Printing Tips for colorFabb copperFill

Thursday, 15. October 2015

Printing Tips for colorFabb copperFill

The new copperFill by colorFabb is a great addition to the other metallic filaments. If the material is polished, a beautiful copper shimmer appears on the surface. The material is about 4x heavier than ordinary PLA.

The Building Board:

The filament can be printed on heated and unheated building boards. For unheated building boards, we recommend Blue Tape be applied to the construction area. CopperFill has far fewer distortions than normal PLA and is, therefore, easier to print.
For heated building boards, we recommend a temperature of about 55-60 °C, for ideal adhesion. 

The Hot-End:

Due to the metal found in the filament, heat conduction is higher than normal PLA. Thus, the hot-end heats up quickly and cools down faster.

Slicer Settings:

The table shows the most common settings for Cura and Maker.

3D printer Layer height (mm) Speed (mm / s) Temperature (° C) Temperature-panel (° C) Retracting distance (mm) Retracting speed (mm / s)

MakerBot Replicator 2

 0.16 / 0.2 80 190-205 n / A (default)

(default)
Ultimaker original 0.2 / 00:27 50 200-210 n / A 4.5

45
Ultimaker 2 0.2 / 00:27 50 195-210 55/60 4.5

25/45

Post processing:

The most popular method used is polishing the model with steel wool.

  1. Use steel wool to polish the surface of the model. Do not exert too much pressure on the model or the same area, as this could cause the area to become warm and soft.
  2. The model appears shiner after the first step. Next, spray black paint on the component. Subsequently, wipe off immediately with a white cloth. A beautiful contrast is attained in hard to reach areas. 
  3. The final step is to polish the component using copper polish. The component is shiny, and a "patina" shimmer appears. 

Here you will find all the metal filaments by colorFabb!

Carbon Filament colorFabb XT-CF20 The New colorFabb nGen Filament

Related products