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SoliForum - 3D Printing Community → DIY Filament Materials → Colorants (masterbatch)
That's why I like the idea of making masterbatch from pigment rather than using it directly. The powder can take a lot of plastic and time to clear. The last time I used it I ended up doing a teardown to clean it all out. With masterbatch it would be easier to control the proportion of pigment without trying to measure powder in increments of .1g.
I've run through 1# or so, and:
- Good: The power mixed very evenly with the pellets, which meant a gradual transition, whereas the colorant pellets were "lumpy". That is, with "white" pellets and red colorant, the filament would be white, then a blast of red, then back to white, then red, gradually evening out. With the powder, the blue was much more evenly distributed the whole time.
- Bad: The powder sticks to everything it touches. The bottle that I mixed the powder and raw pellets in will be blue forever. The metal is fine. And the plastic that I can wipe off (FilaBottle adapter) is fine - I ran a rag through it, like cleaning a woodwind. There's a little blue at the bottom of the hopper, but I don't think it's affecting anything.
So I'm not sure I'd want to continue using powdered colorant, unless I'm extruding something (e.g. Nylon) that I can't get pellets for. There are "universal" pellets as well, which I've just started trying, with mixed results - it's "lumpy" like the ABS colorant pellets, but the change is even more dramatic, because the "lump" is colorant without the base plastic so it's dark and feels harder.
I just made my first batch of colored ABS filament using MG94 and masterbatch red at a 10/1 ratio. One thing I noticed was how glossy this filament prints out in comparison to many of the other manufactured ABS filaments I've purchased.
If I wanted a more matte finish is there an additive for that?
ABS Colorant Update:
We have added Copper and Brass ABS Colorant. I have to say I am really impressed with these colors and they look great. We saw no issues with extruding or printing. You can find these in our store individually or in any of our ABS bundles.
Copper
Brass
Rob
What kind of mixing ratios should one expect to be using when using dry pigment?
What kind of mixing ratios should one expect to be using when using dry pigment?
Depends on the pigment. Start at 500:1 and move up, would be my advice.
Well I'm starting to get some really decent results using powdered pigment. I bought some from the art supply store.
It's hard to tell from this picture but there was some color shift in the parts on the left because there was still some master batch in the extruder but the part on the right is all from powered pigment and really consistent. But prints had really good adhesion and are solid prints. I'm really happy about the results.
Awesome! Can you post details on the colorant you used?
What kind of ratio did you use? I've found that if you use too much the filament can be brittle and rough. Also I would be interested in your experience with purging and switching to a different color.
I'm using Utrecht Cadium Red.. 150ml to .16ml of pigment so roughly 950 to 1? Don't quote me on that.. I haven't been taking notes as I go along. :-) I could probably use even less pigment as it seems to get a pretty deep color with a very small amount. I've been using a regular coffee grinder to mix the pigment and it coats the pellets evenly.
I haven't tried switching colors yet.. I'm going to try running some of the easyclean pellets through first. Long term I'll probably do large batches before switching.
The main issue I'm having is that everything will be working fine and then the extrusion speed with get really slow. In some cases it seems like the pellets aren't feeding and but other times it's on par with the specs.
I'm using the screen in the nozzle so I suppose it's possible the pigment is clogging it.. seems unlikely.
Well I measured the extrusion red for the red and it was alot less than I realized only 5 inches per minute. I switched to Cadmium Yellow with half as much pigment and it's now extruding at 9-10 inches a minute. My theory is that the powdered pigment may be lessening the amount of friction inside the barrel? The transition from red to yellow did not take long. I'll know better once I do a print from this stock as to whether or not the red is showing up.
It may be more likely that adding pigment reduces the melt flow index. I think I've seen the same effect with masterbatch, but I'm not sure. I've had it up to about 18" minute with natural but I'm not sure I've run more than 10"/min with colored filament.
It may be more likely that adding pigment reduces the melt flow index. I think I've seen the same effect with masterbatch, but I'm not sure. I've had it up to about 18" minute with natural but I'm not sure I've run more than 10"/min with colored filament.
I guess part of what made me think it was a lack of friction was that it was also getting wavy as if they barrel was empty.
Anyway the yellow is rocking it right now. I should beable to do a test print with some tomorrow.
Well the yellow from powered pigment was pretty weak after I diluted the ratio to improve the extrusion rate.
My next experiment is to mix the pigment with some pellets and acetone and spread it on glass so I can scrap it off into smaller bits.
The other thing I realized is that some of these pigments are potentially bad to breath so I need to find ones aren't going to be toxic.
Just ordered some different dry pigments
Funny how Blendtec comes up whenever someone mentions coffee grinders. Is there a key word trigger for spamming Blendtec or do you actually use and like the device?
It is a nice video but I have seen it at least five times.
But never have spoken with a actual user so I'd like to hear a personalized testimonial, preferable in a new thread.
Ralph
Thanks for proposing the challenge. Here is what our engineering team said:
“We have looked into this a little bit, and have found our blender will grind plastic into pieces small enough to be extruded, however there are a few issues. The first is because the motor is so powerful, the blender has a tendency to melt some of the plastic as it is grinding it, this results in larger than desirable globs of plastic, and the second is using the blender like this adversely effects the life of the blender jar. It would work a few times, but I would not recommend it as a solution to this problem.”
So, while I think this would be a fun option, I don’t think the Blendtec would be a long term solution.
Thanks Obfuscated, for the engineer's reference.
That is interesting.
Ralph
I pressed the issue a bit more and asked if adding water to the mix would solve the heating problem and wear on the blender jar but they insisted that it'd never be a long term solution and definitely voided the warranty.
Obfuscated, thats sounds like a good idea. Strange about the "wear on the blender jar".
I wonder where that comes from.
Ralph
As long as the motors and blade were ok, I wouldn't worry too much about the jar. You might need ear protection however, I bet it's really loud.
Well I'm hoping to get one of these with the help of techbuilder2175
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1a1QB4h1oA
The idea of dealing with a motor and blade moving at high speeds sounds like a bad idea. Plus using an expensive blender isn't actually saving any money if it can possibly break or injure me.
According to somebody else on another forum you could use any old junk blender but I've had new blenders die inexplicably when used for what they were intended so that seems sort of wasteful.
Plus from what I can tell most industrial grade machines for recycling plastic use the low speed high torque meshing gears to shred the plastic. The only systems that were different seemed to only deal with thin plastic like bottles.
Has any one tried using crayons added to abs mix?
Ill ask before I experiment with mine (Yes Tim the beta is running finally lol)
(Yes Tim the beta is running finally lol)
Only took a year, could be worse!
Thanks everybody for contributing your results. I've just started, but my results with masterbatch seem consistent with everyone else's (no pics yet):
Green (48:1) 50% blue, 50% green, natural ABS
This was may first try. The color varied a lot, making the filament interesting but unusable for most purposes. Much of the time it had a rich greenish blue color, however, which was what I wanted.
Yellow (16:1)
Nice basic yellow color. I probably could go to 32:1, but after my first experience I wanted to make sure I could make some consistent color filament
Dark Brown (16:1) 67% red, 33% black
Fail. It just came consistent but black. Maybe I'll try 33% yellow, 33% red, and 33% black, but I hesitate dropping any one component too much.
I also tried a few other random colors while flushing the extruder out.
My impression is that if any single component falls below about 48:1 in concentration, that there will be too few pellets of that color and the final tint will be irregular. So for one color, I could mix in 32:1, but for two equal colors each would need to be 32:1 giving about a final 16:1 ratio of natural to masterbatch. If this is true, this limits the number and types of colors (dark) one can create with the basic masterbatch pellets far below what I was expecting. I am considering a few possible workarounds:
1) Use powered colorants (which I'd like to avoid for now for messiness, flushability reasons)
2) Get masterbatch with less imbedded pigment or a smaller pellet size (say, 1/4 the current concentration)
3) Chop up extruded filament to make one's own diluted masterbatch (I think Ian proposed this).
For #2, is any of this available?
For #3, I was thinking of rigging up a router with a custom shield/guide/enclosure to chop up filament that I feed in through a small hole. Should be much more durable than a blender. Will report back results when/if I have any.
My impression is that if any single component falls below about 48:1 in concentration, that there will be too few pellets of that color and the final tint will be irregular. So for one color, I could mix in 32:1, but for two equal colors each would need to be 32:1 giving about a final 16:1 ratio of natural to masterbatch. If this is true, this limits the number and types of colors (dark) one can create with the basic masterbatch pellets far below what I was expecting. I am considering a few possible workarounds:
I had plenty of success using a mix of colorants at 32:1. Colors were consistent. If you increase the amount of colorant beyond this I don't think you will ever get the colors you are looking for.
If you want dark colors you need to work with a darker colorant...
SoliForum - 3D Printing Community → DIY Filament Materials → Colorants (masterbatch)
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