cooper8Low cost continuous fiber 3D printer
Low cost continuous fiber 3D printer #3dprinting #composite #carbonfiber #prototyping
dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️Just for anyone wondering, because I was sure wondering, existing continuous fiber filaments from other brands run upwards of $450 per spool at the moment. Jesus.
Aaaaaaand, I’m out. Seesh that’s insane.
But that's the point, this unit uses separate spools of filament and polymer and then coextrudes them, making it way cheaper. I was trying to hunt down an article about it but can't seem to track it down, but I think they said spools of the fiber are around $50.
"Composite Fiber Coextrusion (CFC) is a proprietary 3D printing technology that embeds continuous fiber strands into melted thermoplastic during extrusion. Unlike chopped fiber or filled filaments, CFC places full-length fibers precisely where strength is needed — layer by layer." - from the kickstarter
Sounds really cool and useful, but wouldn’t we also need non planar slicing and maybe a 4th axis for the full potential?
To your point, there will always be an axis of optimal strength for a layer based 3D print, and layer adhesion is the weakness, but if you full fiber fill the print then the fiber does tie the layers together like a coil.
Multiple interlocking parts with axies along the vector of greatest strain would be the solution with this setup of you are really expecting strong forces from many directions. That said, this printer is also capable of printing with some very strong polymers on top of the fiber, so it seems pretty capable in a lot of scenarios.
Their examples of drone and robot parts are pretty optimal use cases, strength to weight ratio is the bottom line here.