1. What printing consumable does the CoLiDo printer use?
Use PLA and ABS filament which has a diameter of 1.75mm and high accuracy (±0.03). Using PR printer together with PR’s PLA/ABS filament can reach the best print. It is compatible with other brand of 3D printer, such as Makerbot R2/R2X、FlashForge Creator/ CreatorX, etc.
PLA: 1.75+/-0.03mm, ABS 1.75+/-0.05mm
1. Filament with a smaller diameter can be heated faster (as it takes less time for the heat to reach the center) so you can print faster.
2. It allows for slightly more compact hot end designs.
3. The smaller nozzles allows for a more precise plastic flow control and reduces the risk of oozing.
4. Being smaller, it is also more flexible and can be coiled more tightly and turn sharper corners.
5. Force required by the extruder to push the plastic in the extruder is less because less pressure builds up in the nozzle.
1. PLA (short for polylactic acid) is a plastic made of renewable starches such as corn and sugarcane.
2. It is biodegradable and does not emit a lot of ultra fines particles (UFCs).
3. It produces a barely noticeable, but quite pleasant, sugary smell when extruding.
4. Depending on the specifications and the color, extrusion temperature can vary between 160 and 220°C.
5. Parts printed using PLA are more rigid than ABS parts (ABS is more flexible).
6. In general, parts printed using PLA have a slightly glossy finish.
7. PLA is less prone to warping during print and is much more ‘stickier’ than ABS.
8. PLA starts to become malleable (heat deflection point) at around 60 °C.
9. PLA requires a bit more force to be extruded as it has a higher coefficient of friction than ABS.
10. PLA is a bit more recent in the history of FDM 3D printers and has a promising future.
It is difficult to distinguish ABS and PLA if only judge on the appearance, ABS is matt, and PLA is very glossy. Once PLA is heated up ~200°C, it can be extruded easily but ABS cannot. ABS need heat up to 220°C to be extruded. If the temperature is higher, there will be bubbles appear on PLA, or PLA will be easily carbonized. If the nozzle is being block, ABS will have bad smell but PLA will not.
They are all widely used in mechanical, automobile, electrical , electronic instruments, meters textile and construction industries. For example,
1. ABS: Industrial filed such as high strength product parts; Literature and archaeological field such as repair the missing part, keep a long time parts. Home appliances, shell toys supplies (Lego)
2. PLA: print large parts and the parts contacting with human body, Toys, DIY bracelet.
9. How much filament to print one object? And how to evaluate if the filament enough or not to print the object?
It depends on the object shape and printing settings such as layer height and infill density. After convert STL file to GCO file in Repetier-Host software, customer can see the needed filament usage (Length) of pinting the object at the end of the g-code command or “Show in Log”. For example, 1kg filament can print roughtly 9 figures 7*5*5cm 3D model. Cuostmer can evaluate the actual fliament length is enough to meet the needed filament length.