Thermoplastics have the advantage of easy 3D printing with cheap FDM printers, but their models are not temperature stable. Resins are harder and stronger but require more expensive printing technologies. Are there any filaments that combine the two material properties? Basically, a resin that is solid at room temperature but can be melted in an FDM printer, and after printing can be hardened permanently with UV light? If not, it might be a useful chemistry to develop.
The two possibilities I see are either finding a resin (monomers or short chains) that is itself thermoplastic and would fully polymerize when exposed to UV light, or coming up with a mix of an existing thermoplastic material and a resin where only the resin component would polymerize when exposed to UV light.
Any ideas/suggestions?
