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Hey Michael,
PLA is by far the most user friendly material. It seems to produce the most reliable prints with the least number of issues. However, ABS is much stronger when it comes to structural or functional parts. You can make some pretty strong parts with PLA, but ounce for ounce, ABS is stronger. I use a heated bed for all of my prints to help it to stay put.
I've printed PLA, ABS, PET, Bronze-Fill, Ninja-Flex rubber - soft & hard, carbon-fiber filled filament and a couple of others. I am sure at some point I'll build my own and do it 'my way' - like everything else :) I'd like to have a larger build volume and give up some resolution for speed and filament volume. A 0.2-0.5 mm layer range would be pretty sweet for larger parts.
I'm actually working on a project now where the parts are ABS to begin with, and would be a good candidate for ABS printing if I could do them in one piece. It is possible to 'tile' the prints, much like we do for CNC, but a 'monolith' is stronger than a multi-piece part that has to be cemented together. The part may also be ripe for vacuum-forming, so I will be trying that before I try printing it. Production time is WAY faster with the vacuum forming avenue. I just don't know yet if some of the complicated features are the part are possible to resolve with VF since the wall thickness is around 3mm. We shall see as time allows.
-B
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Brady, what 3D scanner, 3d printer are you using? The scanning gave really good detail, so I am curious which one you used.
Thanks,
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The scanner is a proprietary setup that I built in house. The printer is just a garden variety UM2.
-B
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Really awesome stuff, when I look back I cant believe how far we have come in such a short time with technology and it just keeps expanding thanks for staying on top of the wave Brady.
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Thanks Brian. I try to keep on top of the technology. The goal is perfect scans right off the machine...I think I am there this year. It isn't a cheap undertaking...
-B