by sanman.

Available: Delrin/Acetal/POM (homopolymer/copolymer), PET, or PETG, Polycarbonate, Nylon, Polyurethane.

Stratasys' Fortus 900 (and maybe others) can print Ultem, which has a Tg of 216C (compared to 100 for ABS). So as far as high temperature performance I'd say that's the winner.

igus: iglidur tribo filament.

igus Bearing filament
[www.igus.eu]

I think with any of these engineered materials co-extruding with filament will take object creation to a higher level of performance.

Additive wire laying
[forums.reprap.org]

Is there any kind of chart which shows which materials become feasible as the hot-end temperature gets higher?

Is the availability of materials for FDM/FFF printing purposes mainly a function of hot-end operating temperature?

If not, then what are the other considerations to increase the types of useful materials which FDM/FFF printing can encompass?
What changes or innovations are required in order to bring these better materials within reach?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/12/2014 12:16AM by sanman.

ULTEM 9085 spec sheet: Matl
ULTEM is a polyetherimide and polycarbonate blend and is pretty durable stuff for a printed plastic. I have some parts in hand to evaluate it.
I am waiting on igus to respond to my request to find out what their new FDM material's processing temperatures are.
There are all kinds of new materials; flexible materials, glow-in-the-dark materials, dissolvable materials, filled plastics, ceramics, wax, carbon fiber filled, organic fiber filled etc... it depends upon what you want to do.
Here is our REPRAP forum under materials Fabrication
Here is an external link to some interesting material descriptions 3ders.org

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/12/2014 09:07PM by rrr7.

@rrr7

Did you ever find out what ultems processing temperature is?

Thanks!

330C-380C with a heated build chamber of 190C

Strap a old Lincoln MIG welder on your printer and print ER70S wire - I haven't seen many plastics with a 70ksi tensile strength

[3dprint.com]

Quote
sanman
What are the most advanced or highest performing materials available for consumer-level FDM machines?
When I say "highest performing", I mostly mean mechanical or thermal properties...

That's a pretty vague criteria when considering all types of thermoplastics. You really need to consider what the application is in order to figure out what the best performing material is. If you're making say a project box for some electronics, then impact resistance may be more important than temperature resistance. However if you need a cooling fan for around your hot end that's subject to 200+ degree temperatures, then a high temp plastic may be better suited then something with a low melting point. If you need resistance to particular chemicals, then that can change your selection as well.

Here is one PDF (of many that exist on the internet) that compares various different thermoplastics based on their ratings in a variety of mechanical and thermal properties.