(Filaments explained)
When you decide to purchase a 3D
printer, one of the first decisions you will have to make is which are the best3D printer filament brands to use. The market is filled with many different
types of filament brands. They also come in numerous colors. If I could just
give you a few examples, we have polylactic acid, polyvinyl alcohol, carbon
fiber, and thermoplastic elastomers. These are very wordy chemical names. Due
to this, they also have acronyms that help to make it easier to mention them.
Such as PLA, ABS, PET, and PETG. However, do not get startled, there are only a
few of those that are commonly used today. Before we dive deeper, let us first
understand what are these filaments and how they work.
What is filament in 3D printing?
Filaments used in 3D printing are
thermoplastics. What does this mean? It means that when they are exposed to
heat or high temperatures, they melt rather than burn. This allows them to be
shaped and molded into various objects of different sizes before they solidify,
on cooling, and form firm items that can be used across the globe for different
purposes. The filament is fed into a heating chamber that is found inside the
3D printer’s extruder assembly. Here, the filament is heated to its melting
point after which it is extruded through a nozzle as the extruder moves in the
3D printing space. The extruder follows a path programmed into a 3D object file
to create, layer by layer, the printed object.
Most 3D printers have a single
extruder. However, this does not mean that there are no 3D printers with dual
extruders which are capable of printing an object in different colors or using
different filament types. Visit https://eu.snapmaker.com/ to find amazing 3D printer filaments
from Snapmaker.