1 (edited by Ggalisky 2014-12-30 08:30:27)

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

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

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

Mixing ratios
I usually use 1 colorant pellets to every 96 ABS pellet. 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:  20 inches per minute.
Average diameter of filament: 1.69mm
Tolerances: + or - 0.03mm

Comments
I got this from http://3dsupplysource.com/. Similar to silver, gold, and brass colorants, copper produces a slightly metallic look if in the right light. Do not mix copper and sliver colorant, or else you will get an extrusion rate less than one inch per minute. It looks much more brown than copper at the 1:96 ratio. Color consistency was awesome with copper.
Printing
Setting my glass bed to 104°C, the hot end to 240°C, the extrusion multiplier to 150% for the first layer, and using a coat of PVA glue worked very well against warping. This is a very easy material to print. I used the spiral vase setting in slic3r, so the vase printed pretty slow. I had no problems with delamination, and layer bonding seemed normal

Brittleness
1-10 scale, 1 is TPU and 10 is acrylic. 5
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/3ajTGjo.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/DZ5ZQ3D.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/Vkocft6.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/jjvCCYT.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/aOE8QPW.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