Filament Technical Data Sheets

[Bert Schmitz]

Are manufacturers Technical Data Sheets for their filaments of any use or are these just marketing documents?

Anyways, a podcast on what is in the TDS and what the vocabulary used in the TDS means would be very interesting.

[3D Printing Tips and Tricks]

No doubt Whitney will jump on that.

[Patrick C]

If you are into the engineering aspect, it’s always required. We have tons of it for most metals. 

Sometimes you need to know how it can handle loads. If you print something that is weak and can’t be fixed by adding material (design constraints), you can at least know where you are starting from and pick from options that are available. In some cases, going to metal parts (CNC). 

Some TDS can be more useful than others. Especially when they show the anisotropic values. Ideally they provide both metric and USC units (for those values burned in my brain in KSI), using standardized (ANSI or ISO) testing. You can’t trust it otherwise. 

Having those values let you calculate or simulate your design under load, FEA in CAD. 

Here is a decent example 

https://prusament.com/media/2020/01/PETG_TechSheet_ENG.pdf

A lazy one: 

https://www.3dxtech.com/downloads/UN_ASA_v3.pdf 

Some filaments don’t have a TDS and put the engineering properties in the item description, without reference to testing method.  Terrible substitute, I’d much rather have a TDS with the manufacturers name on it, it shows they stand behind their product. Of course you need to trust the company before you can trust their data. 

I would typically avoid any filament that doesn’t provide at least a decent TDS if the project had strength or stiffness concerns.

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