When choosing the right filament for your desired objects, it’s good to understand the differences and pick the right type of filament.

FELIXprinters offers a wide range of filament, which is produced to offer the highest quality standards for 3D printing.
The products are extensively tested with our own printers. For best results, always choose FELIXprinters filament for if you use one of our machines.

Below we have made a comparison to see the differences in filament. So you know what to choose based on the products you want to create. Click the filament type to browse products directly.

• Strength stands for how strong an object is after printing, how much it can endure before breaking.
• Stiffness for how stiff the material becomes after printing.
• Toughness for how hard the object becomes after printing.
• Printability stands for the amount of different types of objects you can print with this type of filament.
• Usage temperature for the maximum temperature the material can withstand. 

Still need help choosing the right filament? Contact info@felixprinters.com and we’ll help.

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PETG(left) and PLA(right) are easy materials to use for 3D printing.

The Filament Guide

With the 3d printers we offer you can in theory use every material as long as it melts below 275degC and is in wire form with a diameter of 1.75mm (+/- 0.15mm).

Although this sounds simple, reality is unfortunately a little less optimistic. For successful 3d printing, the general boundaries are:
• Diameter accuracy This very important and if not right this could ruin your printjob. Good quality filaments nowadays are specced to be 1.75mm +/- 0.05mm, some suppliers even promise a diameter accuracy of +/- 0.02mm. Next to this it is also important to check the diameter roundness. This is often not specified, but you can check your filament if the roundness is indeed correct.
• Material consistency This is often overlooked, and mostly only noticed when printing. The diameter of the filament could be good, but if the substance is not consistent, it could be that some parts of the filament, don’t melt, or not fast enough which could cause a clogged hot-end.
• Shrinkage ratio If this ratio is high, then it could cause problems to print. When you print a part, there is normally a temperature difference between the part you are printing and the newly printed layers. When a material has a high shrinkage ratio, there could come a very big internal stress in the part and it could break. So the lower the shrinkage ratio the easier it is to print. Big parts utilizing the full build volume of the printer are almost impossible to print, when there is a high shrinkage ratio.
• Adhesion to the build platform The build platform condition is also a very important factor to the equation. The top surface should be compatible with the extruded material. The toplayer of the bed, ensures that the print will stick to the buildplate, but not so much that you cannot remove the printed object after printing.
• Material rigidity The filament should be rigid to some degree. So the material can be flexible to some degree, which is difficult to specify. The filament is pushed by a motor into the hot-end, if the material is very flexible this could cause issues because the material can buckle and get stuck in unwanted places. Whether your 3d printer is using direct drive or a bowden system as feed mechanism makes a big difference for flexible materials.
• Safety Some materials can cause fumes when heated which can be toxic.

Combine multiple materials

Next to the filament itself we also have to consider the following constraints for dual head 3d printing.

A house printed with PLA and PVA to support the roof.
The PVA(transparant) can be washed out with water.

When combining different materials, normally the following should be true:
• Recommended bed temperature for the materials should be approximately the same
• The two materials should be compatible with each other. Especially if you need them to connect somewhere in the print. For instance when printing a layer with material 1 on top of a layer of material 2. If the layers/materials don’t attach to each other, the print will most likely fail.

The following materials we offer have been found to be compatible:
• PLA – FLEX
• PLA – PVA
• ABS – HIPS
• PLA – Wood
• PETG – PVA*

*not a perfect match but can work under some conditions

Different materials

Each material has it’s benefits and good use, we’ll explain the differences between the filaments in short. To make it easier to compare the different filaments we also gave them rankings (scale 1…10) on their most important features.

The above 3 filaments are the main plastic materials used with a 3D printer. There are countless different materials which can be used with a 3D printer, below we will describe a few of them we also supply.

PVA dissolves in water and is environmentally friendly. After 10 minutes it already becomes weak. To fully dissolve it, takes one hour up to a few hours depending on the size. You can speed up the process by removing a large amount by hand and let the remaining to unreachable places dissolve. Also a sonic bath would speed up the process significantly.
We have done extensive testing on this material type. It gives a lot of new possibilities, but due to the heavy interaction with H2O molecules, which are present in the air, the following things need to be taken into consideration.

• Shelf life when opened can be from 1 week to 4 weeks dependent on how moist the environment is.
• Never let it heated for extensive periods of time. At around 215 deg without feeding material. When the material sits idle in the nozzle at this temperature it starts to crystallize and can damage the tip of your nozzle beyond repair.
• After printing always remove the PVA filament from the extruder unless you start a new print with PVA right away.
• There are a lot of PVA filaments available, but only a few work as advertised. If you use a bad quality type, chances of it working are minimal, or maybe for an extremely short time.

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Layers stacked on top of each other for 3D printing

To fully understand the features and limitations of a dual head system, it is important to know the process of 3D printing, in this case done with  a FELIXprinter. The technology of 3D printing can be explained as followed: push a string of plastic (called filament) through a very hot nozzle (about 200C or more) and lay down very tiny layers of plastic. These layers will solidify almost instantly once it has left the nozzle. By stacking hundreds or even thousands of layers on top of each other will create the desired object. The technique of stacking layers of a material on top of each other is called FDM: Fused Deposit Modelling.

When having one print head, this technique is most suitable for only one color or material at a time. This is of course a very good start but it is limited in possibilities. To create more possibilities, a dual head system is invented. A dual head system, which has two individual print heads allows you to use multiple combinations of materials or colours in one single print! Can you imagine the possibilities?

individual entrances for two strings of filament

Two individual print heads – clearly visible

Different materials in one print

Dual head print: a flexible tyre with a solid rim

Having two individual print heads allows you to use two different materials in one single print. An example would be to use the same materials but in different colours (for aesthetic reasons), another example would be to use a solid material and another flexible material. Perhaps the most interesting combination would be to use the second print head for water soluble support filament. Water soluble material? What is the purpose of that you might think, but it allows you to create amazingly complex objects!

Physical challenges of 3D printing

Soluble Support material

The technique of most 3D printers is based on stacking tiny layers on top of each other. Starting with the first layer, which is always build on the build plate. That means it is physically impossible to create an object in midair. It will always need a bottom surface to place a layer. Due to a design of an object, it could be that some parts cannot be stacked onto an already existing layer. The solution to make this possible is to create a support structure.

(Water Soluble) Support Filament

Each layer is built upon a foundation (the previous layer or in case of the first layer the build plate). If you print for instance a bridge. The printer will first print the side pillars of the bridge, and at some point it needs to connect the two parts together. If you print without support material, the printer will print the ‘bridge’ part in the air and the bridge will most likely ‘sag’ in the middle. Big chance your print will fail if there are too many layers ‘sagging’.

To enable the creation of such complex objects, support material needs to be used. This is giving you two options:

1. Use the same material as the object as support material and remove it manually once the print has finished. There is no second print head required to create this type of support material.
2. Use a water soluble support material which can be removed by leaving the object in water once the print has finished. A second print head is required to use two materials in a single print.

Using soluble support filament truly shows its value when you want to you create complex objects. Especially in difficult to reach corners it is great to have support material which is soluble. It gives you the opportunity to complete remove the support structure without damaging the object.

Finished product after removal Support Material

Open object – what the support material looks like

Will printing go twice as fast with a dual head 3D printer?

The answer is easy: no. Both print heads are physically connected to each other – which makes it impossible to let them print their own part at the same time. The 3D printer will print with one print head at a time. If one layer requires to be printed with both print heads it will print with the left head first and when that is done – it will continue with the right head. In the meanwhile, the 3D printer will cool down the idle print head so the filament won’t overheat. Once the print head should print its part, the printer will heat up the print head till the desired temperature which of course takes a bit of time. All these steps result in a dual head print usually takes longer than a single head print.

How to create one object with two materials?

three dice

The creation of an object with multiple colours or materials is done within the software (that comes with the printer). What is most important, is that the creation of a dual colour print requires two digital files (called STL files). For example, the creation of a die: this object is built from a file called ‘body’ and another file called ‘dots’. Within the software you have to select with which print head you want to print each object with.

Two individual STL files – the body and the dots

Two STL files merged together to create a dual head print

How to create a support structure?

Original file

Creating a support structure is also done within the software. All you have to do, is to select the ‘generate support’ button and the software will automatically determine if a support structure is required to create a successful print. In the preview it will show you how it is going to generate the support structure. This feature allows you to see if placing the object in a different angle will influence the amount of support material needed.

Close up of automatically generated support (blue material)

Close up of automatically generated support (blue material)

Essentials to keep in mind

Regardless of the object you are printing, the materials in each print head should be compatible with each other. The points to take into considerations:

The print temperature range should be approximately the same. Especially the required build plate temperatures. So for instance PLA, which required a build plate temperature of 55C, in combination with ABS, which requires 95C, is not suitable. The high build plate temperature required for ABS, will negatively influence the quality of the printed PLA part.

Chemical compatibility. Both materials should be able to attach to each other. If you print PLA with PETG for instance that is most likely to fail. Even though their bed temperatures are somewhat compatible, they are not chemically compatible. If you have two objects printed separately from each other, it is generally not a problem. But if you rely on them to stick to each other at some point in the print, this will most likely fail.

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The basics and benefits of 3D printing explained within 90 seconds

The 3D printer

There are several types of 3D printers. The FELIX 3D printers are called FDM printers, which stands for Fused Deposition Modeling printers.

Although that sounds pretty fancy, a FDM 3D printer is (in theory at least!) not a very complicated machine. It basically is a programmable hot-melt glue gun.

You need to tell the printer where to move the glue gun and how much glue to melt and push out. The glue gun is called extruder. The glue is called filament. Instead of glue sticks, a spool with hundreds of metres of plastic wire on it is used. There are several types of plastic you can use, in several colors.

Pro 1 Extruder

Filament for FELIX

The model

Today there are a lot of ways to design your own 3D models. You can use free programs like SketchUp or Blender. There are also a lot of paid programs to choose from (like Rhino 3D, SolidWorks or Inventor) that are used by designers and engineers all over the world.
If you have no time or desire to design things yourself, you can download 3D models from websites like http://www.thingiverse.com/
So, suppose you have drawn or downloaded a nice 3D model you want to print in plastic. How to proceed?

The slicing program

Most 3D printers do not know what to do with a 3D file.
They only understand so-called “g-code” commands. These commands tell the printer things like where to move the head, how hot the extruder should be and how fast the filament should be pushed through it, stuff like that.

A slicing program (like FelixBuilder or CuraEngine) “translates” a 3D object file to g-code that the printer understands.
Most slicing programs accept 3D models in the STL file format.
With this format a 3D shape is approximated by arranging triangles that define the boundaries of the 3D object. To obtain enough detail on complex objects, sometimes a large amount of triangles is needed.
The slicing program cuts the 3D object into a large number of slices (hence the name). Each slice is analyzed and translated into commands that tell the printer where to move its printing head to put down the plastic material.
The printer builds up a model by starting to put down the bottom slice (also called “layer”) on top of the printer bed, and then putting the next layer on top of the previous layer. Because the extruded plastic is molten, it will be attached tightly to the layer below, if all goes well.
Of course, when you try to position plastic into mid air, the plastic probably won’t stay up there, it will fall down or at least sag down a little. To prevent this, the slicing program can generate a support structure that keeps these “floating” parts where they are. The support structure will have to be removed afterwards. Sadly, the structure can sometimes be difficult to remove and it has no further use.

Slicing programs have a lot of strategies and options to translate the 3D object to g-code that makes the printer move efficiently, generates the best appearance, minimizes support structure size and has easily removable support structures.
The down side of this flexibility is that you, the user, need to make a lot of decisions on what you want. Luckily, most slicing programs come with default settings for several materials that work in a lot of situations.

Feeding the g-code to the printer

A generated g-code file can be directly processed by the Felix printers by putting it on a SD card and inserting the card into the printer.

It is also possible to connect the printer to a PC using the USB connection. You then need a program on the PC that sends the g-code throug the USB port to the printer.

Some slicing programs (like FelixBuilder) are able to send the g-code they generate directly to the printer.
Other solutions, like Repetier-Host, can open a g-code file and send it to the printer. Repetier-Host also has a couple of slicing programs bundled with it, and it can feed STL models to these slicers. Afterwards, it can automatically pick up, visualize and forward the generated g-code from these slicing programs to the printer.
FelixBuilder currently does not have the option of just reading a g-code file and sending it to the printer.

And then we wait!

3D printing is a slow process. If you need a lot of detail, the printer has to move very precisely and you can only use a very small extrusion opening to put down the plastic at exactly the right spot. The stacked layers have to be really thin, so there need to be a lot of them to reach a mentionable height.
The good news is that once a print job is running, you don’t have to watch it all the time (although it probably has a certain therapeutic value to see your printer working so zealousy :).
You can come back after a while to pick up your brand new model.

three dice

Two coloured tyre

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