3D Printing

3D Printing: Progression with Wood Filament Material

Back at the end of September, 3DPI reported on a new wood composite filament material for 3D printing. Laywoo-3D has generated a great deal of interest since, but a more recent, compelling development with this material has come from Jeremie Francois who has posted on the betterprinter blog after testing the material on his Ultimaker 3D printer.

Jeremie reports that with a home-made Skeinforge plugin he has found a way to automatically adjust the temperature range for different layers of the build on the 3D printer, which affects the colour of the wood filament and creates a more realistic wood effect in the final part.

New 3d printed wood
Here you can see the difference between a part printed at a constant temperature (top right) and a part printed utilising the plugin (front left & centre).

Currently this development can only be applied in the Z axis, according to Jeremie, which implies he wants to go further and address the other axes. And with an open source ethos, he is also willing for interested parties to beta test the plugin on their own 3D printers.

This is still a work in progress, but fascinating nonetheless, as you can see from the images and Jeremie’s full report on temperature control and testing according to the material vendor’s recommendations — it is not without issues.

Source: Jeremie Francois