1 (edited by Ggalisky 2014-12-30 09:38:41)

Topic: [ABS Colorant] - Brass (3D Supply Source)

Extruder type: Standard Filastruder with 1.75mm melt filter, full barrel insulation, hopper shaker, and vertical setup with winder.


Picture of my set up:
http://i.imgur.com/nlHCumX.jpg
I added straws were the PTFE tubing was on the laser sensor to guide the filament better.
You can find more pictures on my imgur here: http://ggalisky.imgur.com/all/

Printer type: SD2, E3D v6, Bulldog XL, Glass bed, and Lawsy's Carriages.

Mixing ratios
I usually use 1 colorant pellet to every 96 ABS pellets. Since I do not want to count each and every pellet (no one else wants to either), I ended up converting the 1:96 ratio into weight, and I ended up with 56 grams of ABS for every 1 gram of colorant. A benefit of using the weight system, is you do not have to worry about differing colorant pellet size. How did I get that number? Time for some math! 80 ABS pellets = 1g and 56 colorant pellets = 1.2g. Lets say you have 56g of ABS and you want to figure out how much teal colorant to add in order to get a 1:96 ratio.
1. Multiply 56g by 80 (this gives you the amount of total pellets) you get 4480
2. Set up a proportion like this:x/4480 = 1/96. Solve the proportion and you get 46. (you can skip the proportion and divide by 96 too)
3. Multiply 46 by 1.2 and divide everything by 56. You get 1 at the end of all that. The last number, 1 in our case, is the number of grams you need to add.

Tips and tricks for colorants:

  • Make sure to mix your colorant evenly with the rest of you plastic

  • To get awesome color consistency you need to use really fine colorant or chop up and re-extrude.

  • Some colorants dramatically slow extrusion, and mixing colorants usually leads to extremely slow extrusion

  • Big colorant pellets = horrible color consistency and the other way around too.

  • The Filastruder is perfectly capable of producing consistent colored filament. If you are getting color banding try the following: Decrease pellet size, add more colorant, or increase extrusion temp. Usually the problem is with pellets being too large and not mixing evenly.

Extrusion
Extrusion temperature: 194°C
Extrusion rate: 14 inches per minute.
Average diameter of filament: 1.73mm
Tolerances: + or - 0.03mm

Comments
I got this from http://3dsupplysource.com/. The color consistency was pretty good as you can see from the pictures below. If you look closely at the printed object you can see a metallic sparkle, which is similar to copper and gold colorants.
Printing
Setting my glass bed to 104°C, the hot end to 240°C, setting the extrusion multiplier to 150% for the fist layer, and using a coat of PVA glue worked very well against warping. This is a very easy material to print. The vase took about 2 hours on spiral vase mode, and there seems to be a fixed speed that you cannot change when using the spiral vase setting.

Brittleness
1-10 scale, 1 is TPU and 10 is acrylic. 6
Layer bonding
1-10 scale, 1 is Nylon and 10 is acrylic. 4


Comparison to commercial ABS filament: N/A ( I have never bought a roll of ABS filament thanks to the Filastruder)

Pictures:
http://i.imgur.com/xOeukTM.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/hKqShsV.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/hGPUykp.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/q5meHx9.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/bwA02La.jpg
Questions? Comment? Feel free to send me a PM, or post a reply down below!

Ulitmaker 2, a few repraps, Custom Big FFF 3D printer with heated chamber.

My Blog http://ggalisky.weebly.com/
My Youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXShYo … aDUpebDAOw