3DXTECH Filaments
Open Source 3D printing filament for all desktop printers. Try Carbon Fiber, ESD-Safe, and Glass Fiber materials manufactured in the United States by 3DXTECH.
3DXTECH FilamentsESD properties as a function of extruder temperature
3DXTech® is the leading supplier of ESD-Safe materials in the 3D printing market. We have developed the broadest portfolio of ESD-Safe materials – ranging from PLA up to PEKK. As such, we perform a great deal of testing on our materials on many different printers to understand how these materials print as well as how best to optimize the print settings to achieve parts to meet your specific needs.
Background: Prior to starting 3DX, I worked for several large resin suppliers (Solvay, DSM, Bayer) for over 20 years developing numerous materials and applications – including many that required ESD properties. We worked with the customer to create, optimize, and trouble shoot the processing of our materials. We found that the processing temperature of these materials (i.e., melt temp, mold temp) had a significant effect on the surface resistance of the molded part. The processing parameters of every part had to be optimized for a given material, part geometry, and tooling combination. Altering any of these would result in different surface resistance readings, but those related to temperature were critical.
Problem Investigated: We created a wide array of ESD-safe materials that are suitable to be printed on a variety of printers. As such, we offer general processing guidelines for our materials and consider these as “good starting points” for creating a print profile that works for your specific material/printer/part combination. We often get calls from customers indicating that they tried one of our ESD-Safe materials and the surface resistance was too high or too low and the part failed their testing. Knowing that melt temperature has a significant effect on these materials, we wanted to perform a study to underscore this temp/conductivity effect and create processing tips to be used by our customers to improve their printing experience.
Study Performed: We varied the extruder temperature throughout the range of recommended extruder settings to determine the effect of extruder temperature on surface resistance of a printed specimen.
Key learnings and tips for improved surface resistance on printed parts:
Test Results of 3DXSTAT™ ESD-Safe 3D Filaments
Each data point (“X”) is an average of 3 tests at a given extruder temperature.