Extruding Corian?

I've noticed Corian can be thermoformed, injected and extruded so why can't it be reprapped?

Corian is a mixture from acrylic with mineralic dust.

It's a trademark of DuPont and expensive compared to other acrylics ...

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Viktor
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Thank you? I know the definition.

... so why testing/using an expensive material, that you won't find as filament, that over time will wreck your extruder tip with the embedded abrasive particles ... when you can use other, cheaper and easier to handle materials

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Viktor
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Because it's very resistant and almost completely weatherproof

Corian would be super cool, but the particle size would be the limitation for reprapping. You should certainly be able to do something Corian-ish by using a fine powdered mineral filler in an appropriate polymer matrix. No idea what the cost would be to have something like that compounded and then extruded into filament, though.

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[haveblue.org]

If we only used materials that were easy to use and inexpensive we'd still be in the stone age. Somebody's got to make the jump to make those hard and expensive things easier and cheaper.

That being said, it is initially going to be complicated to get filament made from it, and Corian is likely too brittle to be coiled in reasonable diameters.

Also, additional pressures are required to extrude composite plastics, which will make the extruding process that much more troublesome.

If you have lots of time and money I'm sure it can be done, though. Once you have figured it out, you can add it to the wiki and everybody can be extruding Corian

Tramagust: Check your attitude at the door, dude. Viktor's been here a while, and you are obviously asking for opinions, so take them when offered.

The point Viktor is making is absolutely valid. While Corian can be extruded into slabs, and machined, it is not a filament extrudeable plastic. That's the why.

The saying seems to apply here in the RepRap forums that "When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail". Well, the Corian nail is way too big for a RepRap hammer IMHO.

It seems like laser sintering would be the way to go instead of reprapping if you wanted Corian.

... for ceramic-plastic-compounds you can use fluid pastes mixed from a polymer and mineralic dust in paste dispensers atached instead of the extruder head.

The handling is nearly the same as with the extruder, so you can use the standard firmware with changes in temperature treatment. For better viskosity you can use microspheres instead of milled dust ...

Laser sintering is another way, but here you have the drawback of security issues with the used laser and poisonous vapours.

The laser has to be really strong - i use IR-laserdiodes up to 25 Watts and a 50 Watt fiberlaser, and have problems to sinter some materials though.

So better try first with a paste dispenser ...

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Viktor
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VDX Wrote:
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> Laser sintering is another way, but here you have
> the drawback of security issues with the used
> laser and poisonous vapours.

Well, if you're laser sintering I'd hope you'd have a machine properly equipped to deal with vapours anyway.

ClockworkNinja Wrote:
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> Well, if you're laser sintering I'd hope you'd
> have a machine properly equipped to deal with
> vapours anyway.

... look here at the last image - this is my biggest charcoal-absorber i use for the lasers ... maybe a bit oversized, but so it would last some ten years until i have to clean or change the filter

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Viktor
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