Putting The New CryoGrip Build Plate To The Test

October 25, 2024 by Dave Rowntree 14 Comments

BIQU has released a new line of low-temperature build plates that look to be the next step in 3D printing’s iteration—or so YouTuber Printing Perspective thinks after reviewing one. The Cryogrip Pro is designed for the Bambu X1, P1, and A1 series of printers but could easily be adapted for other magnetic-bed machines.

The bed adhesion strength when cold is immense!

The idea of the new material is to reduce the need for high bed temperatures, keeping enclosure temperatures low. As some enclosed printer owners may know, trying to print PLA and even PETG with the door closed can be troublesome due to how slowly these materials cool. Too high an ambient temperature can wreak havoc with this cooling process, even leading to nozzle-clogging.

The new build plate purports to enable low, even ambient bed temperatures, still with maximum adhesion. Two versions are available, with the ‘frostbite’ version intended for only PLA and PETG but having the best adhesion properties. A more general-purpose version, the ‘glacier’ sacrifices a little bed adhesion but gains the ability to handle a much wider range of materials.

An initial test with a decent-sized print showed that the bed adhesion was excellent, but after removing the print, it still looked warped. The theory was that it was due to how consistently the magnetic build plate was attached to the printer bed plate, which was now the limiting factor. Switching to a different printer seemed to ‘fix’ that issue, but that was really only needed to continue the build plate review.

They demonstrated a common issue with high-grip build plates: what happens when you try to remove the print. Obviously, magnetic build plates are designed to be removed and flexed to pop off the print, and this one is no different. The extreme adhesion, even at ambient temperature, does mean it’s even more essential to flex that plate, and thin prints will be troublesome. We guess that if these plates allow the door to be kept closed, then there are quite a few advantages, namely lower operating noise and improved filtration to keep those nasty nanoparticles in check. And low bed temperatures mean lower energy consumption, which is got to be a good thing. Don’t underestimate how much power that beefy bed heater needs!

Ever wondered what mini QR-code-like tags are on the high-end build plates? We’ve got the answer. And now that you’ve got a pile of different build plates, how do you store them and keep them clean? With this neat gadget!

Continue reading “Putting The New CryoGrip Build Plate To The Test” →

3D Printed Tires, By The Numbers

October 24, 2024 by Dan Maloney 21 Comments

What does it take to make decent tires for your projects? According to this 3D printed tire torture test, it’s actually pretty easy — it’s more a question of how well they work when you’re done.

For the test, [Excessive Overkill] made four different sets of shoes for his RC test vehicle. First up was a plain PLA wheel with a knobby tread, followed by an exact copy printed in ABS which he intended to coat with Flex Seal — yes, that Flex Seal. The idea here was to see how well the spray-on rubber compound would improve the performance of the wheel; ABS was used in the hopes that the Flex Seal solvents would partially dissolve the plastic and form a better bond. The next test subjects were a PLA wheel with a separately printed TPU tire, and a urethane tire molded directly to a PLA rim. That last one required a pretty complicated five-piece mold and some specialized urethane resin, but the results looked fantastic.

Non-destructive tests on the tires included an assessment of static friction by measuring the torque needed to start the tire rolling against a rough surface, plus a dynamic friction test using the same setup but measuring torque against increasing motor speed. [Overkill] threw in a destructive test, too, with the test specimens grinding against a concrete block at a constant speed to see how long the tire lasted. Finally, there was a road test, with a full set of each tire mounted to an RC car and subjected to timed laps along a course with mixed surfaces.

Results were mixed, and we won’t spoil the surprise, but suffice it to say that molding your own tires might not be worth the effort, and that Flex Seal is as disappointing as any other infomercial product. We’ve seen other printed tires before, but hats off to [Excessive Overkill] for diving into the data.

Continue reading “3D Printed Tires, By The Numbers” →

New Study Looks At The Potential Carcinogenicity Of 3D Printing

October 14, 2024 by Dan Maloney 40 Comments

We’ve all heard stories of the dangers of 3D printing, with fires from runaway hot ends or dodgy heated build plates being the main hazards. But what about the particulates? Can they actually cause health problems in the long run? Maybe, if new research into the carcinogenicity of common 3D printing plastics pans out.

According to authors [CheolHong Lim] and [DongSeok Seo], the research covered in this paper was undertaken because of reports of rare cancers among Korean STEM teachers, particularly those who used 3D printers in their curricula. It was thought that only long-term, continued exposure to the particulates generated by 3D printers could potentially be hazardous and that PLA was less likely to be hazardous than ABS. The study was designed to assess the potential carcinogenicity of both ABS and PLA particulates under conditions similar to what could be expected in an educational setting.

To do this, they generated particulates by heating ABS and PLA to extruder temperatures, collected and characterized them electrostatically, and dissolved them in the solvent DMSO. They used a cell line known as Balb/c, derived from fibroblasts of an albino laboratory mouse, to assess the cytotoxic concentration of each plastic, then conducted a comet assay, which uses cell shape as a proxy for DNA damage; damaged cells often take on a characteristically tailed shape that resembles a comet. This showed no significant DNA damage for either plastic.

But just because a substance doesn’t cause DNA damage doesn’t mean it can’t mess with the cell’s working in other ways. To assess this, they performed a series of cell transformation assays, which look for morphological changes as a result of treatment with a potential carcinogen. Neither ABS nor PLA were found to be carcinogenic in this assay. They also looked at the RNA of the treated cells, to assess the expression of genes related to carcinogenic pathways. They found that of 147 cancer-related genes, 113 were either turned up or turned down relative to controls. Finally, they looked at glucose metabolism as a proxy for the metabolic changes a malignant cell generally experiences, finding that both plastics increased metabolism in vitro.

Does this mean that 3D printing causes cancer? No, not by a long shot. But, it’s clear that under lab conditions, exposure to either PLA or ABS particulates seems to be related to some of the cell changes associated with carcinogenesis. What exactly this means in the real world remains to be seen, but the work described here at least sets the stage for further examination.

What does this all mean to the home gamer? For now, maybe you should at least crack a window while you’re printing.

The Strangest Way To Stick PLA To Glass? With A Laser And A Bit Of Foil

September 2, 2024 by Donald Papp 7 Comments

Ever needed a strong yet adhesive-free way to really stick PLA to glass? Neither have we, but nevertheless there’s a way to use aluminum foil and an IR fiber laser to get a solid bond with a little laser welding between the dissimilar materials.

A piece of sacrificial aluminum foil bonds the PLA to glass with a form of laser welding, with precise control and very little heat to dissipate.

It turns out that aluminum can be joined to glass by using a pulsed laser process, and PLA can be joined to aluminum with a continuous wave laser process. Researchers put them together, and managed to reliably do both at once with a single industrial laser.

By putting a sacrificial sheet of thin aluminum foil between 3D printed PLA and glass, then sending the laser through the glass into the aluminum, researchers were able to bond it all together in an adhesive-free manner with precise control, and very little heat to dissipate. No surface treatment of any kind required. The bond is at least as strong as any adhesive-based solution, so there’s no compromising on strength.

When it comes to fabrication, having to apply and manage adhesives is one of the least-preferable options for sticking two things together, so there’s value in the idea of something like this.

Still, it’s certainly a niche application and we’ll likely stick to good old superglue, but we honestly didn’t know laser welding could bond aluminum to glass or to PLA, let along both at once like this.

Spin Your Own Passive Cooling Fibres

July 31, 2024 by Jenny List 4 Comments

When the temperature climbs, it’s an eternal problem: how to stay cool. An exciting field of materials science lies in radiative cooling materials, things which reflect so much incoming heat that they can cool down from their own radiation rather than heating up in the sun. It’s something [NightHawkInLight] has been working on over a series, and he’s dropped a very long video we’ve placed below. It’s ostensibly about spinning radiative cooling fibers, but in fact provides a huge quantity of background as well as a bonus explanation of cotton candy machines.

These materials achieve their reflectivity by creating a surface full of microscopic bubbles. It’s the same process that makes snow so white and reflective, and in this case it’s achieved by dissolving a polymer in a mixture of two solvents. The lower boiling point solvent evaporates first leaving the polymer full of microscopic bubbles of the higher boiling point solvent, and once these evaporate they leave behind the tiny voids. In the video he’s using PLA, and we see him experimenting with different solvents and lubricants to achieve the desired result. The cotton candy machine comes in trying to create fibers by melting solid samples, something which doesn’t work as well as it could so instead he draws them by hand with a small rake.

When he tests his mat of fibers in bright sunlight the effect is almost magical if we didn’t already know the mechanism, they cool down by a few degrees compared to ambient temperature and the surrounding control materials. This is a fascinating material, and we hope we’ll see more experimenters working with it. You won’t be surprised to hear we’ve featured his work before.

Continue reading “Spin Your Own Passive Cooling Fibres” →

3D Printing In Custom PLA With A TPU Core

May 4, 2024 by Donald Papp 11 Comments

[Stefan] from CNC Kitchen explored an unusual approach to a multi-material print by making custom PLA filament with a TPU core to make it super-tough. TPU is a flexible filament whereas PLA is hard almost to the point of being brittle. The combo results in a filament with some unusual properties, inviting some thoughts about what else is possible.

Cross-section of 3D print using white PLA with a red TPU core.

[Stefan]’s video covers a few different filament experiments, but if you’d like to see the TPU-PLA composite you can skip ahead to 18:15. He first creates the composite filament by printing an oversized version on a 3D printer, then re-forming it by running it through a Recreator to resize it down to 1.75 mm.

We have seen this technique of printing custom filaments before, which is useful to create DIY multi-color filaments in small quantities right on a 3D printer’s print bed with no special equipment required. This is an effective method but results in filament with a hexagonal profile, which works but isn’t really ideal. By printing his custom composite at 4 mm diameter then resizing the filament down to 1.75 mm, [Stefan] was able to improve overall printability.

That being said, TPU and PLA have very different characteristics and don’t like to adhere to one another so the process was pretty fiddly. TPU-cored PLA might be troublesome and uncooperative to make, but it can be done with some patience and fairly simple equipment.

Despite the difficulties, test prints were pretty interesting. PLA toughness was roughly doubled and under magnification one can see a lattice of TPU strands throughout the prints which are unlike anything else. Check it out in the video, embedded below.

Continue reading “3D Printing In Custom PLA With A TPU Core” →

Common Enzyme Breaks Down PLA Fast

February 4, 2024 by Lewin Day 50 Comments

The global issue of plastic waste has prompted scientists to seek innovative solutions for recycling. Single-use plastics, notorious for their environmental impact, require new methods for efficient and sustainable management. For some common plastics, though, salvation could be at hand, with researchers identifying a common enzyme that can be used to break them down fast.

Researchers at King’s College London have discovered an enzyme used in laundry detergents that can break down PLA plastics within 24 hours, using a little heat as an aid. Normally, this is achieved via composting methods that take weeks or months. This method transforms the plastics back into their original chemical components, offering a rapid and eco-friendly recycling process. The monomers can then be reused for manufacturing new plastic items.

One wonders if this could also be used in another way – perhaps in a multimaterial printer, allowing PLA to be used for supports and then broken down. It’s probably not that necessary, given other degradable materials exist, but it’s something to think about.

This project is a significant leap forward in recycling technology, showcasing the potential for enzymes to revolutionize how we handle plastic waste. It could also be a great way to recycle all those errant deformed Pikachus that keep ending up in your hackerspace’s 3D-printing waste basket. In any case, plastic waste is a problem the world needs to solve, and quickly, because it’s not going anywhere any time soon. Video after the break.

Continue reading “Common Enzyme Breaks Down PLA Fast” →