Glass fiber ABS

[david merten]

As much as I am against carbon fiber in printer filament,  I am undecided on glass fibers. I don't really want micro glass fibers added to my environment.  How bad do the fibers leak out? By all acounts strength is improved, an important factor in many of my prints. And ABS is supposed to print better. What opinions are out there? Anybody print with it yet?

            David

[Kurt The 3D Printer GUY!!]

David - interesting topic. Why? Cause - I went a little crazy some weeks ago and got a TON of new spools at MC. And, in fact - one spool I picked up was Inland ABS Blue Glass Fiber. But - I have NOT printed with it yet.

Now - I'm not sure about glass fibers being airborne - if that is your concern. But, the other concern - getting glass fibers in your fingers. A coworker at VM had pointed me to a video a guy did - about Carbon Fibers going into your skin - and he showed some crazy Close up pics of the carbon fibers in his skin. So - I have NOT Doubt that it could also happen with glass fibers. 

My suggestion - as a preventative manner - might be to wear Nitril gloves when handling the glass and carbon fiber filled filament. 

It's just a thought...

-K

[Alan B]

Glass fibers are common and irritating but the health issues are better known and seem to be less serious than carbon fibers. Glass fibers don't interfere with colors. Glass fiber is non conductive and rf transparent. Carbon fiber is conductive and rf lossy and can cause potentially unwanted electrical conductivity. CF is slightly stiffer and lighter.  CF is very color limited to black and gray. 

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[david merten]

Alan that was a great response.  I hadn't even thought about the rf response of carbon fiber. Many of my projects involve electronics.  There could always be the possibility of signal problems, or unintentional grounding. 

That is why I love these forums, information and ideas from people I would never meet otherwise. 

          David

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[Alan B]

I didn't really use it in my response, but ChatGPT had a very good if long winded comparison with a lot more detail. Being an EE and a Licensed ham and having looked into GF for my projects I was aware of these already. I was curious if AI would say more about health issues of CF but it really didn't, aside from noting that both were irritants when sanded and that GF was similar to working with fiberglass insulation. It also mentioned that sanding CF makes conductive dust. I know a lot of folks are skeptical about AI but I find that it often mentions something that I hadn't thought about so it triggers further research. It also makes mistakes or doesn't know about all the constraints we have so applying results directly isn't always practical but it can be useful to have a discussion with it and guide it to a better suggestion.

AlanB

[3D Printing Tips and Tricks]

“By all accounts strength is improved”

Really? Not in our experience! There may be some improvement of strength within a layer, but what we’ve always seen with any filament with inclusion material such as fibers or a metallic powder, layer adhesion is compromised. The most significant contribution any form of fiber makes is purely esthetic. The fibers do a great job visually blurring layer lines. Fibers also do a great job in complicating printing reliability.

If I were printing objects that I needed to be strong enough to take a fall from high up while holding motors and batteries (e.g. drones) my material of choice would be either a stiff version of TPU, or more likely, annealed HTPLA. Not ABS, ASA, PETG or PLA and certainly not with any inclusion material.

And… Nylon would bend, so no Nylon.

HTPLA from a reputable producer like Protopasta is as easy to print as a really good PLA and annealing it is not all that big a deal. Get a pot that you won’t use for food and cook water until it just starts to bubble, but not boiling… drop the object into the water for about 10 min… if you printed it with break away supports leave them on to help maintain the shape. Then carefully dump the water and let it cool. The color will change and annealling will occur slowly after it’s cooled. In our experience annealed materials are the strongest you can get with FDM.

[Bryan Eckert]

Interesting you mentioned stiff TPU… because we were just printing bumpers at work in glass fiber TPU 😂

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[3D Printing Tips and Tricks]

Stiff TPU is kinda expensive and annealed PLA or annealed PETG is plenty stiff and strong enough for drone chassis’s.

[Kurt The 3D Printer GUY!!]

In regard to your comment of - "Fibers also do a great job in complicating printing reliability." - the one thing is DOES do is make Nylon MUCH easier to print! 

Is the negative results of poor layer adhesion make the CF-Nylon not as Strong as Regular?

I know at VisionMiner there were a LOT of parts being print in CF-Nylon. In fact, one client that was Constantly ordering parts from us - and I printed a batch of 10 pairs - pairs that fit together - BIG pieces - which I believe were used by a Drilling co. - and someone used to hold back dirt and mud - during drilling process. I do NOT have full details of the use case - so, part of that was a guess - but, obviously the pieces ARE Strong enough to be used - and Used in a Very serious fashion! Just sayin'...

-K

P.S. Just curious - Andy - you recently on vacation? I didn't see a podcast episode posted for this past week - so, was just curious...

[3D Printing Tips and Tricks]

That’s probably a mistake. I’ll go look.

[3D Printing Tips and Tricks]

Libsyn shows #604 hit the feed on March 12th, last Thursday. 605 is on the feed on the 19th.

[Kurt The 3D Printer GUY!!]

Yeah - I just looked at Podcast app - I did an update for your podcast feed - and NOW the episode showed up. My bad...

[Ed Street]

Glass fiber, or GF, helps with dimensional stability, thus reducing warping and stiffness, and provides a moderate increase in tensile strength.  As for layer lines, you can have increased bonding due to reduced warping/shrinking/thermal contraction, which could also harm layer adhesion due to insufficient contact area.  Think I read somewhere that GF fiber alignments are X/Y, not Z, which causes brittle and snapping issues with layers.

On that note, I have a new cat in the house. She is a rescue, and she loves my 3d printers.  She gets into the poop boxes and spreads it all over the house, physically carries it to other rooms, and plays with it. 

[Kurt The 3D Printer GUY!!]

OMG - that is Hysterical about your cat. DANG - would love a Great pic of your cat in action!!!

Makes sense about GF - since - that was Indeed the highlight of putting CF into Nylon - making a material that was previously difficult to print - now relatively Easy to print. If that did the same for ABS - and you ALL know I'm kinda the King of ABS (because of Vapor smoothing  - and using it also for Abstracts) - I'd love to see the success of ABS printing via Glass fibers! I really need to get crackin on my Blue GF ABS - and check out some of the results!

-K

[3D Printing Tips and Tricks]

I hope the “poop boxes” you’re referring to are the boxes that catch the purges from your printers and not the extrusions that come out of the cat!

[Ed Street]

Ouch, I was not expecting that thought.  It's from the 3d printer purges.

[Kurt]

Good joke Andy! A real Cat's Meow that one was!

-K