Abrasive additives

If you end up wearing the nozzle, I'll offer an exchange as I'd be interested in milling it open and taking a look at it.

What diameter nozzle did you use? I have 0.8mm and 1mm hardened steel volcano nozzles I was hoping might be up for the task.

Was it nylon 6 or 6/6?

If you look on here in DIY materials, for some reason people have a LOT of trouble extruding 6/6 regardless of it being filled or not.

Oh, I would definitely use one of the unfiltered nozzles. And the data sheet you listed is just nylon 6, not 6/6. I see the listing you won though and it looks like you got a good deal as far as ebay pellets, Nylon 6 pellets are usually more expensive than 6/6.

But that's why I use a broker, ebay is way to sketchy for this kind of thing.

I don't have a Filastruder yet, but am considering it.  If I started out without a winder I'd be pretty much limited to ABS from my understanding, but I was wondering.  Everybody always adds additives to PLA, but it should be possible to add additives to ABS and using an unfiltered nozzle on the Filastruder right?  If I use a .8mm-1.2mm nozzle on an E3D Volcano, and the unfiltered nozzle on the Filastruder - could I actually reuse my own sawdust for wood filament (the real fine dust that the HEPA vacuum filter catches that is)?

I've been kind of surprised most people stick to 'normal' plastics when I look in the DIY Material section - is it that people only need those materials or is it that the Filastruder doesn't really like additives?  Am I too 'grandiose' in my vision of putting sawdust in there, adding color changing pigment, or even 325 mesh metal powder and then extruding it through a .8mm nozzle?  Sure a .4mm nozzle would clog on those things, but a .8mm shouldn't right?

I saw elmoret post that in another thread, but I didn't realize that was done with a Filastruder.  I guess the 'university research paper' approach to it conjured up images of some multithousand dollar industrial extrusion machine.  If they can do that with a Filastruder though then that proves both that the machine can do it and also that mixing additives with ABS isn't a problem.

Yeah, I can understand that.  Possibly worried about breaking something?  I can see the appeal of making just standard plastic - I've been thinking of putting a hotend on my MPCNC and printing 12x18 inch (or larger) prints. At $25 for 1Kg of PLA it's too expensive to play with, but at $8 per Kg it might be affordable to try. After sanding and painting it would be interesting to compare to CNC'd projects.   Wish PETG pellets were available somewhere.  Even on Ebay there's only one seller with PETG pellets. I already have a vacuum dessicator setup to dry trimmer line (nylon, Dessert Extrusion brand only since they are known not to add fillers) so drying the PETG pellets shouldn't be a problem.  I've been doing a LOT of reading, and from what I understand despite the statements saying PETG doesn't absorb water - PETG pellets require a ton of drying to prevent air bubbles/voiding in the filament.

I need to get a Filastruder, and put it together first.  I do research on things before I buy them (eg read the forums, ask questions to make sure there isn't something obvious I'm missing in relation to what I want it to do, check up what the ongoing costs are), and I had noticed as part of all that looking around that it seemed like none of the listed suppliers had PETG on their websites. 

Down the road I know I'll want some though.  How much do you normally stock and if you sold it in the same size as your ABS (17lbs) what do you think it'd cost roughly?

I make my own fine wood dust with this http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:724999, so that would actually be the easiest/cheapest additive for me to try. Plus, I could try all kinds that way - poplar, oak, pine, and under no circumstances incense cedar (I already hate the smell of that, before heating it up to plastic extrusion temperatures).

You could probably even get away with using the filter if you get a sufficiently fine metal powder - the filter is 250 microns, that equates to a #60 mesh (mesh size is inverse, so if something is stated to be 325 mesh that's actually much smaller than 60 mesh, but if it's rated at 30 mesh then that's much bigger than 60 mesh), so if you get something that is 99.6% -325 mesh then almost all of it would go right through the filter, and then you could just have the filter do it's job and block the larger pieces.

I'm personally interested in PETG because I've printed parts in PLA/ABS/PETG/Polycarbonate (and attempted in POM - ugh, polycarbonate is much easier to avoid warping than POM, hated POM) in PLA the part - snapped without signs of stress, ABS - snapped after being under load for a bit, polycarbonate - held together with no sign of failure, but was not rigid - it flexed too much, PETG - held together, and didn't flex.  So for me - it's the strongest under the use cases I have had.  PETG also has amazing adhesion - I have a chuck of glass missing on my first printer because it stuck to that glass that much - and the glass was a permanent part of the bottom of that printed item - it never would come off.  Sure, that can be a disadvantage to say the least - but as long as you do something like use blue painters tape (the tape loses adhesion to the glass before the PETG eats your glass bed) that disadvantage becomes an advantage.

You just have to dry it REALLY good (I've read at least) to avoid air bubbles in the middle of your filament (that would cause stringing and layer voids later).  Your way of doing that is up to you.  I personally like vacuum because in a perfect vacuum water boils at 70F.  That means if I heat PLA right up to 55C, then put it in a vacuum dessicator, it pulls all the air out of there, I will have a white mist coming out of the pump - water vapor - actual water coming out of the filament and turning into a gas.  Then, I can just close the valve, and it'll stay dry until the time I need to use it.  All without heating the plastic up past it's Tg and deforming it.  Which I guess is probably more important when you're trying to dry filament than it is when you are just trying to dry some pellets.

Genesat1 and ttabbal

The price per pound will be around $12. We will begin by only offering a 2lbs choice, not 17lbs big box just yet. Lets see how things go before we purchase a huge amount of resin.

The PETG does need to be dried but this is easy to do. Following Ggalisky's advice we purchased a Presto dehydrator from amazon. I have used it several times to dry PETG and it works great.