Category Archives: carbon fiber 3d printing

Industrial 3D Printing Uses Layers Like We’ve Never Seen Before

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We’ve seen FDM printers lay down layers by extruding plastic in a line. We’ve seen printers use sintering and lithography to melt or cure one layer at a time before more print medium moves into place for the next layer. What we’ve never seen before is a printer like this that builds parts from distinct layers of substrate.

At the International Manufacturing Technology Show last week I spoke with Eric Povitz of Impossible Objects. The company is using a “sheet lamination process” that first prints each layer on carbon fiber or fiberglass, then uses a hydraulic press and an oven …read more

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3D Printering: Aramid and Carbon Fiber Infused ABS

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Last week, we had a look at a carbon-infused PETG filament. This week, I’d like to show you two composites based on a more common thermoplastic in 3D printing: ABS. Among a whole lot of other engineering plastics, the french company Nanovia manufactures Kevlar-like aramid-fiber-infused and carbon-fiber-infused ABS 3D printing filaments. These materials promise tougher parts with less warping while being just as easy to print as regular ABS. Let’s check them out!

Lucky enough to obtain a huge pack of samples from Nanovia’s endless list of highly exotic filaments (Thanks Jacques!), I was able to run a few test …read more

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3D Printering: XT-CF20 Carbon Fiber Filament Review

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ColorFabb’s XT-CF20 is one of the more exotic filaments for adventurous 3D printerers to get their hands on. This PETG based material features a 20% carbon fiber content, aspiring to be the material of choice for tough parts of high stiffness. It’s a fascinating material that’s certainly worth a closer look. Let’s check it out!

An Abrasive Fellow

The high amount of carbon fibers makes this material extremely abrasive, so I obtained a hardened steel nozzle for my E3Dv6 hotend to print it without harming my brass nozzles. It’s also worth mentioning that the filament is capable of cutting …read more

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