“Designed and manufactured by MarkForged, the Mark One can print to a maximum size of 305 x 160 x 160 mm (12 x 6.25 x 6.25 in). In addition to CF, it can also print in fiberglass, nylon and polylactic acid (PLA) – although it only prints one material at a time through its dual extrusion print head.”
http://www.gizmag.com/markforged-mark-one-carbon-fiber-3d-printer/30642/
Its doesn’t print carbon fibre. It prints reinforced plastic with carbon fibre.
Carbon fibre need direction layering no air bubbles and compressing to be strong…this does non of these.
@Nigel_Dickinson they do claim that their filament uses continuous fiber strands instead of shredded fiber, and the (somewhat un-specific) test results on his page http://markforged.com seem to support that.
I agree that for FFF processing, the filament needs to have a higher than usual polymer content and it will likely not unilaterally be as strong as a conventional carbon part, but it does look promising overall.
@Thomas_Sanladerer , so do they cut the filament at the nozzle whenever they stop extruding?
@Thomas_Sanladerer its not carbon fibre as the public think to say its misleading would be an understatement.
So do you get a free auto clave with the printer…
And if you could print strong carbon fibre this way dont you thing McLaren or Ferrari would do it for their road cars.
Like I says utter false claims.
Protopasta, a Canadian Kickstarter company offered , among others, a filament where finely chopped carbon fiber is mixed into the filament plastic. It does stiffen printed objects. Their site has results of standard strength tests. Deliversd in a few weeks.
@Kenneth_Cummings you could put chopped straw in plastic and that would alter its strength and flexibility.
Of course you could just use multi print heads with different materials to do the same thing…or if you need carbon fibre buy sheets and laminate a part properly.
@Eric_Moy that is actually a pretty good point.
@Nigel_Dickinson carbon composites can perform without being treated in an autoclave, which cures the Epoxy resin that acts as a filler and composite partner for the carbon fiber. When using thermoplasts instead of duroplasts, the hot and molten polymer is injected into the carbon wave, which results in a “true” carbon fiber part that only needs to cool before being usable.
But I agree, printed carbon parts will generally not outperform traditionally molded ones.
@Thomas_Sanladerer only thing is independent tests on these product often show more flexabilabity at the cost of strength. Now if they add carbon fibre/ kevlar layering I might be interested. But they dont seem to have their own slicer to layer correctly.
Says to me its still chopped strand.
And theres a product called fibreglass that is cheaper and would do the job with better results.