ASA, PETG and the soluble PVA filament

[tangleba...@gmail.com]

I have just ordered a MK8 dual-extruder 3D printer full kit with heated bed.  I have heard that both ASA and PETG are upcoming materials that are stronger and less brittle than ABS and PLA, is it true?

Also, is it true that ASA is UV-resistant but not PETG?

I am primarily interested to print mechanical parts for large scale (say 1:5 to 1:10) RC vehicles and multicopters, should I use ASA, PETG or some sort of filaments infused with carbon fiber?

The reason for me to get the dual-extruder 3D printer is to use the second extruder to print soluble support structure.  For this purpose, should I get PVA filaments as the support structure?  And are there any other alternatives than PVA?

Also, for setting up the printer to print support structure using a different materials, can Cura do this job?  I have heard there are quite a lot of pararmeters to set.  Has anyone in the Dunedin Makerspace done this before?

Finally, apart from Aliexpress, where else can I get affordable ASA, PETG and the soluble PVA filaments?

Thanks!

Tangleball Teezer

[Paul Cardno]

Hi. Tangleball

Sorry for late reply only just saw your email

a lot of questions there, most of which I cannot answer. But I will impart what I know.

1) I have not worked with a lot of these different plastics mainly PLA. I have been doing some reading on ASA and its something that I will be experimenting with in the near future.

2) ASA and ABS as basically the same expect for UV resistance, or so I am told

3) PLA is more bittle than ASA

4) Not sure how t PETG compares but ASA was designed to be UV resistant.

5) There are my source so far for ASA, I think there might be a trade of with quality of ASA and price but I have not tested that yet.

https://www.mindkits.co.nz/ASA.aspx

https://marvle3d.co.nz/asa/2164-1963-marvle3d-asa-175mm-3d-printer-filament.html#/384-asa_filament_colors-white

https://www.3dea.co.nz/shop/

https://kiwi3d.co.nz/product/kiwi3d-white-asa-filament/

hope that helps. I would be keen to know if you find cheap source, looks like $35 per spool for ASA in new zealand is the lowest that I can find. Three of the above do that. Its going to be intersting to print them and see what issues come up.

cheers Paul

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[Neuralian Metazoan]

I also missed the original message. Must have gone to spam.

I've had a dual extruder for a while, just got a new Snapmaker J1 (Will sell my Tenlog TL-D3 Pro which is still in good order, when I am convinced that the J1 is better as it seems to be and is reliable, TBC).

Soluble PVA is a nice gimmick but in my experience not worth the trouble unless you need support inside a hollow structure that you can't get at easily.  It can be a problem getting different materials to stick to each other while printing, and not stick when finished.  Often it's possible to get good supports using PLA for PLA and PETG for PETG that break away cleanly.  Sometimes I just suck it up, cut  the support material away then sand and polish the print and re-finish with resin or epoxy.  I bought some PVB but found that prints delaminate easily so started using it as support and discovered accidentally that  PVB sticks well to warm PLA but breaks away easily when cool, so that is a great solution for PLA.

I don't know about UV resistance. Most of what I do is for indoors. But I have 4 year-old PLA clips holding the saddlebags on my bike, which spends a lot of time outdoors, and they are still going strong.  I expect PETG lasts pretty well in the sun, since PET is what soft drink bottles are made of and they seem to last forever in the wilderness.  

I gave up on carbon fibre materials because prints fail by layer separation and in the real world good old PLA is stronger.  It's the same for other "strong" materials. What counts is not the material strength but how well it sticks to itself.  Materials with solid additives like carbon fibre will munt your nozzles.  If you want something really strong print it in PLA  with narrow holes then fill the holes with linen thread coated in expoxy (araldite). This is basically using PLA to create a scaffold for a 'carbon fibre' mesh.   Another trick for strong prints is to think about the forces that will act on it and print in pieces so forces are parallel to not across the layers.   One day soon slicers and printers will be able to do this - do a load analysis and align the print paths with the stress lines (it will require 5-axis motion).

Cura has an insane number of print parameters, not just for supports. In general you want the support to be very flimsy. It only has to be there to hold up a layer or two of the print, then the print should hold itself up.  You can bridge quite large gaps without support. 

Mike Paulin

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