What's up everyone, Tom here, and let me tell, it's Filaween!
Which means tons of filaments to be tested and a super-strict program for each of them.
So let's have a look at what that entails.
So if you have a look behind me, you might be able to make out just a few spools of filament
that all want to be tested and reviewed.
Plus, I've got a bunch more coming in now that I've talked to quite a few filament manufacturers
and told them what i’ve got planned.
Filaween will be a 60-second format, straight down to business as usual, with comparable
results from one review to the next.
Why only 60 seconds?
Because i don’t think a filament needs more than that, and having this video to outline
my methods doesn’t have me repeating them in every video.
Why now?
Because i now have a pair of identical, Original Prusa i3 MK2 printers that both perform identically
at a level where i feel like i can draw meaningful conclusions from the results they produce,
they have E3D v6 hotends, a kinematics platform that is similar to what many other popular
printers use, which means the results i’m getting here should be transferrable to many
other machines and it also means i can swap in hardened and coated nozzles for the rougher
filaments, like the carbon-fiber stuff, with no extra hoops to jump through at all.
So every Filaween episode will include the following things: First off, what does the
manufacturer promise and why is the filament special.
If it’s just a plain PLA or ABS filament, that’s fine, too, and, where appropriate,
all filaments will run through the same parcour of tests.
That will include the standardized MAKE magazine test parts for overhangs, bridges and fine
details, and of course a 3Dbenchy, first with the included profiles from the i3 MK2, obviously,
adapted to the manufacturer’s recommended settings as far as temperatures etc go, and
after that, tuned in to my taste if necessary.
With filaments like the IGUS self-lubricating plastics, tests like these obviously don’t
make that much sense, so i’ll have to come up with something that better shows that filament’s
particular strengths and weaknesses.
During those prints, i’ll also look for adhesion issues onto the MK2’s heated PEI
sheet as well as general warpage and delamination symptoms.
I’m not including a print onto an unheated surface here, since there are many different
ways to make a material stick to a cold surface if needed and most filaments have different
preferences when it comes to the materials they will stick to anyways.
This is more about how likely the specific filament will warp or pull its layers apart
on its own, which will show through on both heated and unheated beds.
Now, other than the MAKE test and the Benchy, which mostly test for print quality, i also
want to test for mechanical strength and temperature stability.
I can test the first one reasonably well with the stuff i have - essentially, i’ll print
two test pieces and load them until they break, and that essentially gives me the plastic’s
yield strength more or less, and depending on how the part was oriented for printing,
we’ll also learn something about layer adhesion.
Temperature stability is a bit harder for me to test, so the closest thing, i think
is going to be pouring some boiling water over a printed part and seeing how well it
keeps its shape.
Pretty much totally non-scientific, but easy enough to reproduce and it does even give
you a bit of information about how you can use these materials - if it survives, it’s
most definitely dishwasher safe and ok to use in the heat outside.
Stiffness or a material’s E-modulus is another important parameter, because it essentially
indicates how soft your material is.
For some applications, you’d be totally ok with the flex Nylon gives you, but for
others, you need the total stiffness of PLA.
This one is probably going to be the least scientific one of these tests, because not
only do these plastics have very different stiffnesses, they also feel very different
to the touch, whether it’s a squeaky, “wet” surface, or a dry, hard one, basically i’ll
try my best to describe them.
and during the load tests, you’ll also get a glimpse of how much the parts deflect under
load before breaking.
So with a bunch of filaments coming out that are often modified version of the common polymer
types, these tests should have their properties covered pretty well, and to give you a reference,
all these numbers are then compared against “normal” PLA, ABS and PET.
Now, if it all sound a bit confusing right now, do not worry, there will be nice charts
and all with each review and a big, huge comparison chart once filaween concludes.
Which might actually be filvester by then, who knows!
Also, some of these filament will receive a “Tom approves” badge, but i don’t
know yet how much of a gap there will even be between the best performers and mediocre
filaments, so i’ll have to wait until the end to draw a conclusion there.
So get ready for a boatload of filament reviews and let me know in the comments below what
filaments you are excited to see tested!
This video is sponsored by Aleph Objects, Inc., a Free Software, Libre Innovation, and
Open Source Hardware company headquartered in Loveland, Colorado, USA and makers of LulzBot
desktop 3D printers.
Watch my reviews of both LulzBot 3D printers here and check the links in video description
for more info on the machines straight from Aleph Objects.
And there you have it!
Get subscribed to catch all the reviews and other content i upload, and if you love what
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Rightey then, see you in the next one!