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Hi people,

I am doing my bachelors thesis at the moment. It is an investigation of the 3D printing materials market.

I was wondering what you think about the filaments that are currently available and what future improvments/inventions you would wish. Are their any features you are waiting for to emerge?

I would highly appreciate your support!

Thanks

Tramy

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Hey Tramy,

Many filament manufacturers actually use our platform. @AlexDick from Proto - Pasta may be able answer some of your questions in more detail then I can.

As for me, I think a large portion of the progress of 3D printing is going to be found on the materials side. The new wave non-traditional filaments outside of PLA and ABS is really exciting. For example, this hub uses a colorfabb silver filament that polishes way better than your normal PLA or ABS. Makerbot’s big announcement at CES this year was also 3 different filaments. There isn’t really a ‘holy grail’ of hot ends that makes printing different materials easier, although a lot of experimenting is being done. In short, materials are getting interesting.

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Thanks for your contribution @Alex3DHubs

The materials from Proto - Pasta look amazing. Do you personally think that in the future people will value filaments that are different than pure plastic (like metal, glas, porcelain,…) more or would they prefer renewable and biosbased filaments?

What I experienced until now is that there is on one hand the group of people who like this technology and the idea that 3D printing could revolutionalize the industry with a more sustainable manufacturing technique. On the other hand there is a group of people who like 3D printing, because it is creative and enables them to play with designs and make personalized objects.

I couldn’t tell which group will form the major future demand on the materials market. What do you think?

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Hey @Tramy,

Hmm. I think we’ll see a few come out on top. PLA has a pretty solid foothold, largely because its very cheap, not inherently because its a bioplastic. I can’t say whats next, the industry is very much in its infancy. Cost is always a factor, if somebody can figure out how to produce a metal filament that is reliable and cost effective, that would be big. The thing to keep in mind, based upon current methods, these alternative filaments are not pure, but rather a mix of the material and then pla. You lose some of the important qualities of the material, such as as tensile strength with metal, when this sort of mixing happens. You can check out this recent reddit ama from a group of material scientists at Virginia Techa for more info.

I don’t believe the two groups of people are mutually exclusive. I would say both, but leaning more on the engineering side. They happen to, typically, have more money and making products and or machines before prototyping is very expensive. If 3D printing can be utilized more as an end product and less of a medium, we’ll see a lot more growth. You’re already seeing that happening more and more with aerospace and other industries that requires highly specialized parts that are costly to machine for.

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@Tramy @Alex3DHubs The market is still very immature and full of creativity. Folks are looking for a variety of ways to experiment and express themselves using 3D Printing. For a given material, there has to be some interesting and relevant applications!