Hello everyone!

So, I don’t have much this time, except for some news and things up-and-coming.

First, I’ve printed a new spool holder (pictures coming soon!) and as I mentioned in my last post, I’m working on building up a new extruder. I’m also planning out my second build – most likely a C-Bot since they scale easy and are solid. I’m caught between that, and a delta. I have a while to decide though because I’m not finding a lot of time to print as I did in the beginning. Work occupies most of that 🙂

I’ll be replacing my J-Head with an E3D soon as, while I LOVE the reliability and sturdiness of the J-Head, I am missing out on being able to print “exotic” materials like nylon, PC, etc. Which brings me to the next topic.

From building up my printer, I quickly discovered that cheaping out on certain things, while totally doable, is definitely not always the way to go. Take for instance electronics and of course linear bearings. I bought a bunch of imported ones that failed quite miserably in a short period of time (possibly due to the soft rods I initially used, but I’m not sure). I’ve read a lot about polymer bushings but was fearful they’d wear out fast. Not the case with Igus’ lineup, though.

For those unfamiliar, Igus makes a ton of various, extremely high quality plastic components – a good portion of those devoted explicitly towards CAD / CNC / printing / linear motion systems. Their Drylin drop-in replacements for common linear bearings like the LM8UU are an easy and recommended upgrade. They’re quiet, strong and best of all, self-lubricating so almost no maintenance is required.

I’ve been trying to keep up to date with all the new happenings in the 3D printing world, but it’s difficult given the size of the communities now. Some chatter pointed me to a new product by Igus called “Tribo filament” – a compound that’s self-lubricating similar to the one used in the mentioned Drylin line and just as tough (up to 40x more wear resistant than ABS). I reached out to their sales department and they put me in touch with a local rep who shipped me a sample of this wonderful filament.

Unfortunately the temp range on the package was a bit higher than on the site (now corrected, at the time, it wasn’t!) – by about 15C, putting it just outside of the range that my J-Head can handle, so I’m putting some cash aside for an E3D soon. I’ve kept the filament in a dry box (it’s sealed anyway, but just to be on the safe side) and away from light. I can’t wait to print something with it. Sheepishly, I think the best thing to try and print is one of their Drylin bushings. Did you know you can also get models for their bushings on their site, too? What a good test – I’ll compare a printed bushing using their filament to one of their actual retail bushings in my machine.

So, sorry, Igus – I’ll get to printing with your filament lickety split! I’m a bit of a turtle when it comes to things outside of work, heh.

The data sheets, order forms – even the package they sent it in was designed nicely! Again – if you’re building a printer and debating about putting Igus bushings in your machine – don’t. Invest the little bit extra and get them – you’ll be glad you did!

-E