I've been thinking about something some here might find interesting. I was watching a YouTube today about "cursed" filaments, and conceptually, one could make an aquascaping filament using relatively simple techniques and readily available materials.
Of the cursed materials, one used "a foaming agent" that would create porous shapes. Others mixed in powdered materials like sawdust, beef jerky, or carbon fiber for strength.
The foaming agent is nothing special, it's just baking soda. For an aquascaping material, I'd want something porous, so seems logical to use that. I'd want to mix in something like aragonite or Marco rock powder for the strengthening additive. The basis would be a reef safe thermoplastic like PET-G.
I've got work in figuring out a lot of details but the process I'm envisioning goes something like this:
1. Use a TBD mesh sieve to remove large particles of Marco Rock Powder so it all fits through the extruder. I'm guessing this is somewhere below half the diameter of the nozzle so something around 0.8 mm.
2. Mix XX% PET-G Pellets, YY% Sieved Marco Rock Powder, and ZZ% Baking Soda by weight until homogeneous. Add any coloring additives here.
3. Add mixture to the hopper of a pellet extruder and extrude filament at the low end of the temp range to not activate the baking soda.
4. Print at the higher end of the temp range to get as porous of prints as possible.
There are obviously a lot of variables to figure out and I don't currently have the equipment to test, but with enough interest (and time) I might pursue it. First step would be to design and build a pellet fed filament extruder.
Interested in your thoughts, suggestions, what you'd make with it and even volunteers to help make and test if you have the equipment handy.
Thanks in advance!
Of the cursed materials, one used "a foaming agent" that would create porous shapes. Others mixed in powdered materials like sawdust, beef jerky, or carbon fiber for strength.
The foaming agent is nothing special, it's just baking soda. For an aquascaping material, I'd want something porous, so seems logical to use that. I'd want to mix in something like aragonite or Marco rock powder for the strengthening additive. The basis would be a reef safe thermoplastic like PET-G.
I've got work in figuring out a lot of details but the process I'm envisioning goes something like this:
1. Use a TBD mesh sieve to remove large particles of Marco Rock Powder so it all fits through the extruder. I'm guessing this is somewhere below half the diameter of the nozzle so something around 0.8 mm.
2. Mix XX% PET-G Pellets, YY% Sieved Marco Rock Powder, and ZZ% Baking Soda by weight until homogeneous. Add any coloring additives here.
3. Add mixture to the hopper of a pellet extruder and extrude filament at the low end of the temp range to not activate the baking soda.
4. Print at the higher end of the temp range to get as porous of prints as possible.
There are obviously a lot of variables to figure out and I don't currently have the equipment to test, but with enough interest (and time) I might pursue it. First step would be to design and build a pellet fed filament extruder.
Interested in your thoughts, suggestions, what you'd make with it and even volunteers to help make and test if you have the equipment handy.
Thanks in advance!
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