Another Sticky Option: 3DLAC

By on December 17th, 2015 in Hardware

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There’s yet another option to ensure your 3D prints stick to the print surface during printing: 3DLAC.

3DLAC is an adhesive aerosol spray developed by Spanish company LEON3D, based, where else, but León in Spain. 

3DLAC is an alternative bed adhesion solution to blue tape, glue sticks or other adhesion approaches. It’s critical to ensure the first layer of your print sticks to the bed during printing, or else you may have a catastrophic failure. Even the slight lifting of a corner of your 3D model will cause the shape to be incorrect. 

LEON3D’s 3DLAC solution is very similar to adhoc hair spray approaches that are often used. However, only certain hair sprays work, as they must have the correct chemical mix to provide adhesion. Typically, 3D printer operators buy hair spray by specific brands that are known to have the correct formulation. Here’s how it works: 

Or you could just by a bottle of 3DLAC, which is specifically designed for this purpose. We’ve heard multiple reports of successful ABS plastic printing using 3DLAC, which is one of the most challenging materials to print on many common 3D printers. In this video we see PLA being printed on a cold glass bed with only 3DLAC holding the print down: 

What’s their secret? We’re not sure, but we did find a list of contents of their 400ml spray can: 

Isopropyl alcohol – Methylal – Isobutane – Propane – VP/VA copolymer – Alcohol denat – Parfum (Benzyl alcohol, Benzyl salicilate, Coumarin, Geraniol, Butylphenyl Methylpropional, Linalool, Benzyl benzoate, Citronellol, Alphaisomethylionone, Hydroxycitronellal,Amyl cinnamal)

3DLAC is available now in 18 countries from a variety of online retailers. Pricing varies considerably, however. We’ve seen prices as low as €4.95 (USD$5.40) to as high as CAD$19.95 (USD$14.50) per 400ml can. 

One interesting note: we saw at least one supplier indicate that this product, being a compressed air cylinder, cannot be shipped by air cargo in some jurisdictions. Thus, it may be available only by ground shipment in your area. 

Via LEON3D (Spanish)

By Kerry Stevenson

Kerry Stevenson, aka "General Fabb" has written over 8,000 stories on 3D printing at Fabbaloo since he launched the venture in 2007, with an intention to promote and grow the incredible technology of 3D printing across the world. So far, it seems to be working!