polythermide Archives - Perfect 3D Printing Filament

Interview with Hexcel on PEKK for 3D Printing

PEKK is one of my favorite 3D printing materials. With very high service temperatures, high strength, and chemical resistance it is a high-performance polymer that has applications in very demanding areas such as aerospace. PEKK is much less known and used than PEEK and PEI in 3D Printing. Where the former is the high-performance material with the irresistible brand and the latter has been used to make thousands of aerospace parts for decades PEKK is little known or understood. The material is on the march however with new capacity being made available by Arkema en Gharda, while exciting medical applications being explored by Oxford Performance Materials and Kimya. Companies such as 3Dxtech also offer it as a filament for FDM. Meanwhile, Intamsys, Roboze, Stratasys, and Minifactory have added the material to their arsenal in FDM while EOS is doing so for sintering. Tantalizingly PEKK may offer performance similar to that of PEEK but some grades could be easier to process and be more versatile. One firm with big plans for PEKK is Hexcel. Hexcel is a $2 billion revenue company that makes carbon fiber materials, carbon fiber parts, other composites, and composite structures. Used in commercial and military aviation as well as space Hexcel is used to making complex structures with very demanding requirements. It acquired OPM’s aerospace business and went on to develop the material and resulting structures for 3D printing. We asked Dr. Whitney Kline, Engineering Manager at Hexcel, to tell us more.

A HexPekk cubesat frame.

Why is PEKK so exciting?

PEKK is engineering grade top-level polymer with a wide usable temperature range qualified from -300F to +300F, 600F melt high performance, great chemical compatibility, and it performs well in tests that are important for aircraft applications such as flammability tests and measurements of smoke and toxicity.

What products do you make?

Hexcel globally supplies products including carbon fiber, woven composite fabrics, prepregs and specialty aerospace products such as honeycomb core and our Acousti-Cap product family. Specifically with additive products, we offer our Selective Laser Sintered (SLS) PEKK-based materials—HexPEKK-N which is a pure resin material and HexPEKK-100 which uses Hexcel’s high-performance carbon fiber alongside the PEKK. We supply build-to-print, ready-to-fly parts for our customers, and all of them are manufactured in our ISO9001/AS9100 approved facility based near Hartford, CT.

Why should I work with you?

Hexcel is a global leader in advanced composites technology with an extensive portfolio and proven performance in delivering composite solutions that are stronger, lighter and tougher. Moreover, we have deep technical expertise and a history of supporting the largest aerospace and defense companies with high quality, high-performing products. Combining that expertise with the excellent properties of HexPEKK and the extensive material characterization we have, our team provides a proven, high-performance material at aerospace-quality levels.

What advantages does PEKK have over PEEK?

PEKK has a wider processing window than PEEK, a better compressive strength, and increased wettability.

What about PEI?

We are frequently asked to replace PEI in customer applications. PEI is a great material for prototyping and development, but when you look at a production environment in aerospace applications it’s often incompatible with the chemicals and fluids that are used, including jet fuel, cleaning and defumigation solvents and oils. PEKK is also stronger and has a higher usable temperature range than PEI.

Integrating functionality into parts can reduce part count as well as weight

For what applications is it most suited?

There’s a lot of ductwork required in aero/defense applications and those are often in tight envelopes with high structural performance. We also supply brackets and a variety of part types that traditionally would be made out of cast aluminum or magnesium. Any application where there is a need for weight savings, envelope savings, and high performance is a great candidate for HexPEKK

An aerospace AEC ducting example.

What kinds of customers do you have?

Hexcel supports customers in the commercial aerospace, space and defense, and industrial markets.

What kinds of people would you like to work with?

We are interested in many types of customers not only within our current markets, but we also are continually looking for new opportunities.

What do you see as emerging applications in your field?

We are excited to see the impact additive manufacturing will have on retrofits and upgrades, which are very important parts of the defense and commercial aerospace markets. It is also exciting to support space customers as the frequency of satellite and commercial space launches increases, driving the need for quick and innovative parts.

What capabilities do you have?

With our expertise in additive manufacturing, our Hartford site offers selective laser sintered parts as a contract manufacturer. We offer end-use components, as well as coordinate secondary processes, such as machining, NDT, painting, plating, and bonding.

Why is PEKK so interesting in aerospace?

It is a chemically robust, high strength, and wide temperature ranging polymer which lets it be used in some of the most challenging applications in the industry.

What advice do you have should I be a company looking to manufacture using 3D printing?

When using 3D printing in applications that support manned applications or high-performance systems, it’s important to remember the fundamentals of good manufacturing: process, quality, repeatability and traceability.

There is a lot that goes into bringing a new material and process to market in the aerospace industry. The process for qualifying a new material for aerospace often takes more than a year and there is a large investment that goes into the process and machines. It’s important to consider whether your company needs to be in-house experts on every kind of 3D printing technology or material, or whether it is more valuable to rely on the experience of established parts and materials suppliers who know how to get quality product out the door so your company can focus on making cool end products.

The post Interview with Hexcel on PEKK for 3D Printing appeared first on 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing.

Tethers Unlimited Recycler and 3D Printer Refabricator Operational on Board the ISS

Soace manufacturing start-up Tethers Unlimited has had a tumultuous time of late. The firm which aims to develop in space manufacturing technologies and has successfully seen its Refabricator put in use on board the ISS space station now. The recycler has been installed and is now being put to use by astronaut Anne McClaine. At the same time, Tethers has had to lay off a fifth of its staff due to cash flow problems stemming from the government shutdown in the US.

Astronaut Anne McClain installing the Tethers unlimited FDM 3D printer and recycling unit on board the ISS. She appears to be wearing a rugby shirt which would be fitting since she participated in the rugby world cup as well as being a helicopter pilot with 216 missions in Iraq, engineer, a mom and an aerospace engineer.

Tethers as a firm has always been a bit of a wild ride. The company started in 1994 looking to commercialize space tethers. Tethers in space are long (tensile) cables that can be tied to satellites and other space vehicles. Long dreamt about rarely used successfully the idea is that a long tether tied to a satellite could be used for propulsion or power generation in space. An Electrodynamic tether, for example, conducts and by passing through a planet’s magnetic field. This kind of tether can use the Lorentz force (electromagnetic force) of an electrified tether against the magnetic field of a planet to push the spacecraft into a new orbit. This would save on fuel and perhaps let craft slingshot around planets more efficiently. Momentum exchange tethers may actually let the spacecraft slingshot itself into space through spinning. A bolo of a tether tied to a craft may be used to spin and propel other craft onward in their journey.

Marko Baricevic of Tethers Unlimited testing the Refabricator

Skyhooks would do the same but at much higher speeds. A space elevator is a tether tied to a craft in geosynchronous orbit above 35,000 KM in altitude which could be used to life payloads potentially inexpensively (once you build the most expensive thing ever which is also the biggest thing ever and also would need advances in material science to even be remotely feasible). Meanwhile, several 20 kilometer long tethers could together form an electric solar wind sail propelled by an electron gun shooting at these tethers to keep them in high potential while the craft spins giving the extended tethers centrifugal force and letting them stay extended enough for them to harvest force from solar wind plasma. Tethers could also be used to generate power. Tethers are amazing dream mayonnaise for making any insane space idea palatable. Tether dreams are way beyond Elon Musk’s comparatively quotidian dreams of cities of Mars and reusable rockets without Elon’s magical capital sourcing ability and media presence.

A momentum exchange tether courtesy of Tethers Unlimited

So for Tethers, the firm, going since 1994 a 3D printer and recycler onboard ISS may seem like a bit of a climb down and limited technical challenge compared to what they want to be doing. Nonetheless, for us, it is a great leap. If we conceive of astronauts spending many years in space and journeying through the solar system we know now that many unforeseen things will go wrong. Accidents will happen and valves not opening properly and nonfunctional O rings have killed astronauts. Just a few years ago a design flaw nearly caused an Italian astronaut to drown in space. If we extend our proposed space journeys to years then we know things we will not have foreseen will go wrong beyond any imaginary tolerance for failure that we can engineer away through redundancy. The perfect spacecraft may exist on the platform but it will not exist underway.

In essence, we need a magic satchel with stuff that could repair all the things in ways that we could not imagine them breaking. A combination of a 3D printer and a recycler is that magic satchel. A recycling unit can take food packaging, waste and things no longer need it and turn it into 3D printer filament which then can be printed into solutions for problems. Nonworking solutions can be recycled into iterations of better ones and all of those failures and the winner can be recycled into future solutions waiting to happen. We commonly refer to those as 3D printer filament. A spool of filament is really a seem of ideas not made yet or a roll of problems unsolved. The reason I love 3D printing and am completely obsessed with it is this idea of a recycler and 3D printer combo remaking our world forever letting us consumer while we reuse so please excuse the much more than efficient stream of words. NASA itself says that 95% of spare parts in space will never be used but they don’t know which 95% and that on the 13 tonne ISS they predict 450 Kilograms of failures each year. This in itself makes for a very compelling case for 3D printing spares.

Graphical representation of ISS logistics.

Tethers has now made an Express rack compatible recycler that is being used on board the ISS as we speak. The Refabricators objective is to,

“The Refabricator demonstrates a unique process for repeatable, closed-loop recycling plastic materials for additive manufacturing in the microgravity environment of the ISS a minimum of seven times. Samples consisting of sections of filament and standardized material testing specimens are collected from each cycle in order to quantify any degradation of material that occurs during the recycling and printing process, and enhance the understanding of the recycling process in space.”

The Refabricator

This would be quite the polymer 3D printing challenge here on earth but at least NASA is being realistic on the number of recycling cycles and material degradation of plastics which a lot of people don’t seem to know. The Refabricator is meant to show,

“Integrated recycling/3D printing capability thus provides significant cost savings by reducing the launch mass and volume required for printer feedstock while decreasing Earth reliance.”

Tethers CEO Rob Hoyt said,

“It will provide future astronauts the ability to manufacture tools, replacement parts, utensils and medical implements when they need them, and greatly reduce the logistics costs for manned space missions by reusing waste materials and minimizing the amount of replacement parts that must be launched from Earth,”

The printer was made for $2.5 million so that’s a good amount to spend on engineering a printer that works well in space and can also recycle. Tethers has additional expertise via a $10 million FabLab project to make a fab lab in space but this is separate from Made In Space‘s own 3D printer initiative. Tethers Refabricator is meant to recycle ABS and they will do it through a process that they’ve called positrusion.

As well the Positrusion effort by Tethers NASA is also developing the CRISSP both as apart of NASA’s ISP (In Space Manufacturing) program. CRISSP is focused on recycling packaging but is also being carried out by Tethers while Cornerstone Research Group is doing a similar effort (but with creating reversible copolymers that can take antistatic bags and turn them into parts) and Resonetics has been tasked with making a sensor and monitoring package. Meanwhile Made in Space is working on its printer and 3D printed metal printing for NASA. Ultratech Machinery (with ultrasonic 3D printing), Techshot and Tethers again are also working on metal parts. With Tethers opting to use its Positrusion system for metals and then combine it with a robot arm and CNC. In metals Techshot wants to use low powered lasers with metal wire in its SIMPLE technology (which is far from it). Techshot’s SIMPLE will use an induction coil around an FDM nozzle to extrude a metal filament which is then sintered by a low power laser. Techshot itself is also working on recycling and separately biofabrication. whats better than astronauts? 3D printed astronauts. Weirdly GE isn’t apparently working for NASA on metal even though its EBM process has been evaluated thoroughly by NASA. Tethers is also working on medical printing in space while the Marshall Space Flight Center itself is trying to print electronics and circuits. NASA also has efforts underway to print structures in space outside of the vehicle which Made in Space, Loral, Orbital ATK and Tethers are working on. NASA also 3D printing structures on MARS so Elon has a place to live. This MARS effort has a contest element as well as a cooperation with the US Army Corps of Engineers here on earth with the ACES initiative which we’ve covered extensively. Additionally, NASA is printing engines and more parts for space systems themselves.

Positrusion is a new filament extrusion technology that Tethers came up with specifically for space based recycling. The system can accept “miscellaneous ABS parts, it will dry and degas the input material before melting and extruding it through a die, and the cross-sectional dimensions and feed-rate of the cooling extrudate will be tightly controlled in a continuous analog of closed-die molding.”

NASA diagram of the Positrusion recycling system

In closed die molding, material is injected into a closed cold mold at high velocity while degassing removes material and creates voids that must be filled while the build material is often quickly cooled. If the Refabricator can control the gas removal and make the filament free of voids while at the same time making sure that there is no bubbling on the surface then they could have a very small form factor recycling process. Tight control of that process could give them high-quality polymer parts as well. If they could tightly collapse the system they make have a really amazing nozzle based print head that can dose and deposit accurately at one point in the future.

Dr. Allison Porter Missions Manager at Tethers Unlimited with the Refabricator

As well as ABS the system is being tested for use with Ultem 9085 this SABIC material is a UL 94-V0 rated low flame, toxicity and smoke high-performance polymer which you can here on earth get on your Stratasys system and is used widely in aerospace. For space use the Ultem would be significantly safer than ABS and a better bet going forward I should hope. Would this mean that NASA would be inclined to increase its use as build material across the space craft or in other material applications? Ultem Tang packaging anyone?

Developments as the Refabricator would seem to be absolutely essential for the future of space exploration and travel. By recycling what is on board and what is no longer used astronauts could develop solutions for many of the problems that they can encounter and extend the life of the craft that they are traveling on. Here on earth, refabricator-like devices could extend all of the things that surround us. What do you think will homes see refabricators or will this just be a tool for spacefarers? In the meantime here on Earth Tethers has just shed some very experienced people and is hoping to avoid another shutdown, a rather humdrum problem for a company that wishes to conquer the stars.

Interview with Mike Valentine on How BuildTak Was Invented

One of the biggest issues with desktop FDM 3D printers is layer adhesion. First layers are often deposited incorrectly and then the build fails. The part could deform, warp, fall over, become dislodged from the platform or become a leaning Tower of Pisa version of its intended self. Often you look back at your 3D printer with hope only to see the print head flailing about twirling filament like it is a marionette. Layer adhesion has been a problem since the very beginning of FDM printing. There are lots of causes that can be ameliorated by doing regular 3D printer maintenance and calibration but for many issues still remain. In that case are lots of different possible solutions depending on which materials you use and what platform you have. You could mix up gooey substances or use a spray to solve your problem. One of the most widely adopted solutions is to use BuildTak, a sheet that comfortably lets your build adhere to the platform. We noticed that BuildTak had opened European offices and was expanding into more products. So we thought it high time for 3DPrint.com to interview Mike Valentine a Co-Inventor of BuildTak about the company and the product.

What is BuildTak?

BuildTak is our flagship 3D print surface designed for desktop FDM 3D printers to provide stability in both 3D print adhesion and removal. It consists of a thin textured top surface and a high performing yet non-permanent adhesive on the lower surface. BuildTak is composed of high quality, heat-resistant raw materials that are designed to withstand the high temperatures of a typical FDM 3D printer. Following the global success of our BuildTak sheets and other ensuing products, the BuildTak brand has evolved into more of an ecosystem that prides itself on easing the overall process of 3D print adhesion and removal.

How does it work?

BuildTak adheres directly to the existing print bed of 3D printers and provides a stable printing surface for 3D prints by minimizing the chance of warping or shifting when printing, but still allowing for builds to be cleanly removed. There are 2 intentional features of our original BuildTak sheets that specifically contribute to the product’s success. First is the top surface texture that, when printing at the optimal nozzle height, allows for just the right amount of adhesion for the 3D prints, but still allowing for easy removal. The second is the high-quality adhesive we use, which performs extremely well on heated print beds. The best part is that when it’s time to remove and replace the BuildTak sheet, it will still come cleanly off the print bed leaving no residue behind, even after months of use.

How did you come to co-invent it?

While I wish I could say BuildTak was something we set out to achieve after years and years of R & D, it was not the case. Instead, like many inventions, our original BuildTak sheets were the indirect result of another experiment. I am the Vice President at Ideal Jacobs Corp in Maplewood, NJ, USA, where BuildTak sheets were developed and are still produced today. Our core business is commercial (2D) printing and manufacturing, serving many tech industries including telecom and now, of course, 3D printing. Back in April 2013, the company invested in a newly affordable desktop 3D printer for the office to use for prototyping. The company owner, Andrew Jacobs, runs the operation with a true entrepreneurial spirit and as a result is frequently looking to invent products that solve problems big and small. One of the many hats I wear for the company is to bring in new technology, and so I was tasked with the responsibility of learning how to use the 3D printer. The experience, as with many others who were new to 3D printing in 2013, was immediately frustrating.

The printer came with 5 sheets of polyimide tape, some ABS and several sample files to print. With a bit of tinkering (and some ABS slurries) I was able to get many of the easier sample parts to print, though they were still very difficult to remove from the print bed. And there was that infamous chain-link sample part that failed every time. One day, while tinkering, my boss brought me a collection of raw sheet material to experiment with to see what would happen if I 3D printed on top it. One of the goals he had in mind was to see if we could print Braille. Many of Ideal Jacobs’ products feature embossed Braille and the tooling can be quite expensive, making small runs and prototyping extremely inefficient from a cost standpoint. While experimenting with these new materials, I came to the realization that it was much easier to print on them than the polyimide. With a little more testing and fine-tuning I discovered that not only did the ABS prints adhere well to the material, they also removed from the new surface with very little fuss. The prints just peeled right off. It became clear that we were on to something, so I went back to that chainlink sample part – my nemesis – and gave it a shot on the new surface material. Sure enough, it printed successfully on the first try. Needless to say, I never went back to polyimide again and we now had a reliable office 3D printer.

With a little research, it did not take long to realize that our initial struggles with our 3D printer were not only common, but accepted as the norm. We saw an opportunity to present a new solution to the industry that could really help make the 3D printing experience a little more user friendly, and began testing/fine-tuning our material components for the best combination of texture and adhesive. By July 2013 we had the formula that is now our original BuildTak sheets. We manufactured some 11” x 11” samples and started circulating them at a 3D printing trade show in Chicago. Just about everyone we gave a sample to (including several major 3D printer manufacturers), came back to us within only a few weeks saying it was better than anything they were using and that they wanted more. Fast forward to 5 years later and I’m proud to say that our original BuildTak sheets are now an industry standard and sold all over the world.

What’s it been like to be in this business?

BuildTak has been going strong for 5+ years and I still find it extremely exciting and humbling. We feel very fortunate to have been able to come up with a much-needed solution at a time when the fast-growing 3D printing industry really needed it in order to take the market to the next level. Of course, working for a company like Ideal Jacobs Corp has everything to do with why and how we are able to achieve success in our BuildTak brand. The culture and vision that the owner has instituted in our company has taken us well into the 21st century. We love tinkering with new technologies and excel at solving problems on a day-to-day basis. With our resourceful team of 30+ employees at our NJ facility, we achieve a lot with a little. Even after 5 years of exponential growth, we are proud to say that BuildTak sheets are still produced 100% in the US.

Ideal Jacobs today has a global presence with various manufacturing locations in Asia and small sales offices in Belgium, Mexico, Canada and Thailand. In fact, Andrew’s daughter, Kayla Jacobs, now represents the 4th generation and for the last several years has been heavily involved in helping to expand the BuildTak brand to make it what it is today.

How long can I print with one BuildTak sheet?

Ah the million dollar question, to which I reply how long can you wear a pair of shoes? There are so many variables and exposure situations that could affect the wear and tear of the sheet, making this question nearly impossible to answer effectively. As with all 3D printing, the key to using our original BuildTak sheets is learning the optimal settings (nozzle height, printing temperatures, etc), which can be different from one material to the next and from printer to printer. I tell new BuildTak users all the time that the best thing they can do is to pretend they are using a 3D printer for the first time. Our happiest customers are the ones that use BuildTak on day one and learn how to use it the right way and just know that this is what works. Occasionally we will hear from a frustrated customer who undoubtedly went from printing directly on glass or polyimide to using BuildTak thinking all settings should stay the same and either printed the first layer too close and/or with too much smoosh resulting in an unpleasant first experience with BuildTak. While I cannot say for sure how long a BuildTak sheet will last for everyone, I can say that we do have power users out there who have achieved 1500+ hrs in printing on a single sheet.

For what materials is it suited?

PLA is by far the easiest material to print on our original BuildTak sheets, and people who print primarily with PLA tend to also get the most use of their BuildTak sheet. With that said, BuildTak often excels with materials that are known for warping. ABS and PC prints adhere extremely well to BuildTak – admittedly sometimes too well and the sheet wears out faster as a result. However, that’s a necessary trade-off with materials that would inevitably fail on any other bed surface. Other materials that work on BuildTak include: PVA, HIPS, PET+, Flexible (TPE) filaments.

You also have PEI sheets now?

Why yes we do! In the desktop 3D printing market today I would say most people are printing on either PEI or BuildTak (or one of our flattering imitators). You really don’t see blue tape or Kapton very much these days. PEI certainly has its place in this market, and many customers have been using PEI since they began printing. The problem we saw was that most PEI was being offered to consumers with a separate permanent adhesive sheet that users had to apply themselves. It works but if you’ve ever tried to remove a PEI sheet with with this adhesive then you know all about the residue it leaves behind and what a chore it can be to get that print bed clean again. We thought we could help by combining our tried-and-true BuildTak adhesive with a consistently high-quality PEI surface. Our users like to know that they are getting a top-quality product every time – not some mystery material they found though an internet search.

Did you make a spatula?

From the first day we started selling the original BuildTak sheets the same question kept popping up: what is the best tool for removing prints? In 2014 just about everyone was using a tool that was designed for some other purpose (putty knife, pallets knife, etc). Oftentimes the tools featured sharp corners which, if used improperly, could easily gouge the BuildTak sheet and wear it out faster. They were also dangerous for the users, and at that time you did not have to search very far to find a 3D printer owner who hadn’t at least once slipped with their removal tool and cut themselves. I started thinking about the problems with existing tools and came to the conclusion that the primary culprits were handle orientation and the angle at which the handle approached the finished print. I thought about a typical spatula and saw that the benefit of sliding a blade horizontally across the BuildTak sheet was much more effective at getting under the print in a way that did not dig into the BuildTak sheet. A typical spatula handle is not designed to push horizontally with adequate leverage – your hand would tend to slip off. So after many design concepts, which I prototyped with our in-house 3D printers, I finally concluded that an ergonomic vertical handle was the way to go. This design allowed the user to apply leverage under and across the bottom of a print with very little chance of one’s hand slipping off. The result is our BuildTak Spatula.

How does the Flex plate System work?

The BuildTak FlexPlate System enhances the existing print bed of a 3D printer. It features a magnetic mounting base and a specially-coated spring steel FlexPlate to be used with either BuildTak original, PEI, or your preferred printing surface. The magnetic base has an adhesive backing that permanently mounts to the existing print bed (usually glass or aluminum). Once the magnetic base is installed you just need to mount a sheet of your favorite print surface to the FlexPlate, adjust your nozzle height and start printing. Once your print is done you can remove the FlexPlate from its magnetic base and flex the plate. Assuming that the print is rigid, the flexed plate will force the print to separate from the print surface making the removal process much less of a hassle.

The clever use of a flexible steel plate with BuildTak was not originally our idea. One of the great things about the desktop 3D printing market is that it is fueled by its savvy maker community. Some of our early users brought this innovation to our attention – we had heard as far back as 2013 that people were adhering their BuildTak sheets to old road signs and using those as a print bed. After the successful release of the BuildTak Spatula I started to really focus on developing new innovations, and the steel plate concept was at the top of the list. The big challenge was finding a way to make the product universally compatible with and easy to install to the wide range of print beds out there. We could simply sell it with a handful of binder clips and hope for the best, but that felt like an unprofessional, half-developed product. We started testing magnetic options – “refrigerator magnet” sheets and some off-the-shelf rare earth magnets – but neither was sufficient in strength nor able to handle heated bed temps up to 110C without losing magnetism. So we had some high temperature magnets custom-made for our application and determined the optimal layout for each size of magnetic mounting base.

Will you solve other 3D printing problems?

We certainly hope so. Our goal is to continue to make the 3D experience more user-friendly and in turn more accessible to a broader community of users. It is my belief that someday 3D printers will become as common as inkjet printers. But in order for that to happen it really does need to become a ready-to-print solution, right out of the box. In the meantime, we will continue to come up with new ideas that help make existing 3D printers easy to use.

Our head of Business Development, Kayla Jacobs, has been working hard to ensure we never stay idle. As a result we have a few new tools and accessories in the final design stages and coming out in the next year. And as the market continues to expand the palette of printable materials we will look to stay at the forefront by offering new surface solutions.

What are your top 3D printing tips for beginners?

Never underestimate the need for a level print bed and find your printer’s optimal nozzle (Z) height for each material and bed surface you use. You will be surprised what a difference a fraction of a millimeter can make. Master the art of making precise incremental adjustments – your patience will pay dividends.

In many ways, successful 3D printing involves hitting a moving target. In other words, there are many fluctuating variables (material, room temperature, humidity, air flow, nozzle height, etc). Very few desktop 3D printers on the market today can 100% control all of these variables, so the best you can do is adopt solutions that help to minimize the fluctuations as best as possible and understand that the tweaking is never done.

Get your feet wet printing some vases and fidget spinners, but make it a point to learn 3D modeling. Only when you can design and model your own parts have you truly tapped into the power of 3D printing and what it can mean for the inventiveness and creativity in all of us. There are many free software programs available and plenty of online tutorials to go along with them. Before long you will be fixing things around the house or office with your newfound ability to manufacture custom solutions. Who knows, maybe your idea will become the next big thing.

Minifactory Releases the Minifactory Ultra High Temperature Printer for PEEK and PEI at the TCT Show

Fins have this concept called Sisu. Sisu is a kind of hail mary pass, fatalistic almost, belief in one’s own toughness, resilience and survivability in the face of adversity. It’s kind of a gritty gumption with a side of never give up. Its this inner strength that shines through in what Minifactory does. Minifactory is a small but dedicated team of 3D printer builders in Finland. They’ve got Susi in spades. Often confused with MyMinifactory this one is not a download site but a builder of some of the world’s best high-temperature printers. The team is now releasing the Minifactory Ultra.

A Minifactory Ultras part in PEI (Ultem)

The Ultra is a new high-temperature 3D printer optimized for PEEK, PEI, PEKK and other ultra-high-performance materials.

The printer has a 330 x 180 x 180mm build volume.
Nozzle temperature can go up to 480°C
Chamber temperature of up to 250°C
Servo motors instead of steppers.
An on-board annealing system so you can post process and strengthen your parts on the machine.
Fully automated calibration
Two independent extruders
Seven-inch touchscreen
A vacuum table print bed so that print sheets can easily be added to it or removed.
Carbon filters.

A PEI part as it comes off the printer right, and once its annealed left.

The 100 x 80 x 100cm printer is a proper industrial device that displays good build quality. The parts that come off of it are very high quality. It is extremely difficult to 3D print PEEK. The material is difficult to process and one can get lots of issues with trying to obtain crystallization and build a part. Many 3D printers essentially ‘wick’ heat with a lot of heat flowing out of the chamber during builds. Operators and OEMs solve this by raising the nozzle temperature higher and higher. This is akin to you putting your oven on high in order to try to heat your house. Therefore many PEEK parts fail due to the temperature being too high or there being insufficient thermal control over the chamber. By focusing on good thermal management and thermal control Minifactory seems to have solved many of the issues affecting PEEK prints.

A Minifactory 9085 Ultem part

Another issue is that incomplete or improper crystallization can lead to poor part performance. This they seem to be actively trying to solve. By optimizing the machine so that it can anneal on the machine itself users can bake their parts after printing to improve the results. This removes a handling step and would be easier for operators but at the same time is not super optimal in machine utilization. The fact that they’re focussing on this though means that they understand the needs of their customers. Annealing itself is a controlled heating of the part so that stress is relieved this then can combat warping, dimensional issues and improve physical properties of parts.

The Minifactory Ultra

Sales and marketing director Olli Pihlajamäki told us

“miniFactory is an industrial 3D printer manufacturer driven by passion for ultra-polymers and the best results for industry class 3D printed parts. miniFactory Ultra is our third endeavor into 3D printing. A culmination of our years of experience, industry know-how and our perfected madness for 3D printing.”

“Biggest advantage in the miniFactory Ultra is the real capability to 3D print ultra-polymers with high strength without warping. It’s possible with the heated chamber up to 250 celsius. ULTEM (PEI), PPSU and other amorphous polymers require printing chamber temperatures above the polymers glass transition temperature (Tg). Tg is one of the most important thermophysical properties of amorphous polymers. In that temperature, polymer chains are oriented randomly and have freedom to move and polymer is in structural relaxation and cools down smoothly and evenly. From there comes the strength and dimensional accuracy to our printed ultra-polymer parts.”

“PEEK, PEKK and other semi-crystalline polymers require a really sensitive printing process for optimal crystallization. For that the Ultra has unique integrated and automated annealing system which means that after a print job, the machine calculates and perform the optimal annealing process for semi-crystalline polymer parts. High quality servo motors in all axes takes care of the printing accuracy.”

Only a few years ago high-temperature desktop 3D printers didn’t exist. Now there is an expanding and growing market of credible working machines that are being used to test and make parts in some of the most high-performance materials in the polymer world. The potential market for these things is huge with many companies turning to these materials to replace metal, lightweight things and make implants. I personally believe that these kinds of systems are the future. A system that is accurate and has good thermal control and management will print any material well. Carbon filter, servos, linear guides and annealing are all features that I want on my home machine too. $45,000 is far away from the RepRap kits we started with but it’s not a lot of money if it prints high-performance parts reliably for business users. The Minifactory Ultra is available now at minifactory.fi and if you’re in Birmingham for TCT, then they’re at J18.