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diameter

1.75 vs 2.85mm Filament Showdown

Where did the two 3D printer filament diameters come from and what is the difference? Which one is better?

Kerry Stevenson May 6, 2020
_temp

Thoughts From The 3D Printing Store

We had a chat with Debra Wilcox of The 3D Printing Store to find out her thoughts on 3D printing sales, operations during the crisis and the future of 3D printing in manufacturing.

Kerry Stevenson April 29, 2020
entertainment

3D Printing Hidden in New HBO Series

Have you watched the new HBO series, “Westworld”? If you have, the opening sequence features a very unusual 3D printing process. 

Kerry Stevenson October 13, 2016
food

A New Universal 3D Paste Extruder

Soon to launch will be Structr3D Printing’s “universal paste extruder” that could enable many personal 3D printers to extruder some very unusual materials. 

Site Admin May 14, 2014
material

Stratasys’ Nylon Material

A few weeks ago we speculated that Stratasys might begin focusing on new materials to exploit their huge base of installed 3D printers as their

Kerry Stevenson December 17, 2013
@formlabs

Formlabs Releases a New Resin

Formlabs, makers of the popular Form 1 personal 3D printer have released a new resin. Previously, the company offered only two resins: Grey and Clear.

Kerry Stevenson December 16, 2013
material

The FilaFab Filament Maker

We had a close look at the FilaFab, a “Desktop Filament Fabricator”. It’s pretty simple in concept: put in some plastic bits and usable 3D

Kerry Stevenson November 22, 2013
material

The War on 3D Printed ABS

It was the first plastic used in personal 3D printers, but are ABS’s days coming to an end?    The once popular plastic seems to

Kerry Stevenson November 20, 2013
material

Move over Michelangelo – 3D Printing with Marble

For millennia marble has been one of the most impressive materials for building and sculpture. However, marble quarrying wastes material and creates plumes of calcium

Kerry Stevenson October 25, 2013
material

MadeSolid’s Colored 3D Printer Resins

If you happen to have a Form 1 resin-based 3D printer, you’ll likely to have purchased resin from Formlabs, its manufacturer. Formlabs provides resin tuned

Kerry Stevenson October 18, 2013
material

“Green” 3D Printer Filament

No, no, we don’t mean “Green”. We mean “Green” as in environmentally responsible. We’ve been looking at filament supplier GP3D, who sell a decent selection

Kerry Stevenson October 15, 2013
leapfrog

Leapfrog Introduces Improved PVA Material

Leapfrog 3D printers introduced a new type of PVA filament for 3D printing that, according to them, “actually works”.     PVA is a different

Kerry Stevenson October 12, 2013
material

Found: Inexpensive 3D Printer Filament

For those of you scrambling to find a source for inexpensive filament, we found one: Seacans. They have a reasonable selection of colors that should

Kerry Stevenson October 11, 2013
material

3D Printer Filament Available at Monoprice

We hadn’t noticed it before, but evidently Monoprice has been selling plastic filament suitable for 3D printers for months now.    If you’re not familiar

Kerry Stevenson October 8, 2013
makerbot

MakerBot Releases Three Things

All the recent hires at MakerBot have obviously been put to good use: this week MakerBot released not one, not two, but three important new

Kerry Stevenson October 3, 2013
flexible

i.Materialise Keeps Their Rubber

Earlier this year 3D print service i.Materialise announced the temporary availability of an experimental flexible 3D print material. Now they say this material will be

Kerry Stevenson September 10, 2013
material

TTP’s Multimaterial 3D Print Head

  Perhaps the most significant technology barrier in 3D printing today is the limitation of materials. Most 3D printers can produce only a single material

Kerry Stevenson September 6, 2013
material

Sculpteo’s New Materials

Last week Sculpteo announced the availability of two new materials for their 3D print service: Sterling Silver and Wax.   It’s an arms race between

Kerry Stevenson September 3, 2013
material

The Strength of 3D Printed Nylon

One material not often used by personal 3D printers is Nylon. It’s a well-known plastic that can be 3D printed by commercial 3D printers and

Kerry Stevenson August 7, 2013
flexible

BendLay Filament Bends!

The same folks who brought you the hard-to-believe-but-actually-real Wood filament now market a new bendable filament: BendLay, produced by Orbi-Tech and developed by Kai Parthy. 

Kerry Stevenson July 17, 2013
material

3D Printing Sugru!

You don’t know what Sugru is? It’s a peculiar substance that is malleable when first exposed to air, but then solidifies into a rubber-like material

Kerry Stevenson June 27, 2013
material

A Resin for 3D Printed Microelectronics

Researchers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology and C-MET have developed a specialized resin that is suitable for 3D printing electronics at a microscopic scale. 

Kerry Stevenson June 4, 2013
flexible

Shapeways Flexes Its Materials

3D print service Shapeways has made a history of pioneering new 3D print materials for makers. Typically they experiment with a new idea and if

Kerry Stevenson June 1, 2013
material

Hands On With: High Impact Polystyrene

Our friends at Filaco sent us a spool of their new High Impact Polystyrene (HIPS) filament for testing. Accordingly, we spent many hours at our

Kerry Stevenson May 29, 2013
building

Emerging Objects 3D Prints Architectural Materials

Oakland-based Emerging Objects isn’t your normal design firm. Rather than designing homes, interiors, furniture or products from common materials, the four-person group is trying to

Kerry Stevenson May 24, 2013
material

Is Your 3D Printer Filament Toxic?

You own a personal 3D printer that accepts 3rd party filament and you’ve purchased a selection of cool colors from an online shop – but

Kerry Stevenson May 9, 2013
fundraising

The Filastruder

The cost of a 3D printer is not only the printer itself, but also the print material. In most cases, personal 3D printers use plastic

Kerry Stevenson April 9, 2013
material

Materialise Announces Flexible Material

Materialise, the industrial 3D print service, has announced a rather interesting material: TPU 92A-1. Despite the awkward and mysterious nomenclature, TPU 92A-1 offers a legendary

Kerry Stevenson March 21, 2013
material

FormFutura Sells Wood Filament

Most personal 3D printers require plastic filament of some kind or another. Recently some manufacturers have moved to use factory-certified cartridges, but many devices still

Kerry Stevenson January 30, 2013
makerbot

MakerBot’s Plastic Farm

If you can’t get what you want, just do it yourself. That’s the approach MakerBot has taken on plastic. Previously they’d have to do extensive

Kerry Stevenson January 17, 2013
ceramic

Rapid Ceramic Engineering

Ben Becker of HotEnd Works described to us the process his company uses to produce industrial-grade ceramic prototypes. Ceramic prototypes have been around for a

Kerry Stevenson December 13, 2012
electronics

Do You Carbomorph?

Carbomorph is a new, experimental material for 3D printing that promises to add a whole new range of capabilities with its ability to embed sensors

Kerry Stevenson December 11, 2012
material

Objet Adds to its List of Materials

3D Printer maker Objet Geometries announced new additions to its now massive selection of materials available to its 3D printers. The new additions include a

Kerry Stevenson November 25, 2012
material

Canadian Plastic

The pattern seems to be regionalization. Plastic filament supply shops specifically focused on 3D printing are emerging in many countries supplying primarily their local markets.

Kerry Stevenson September 29, 2012
material

Wooden Filament? Yes!

We’re not kidding. It really is filament made of wood – and you can print actual wooden objects with it.    Developed by Thingiverse user

Kerry Stevenson September 28, 2012
material

Is ABS Killing You?

There are two plastics most commonly used in home 3D plastic extrusion printers: ABS and PLA. When you’re printing, you definitely notice them – or,

Kerry Stevenson September 17, 2012
material

Save Some Cash With ISQUARED Consumables

It was only a matter of time before someone began producing “clone” plastic materials for high-end 3D printers. That’s the business of Swiss-based ISQUARED, who

Kerry Stevenson September 12, 2012
material

Afinia’s Low Cost 3D Printer Filament

3D printer manufacturer Afinia has suddenly introduced a new line of plastic filament that has a very attractive feature: low cost.     Their “Value-Line”

Kerry Stevenson September 6, 2012
ceramic

i.Materialise Introduces Ceramics

  3D print service i.Materialise has announced the availability of ceramics as a print material. They aren’t the first to introduce commercial ceramics print capability,

Kerry Stevenson August 15, 2012
material

WOOF’s 3D Printed Boat

The University of Washington’s WOOF group (Washington Open Object Fabricators) did something we haven’t seen yet: they produced a 3D printed boat that didn’t sink.

Kerry Stevenson July 25, 2012
material

Are 3D Printing Materials a Weakness?

For as long as I can remember, users, and potential users, have been clamoring for more and better materials for their 3D printers. It is

Kerry Stevenson July 20, 2012
electronics

3D Printing Electrical Circuit Discovery?

We’re reading about a group of researchers at Stanford who have concocted new gel-like substance that has some very interesting properties. We think the electrically

Kerry Stevenson July 5, 2012
i.materialise

The Brass at i.Materialise

They’re at it again. i.Materialise has now launched a trial of Brass 3D printing. Shortly after launching Bronze, we now see Brass on their materials

Kerry Stevenson June 29, 2012
material

Bronzed by i.Materialise

i.Materialise, one of the popular online 3D print services, now offers an experimental Bronze 3D printing capability.    This isn’t bronze plating – it seems

Kerry Stevenson June 27, 2012
material

Objet Hits 107!

3D printer manufacturer Objet is well known for their extensive list of different materials that you can use in their line of 3D printers. But

Kerry Stevenson June 24, 2012
europe

Fabberworld

Are you in need of supplies for your 3D printer? Do you live in Switzerland? If you answered yes to both questions, you’ll be pleased

Kerry Stevenson June 9, 2012
material

The Importance of Clear

We’ve been fortunate to be able to examine some 3D printed objects from Objet in their Vero Clear material first hand. While we’ve seen clear

Kerry Stevenson June 8, 2012
flexible

Shapeways Gets Bendy

Shapeways, the popular 3D print service constantly experiments with new materials and perhaps they have the widest variety of materials one can select from. We’ve

Kerry Stevenson June 7, 2012
material

Finally: 3D Printer Recycling

We missed this one earlier this year, but it’s still a terrific idea: The Filabot is a “plastic filament maker”. The idea is straightforward, obvious

Kerry Stevenson May 13, 2012
makerbot

Sugru Available At MakerBot

You may not have heard of Sugru, but it’s an amazingly useful material now for sale at the MakerBot online store. It’s not something you

Kerry Stevenson November 28, 2011
material

Objet’s Clear Bio-Material

Commercial 3D printer manufacturer Objet has released a new very interesting print material: MED610, which is a transparent bio-compatible substance. You might think that making

Kerry Stevenson October 1, 2011
material

Ponoko’s New Gelatin!

Distributed manufacturing service Ponoko has released a new material available for their 3D printers, with the self-describing name of “Durable Fine Plastic”. We think this

Kerry Stevenson September 24, 2011
material

Ceramic 3D Printing At Ponoko

Distributed manufacturing giant Ponoko now offers a “glazed ceramic” material option for their 3D printers. This is a big development because it permits the creation

Kerry Stevenson September 5, 2011
furniture

Sit On Objet’s 3D Printed Chair

It’s always totally amazing to pull a new item out of a 3D printer, but it’s even more amazing when it has moving parts and

Kerry Stevenson August 5, 2011
bioprinting

Human Tissue Material?

Nano-engineers at the University of California in San Diego have developed a new biomaterial that evidently is a very close match for human tissue. This

Kerry Stevenson June 16, 2011
material

BfB Prints Clay!

Following up on last week’s amazing feat of printing mashed potatoes, the scientists at Bits From Bytes in Bristol have modified a RapMan 3D printer

Kerry Stevenson March 8, 2011
material

Flexible PLA is Available!

Following up on our earlier post, we’ve located a supply shop that can provide actual flexible PLA. This is not the same material that Vik

Kerry Stevenson March 6, 2011
material

Flexible PLA?

There’s a lot to like about 3D Printing in PLA plastic: it’s recyclable, made from totally organic material, prints with a very elegant sheen, it

Kerry Stevenson March 6, 2011
material

Inventables – Materials for Inventors

We’re taking another look at maker material store Inventables, which we wrote about a year ago. At the Inventables hardware store, you won’t find very

Kerry Stevenson January 14, 2011

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