SoliForum - 3D Printing Community — Grinding Colorant?

Re: Grinding Colorant?

null@example.com (elmoret) — Sat, 07 Feb 2015 21:58:54 +0000

RISI wrote:

I'm thinking it's easier to just buy pre-coloured CMYK Pellets so there's no need for master batch.

They're much more expensive. It's a lot cheaper to make your own with a Filastruder and pelletizer.

Re: Grinding Colorant?

null@example.com (tonycstech) — Sat, 07 Feb 2015 20:13:58 +0000

Where. I want to try.
Its hard to perfectly mix colorant with pellets. Sometimes you get slightly more in one place and less in another resulting in uneven color.
I moved auger closer to the nozzle, about half inch away allowing more mixing to take place and it helped dramatically but still not 100% even.

Re: Grinding Colorant?

null@example.com (CFTechno) — Sat, 07 Feb 2015 11:32:46 +0000

Why would you like to grind the colorant?

I did see masterbatches sold as powder and also as liquid

Re: Grinding Colorant?

null@example.com (RISI) — Sat, 07 Feb 2015 10:45:45 +0000

I'm thinking it's easier to just buy pre-coloured CMYK Pellets so there's no need for masterbatch.

The low ratios of masterbatch make filastruding tricky because only a bit goes in to the melt chamber... so a little bit extra masterbatch can drastically change the colour.

But If the pellets itself are precoloured the safety tolerance is so much higher.

our next order may be for CMYK pre-coloured pellets. so the mixture is more stable.

Re: Grinding Colorant?

null@example.com (IanJohnson) — Wed, 04 Feb 2015 04:09:05 +0000

Was it a burr grinder? The blade kind won't work much better than a blender. I had some luck with a burr grinder, but I had to feed in something like a teaspoon of pellets at a time. The ground pellets were fine enough that static made it a chore to get it all out of the grinders hopper.

Re: Grinding Colorant?

null@example.com (elmoret) — Wed, 04 Feb 2015 04:05:54 +0000

You were probably using a blade grinder, a burr grinder would be more appropriate.

Re: Grinding Colorant?

null@example.com (tonycstech) — Wed, 04 Feb 2015 04:00:39 +0000

Any other ways ?
My coffee grinder did not do anything to colorant at all. It just turned red from fine powder but 99.9% remained solid.
Maybe specific brand of coffee grinder ?

Re: Grinding Colorant?

null@example.com (cor5151) — Sun, 07 Dec 2014 09:33:48 +0000

I was planning on trying the coffee grinder route, then sprinkle it on the pellets during the drying process to get it to stick, i dry my pla in a toaster oven at around 150-175f.
have some smaller masterbatches that static stick to the hopper that this worked with.

so far i've only tried extruding a small patch of highly concentrated colorant/pellets and chopping that up to mix at a much closer ratio. worked great for an even color but don't have a good way to pelletize filament atm.

Re: Grinding Colorant?

null@example.com (IanJohnson) — Sat, 06 Dec 2014 20:32:52 +0000

I've tried with a coffee burr grinder, and I had to do very small amounts at a time. It seemed like half of it ended up stuck to the hopper of the grinder due to static. I didn't see an improvement in consistency of color when printing, some I'm thinking that pelletizing and re-extrusion may be a better way to go.

Grinding Colorant?

null@example.com (Ggalisky) — Sat, 06 Dec 2014 16:06:17 +0000

How do you guys grind up your colorant? I tried a ceramic burr grinder from amazon. Only brittle colorants like GITD blue were grinded up, while colorants like white were not brittle enough and jammed up the system. What are your thoughts?