We are far beyond the heyday of the RepRap project, and the Hackaday prompt line has not seen multiple Kickstarters for 3D printers every week. In a sense, this is a bit of a loss. The rapid development of low-cost 3D printers in the first half of this decade will never be matched. From now on we will only see incremental improvements, not the first Prusa, the first Printrbot and even the Makerbot Replicator.
This does not mean that everything is standardized. There is still enough room to argue about delta vs. Descartes, the bed moving on the Y axis and moving along the Z, and many other details that make current printers so diverse. One of these small parameters is particularly interesting: the diameter of the filament. Today, you can get any type of plastic you want, any color, and two sizes: 1.75 and 3 mm. If you think about it, it's weird. Why did filament manufacturers, hot end manufacturers and even printer manufacturers decide to support two different types of the same consumables? The answer is a mix of historical choices, engineering trade-offs, and absolutely arbitrary results from the actual operation of the 3D printer.
Although filament-based 3D printers have been around for 20 years, these machines are very expensive and are usually hidden in the engineering departments of large companies and universities. Until [Adrian Bowyer] started the RepRap project, the era of self-made hot ends has just begun.
By any modern measure, these hot ends are terrible. The thermoplastic extruder is made of nickel-chromium alloy wire, JB Weld, Blu-tack, PTFE rod, copper pipe and M6 brass stud. Compared with E3D V6-the all-metal hot end has a heater cartridge, reasonable thermal design and replaceable nozzles. What is surprising is that the first hot end can work normally.
Five years of development: [Adrian Bowyer]'s Thermoplastic Extruder 2.0 (left) and e3D V6 (right) Source: 1, 2. 3mm filament standard. The first thermoplastic extruder was designed to accept 3 mm filaments, as confirmed by the first RepRap wiki page for filament suppliers. Everything is 3 mm, and the price of Makerbot's filament has doubled in five years. No surprises here. 3mm filament was the standard until 2011, when 1.75mm appeared and began to take over.
Wade's gear extruder [Image source] The earliest home 3D printers almost exclusively used gear extruders to push filaments over heated nozzles. These gear extruders, such as Wade’s gear extruders, are essentially a reduction drive. By using a 1.75 mm filament, the torque required by the stepper motor is three times smaller than that of a 3 mm filament. The reduction in torque means that a smaller direct drive system can be used, and because the drive system is smaller, the inertia of the entire print shaft is also reduced. This means that smaller and faster printers can also print better at low layer heights.
There is another advantage of using 1.75 mm filament-printing speed. Quality with less heating always takes less time. If your goal is to print as fast as possible, you have two options: increase the power dumped to the hot end, or reduce the size of the filament.
This is not to say that 3mm filaments have no advantages. If you are printing with a large nozzle or a high feed rate, you will need a larger filament. When you consider something crazy like PartDaddy, even the largest filament is impossible; by then, you will turn to pellet extruders. However, if you are using the Bowden setting, the bending resistance of a 3 mm filament will be slightly less.
The difference between 1.75 and 3 mm filaments is just an engineering trade-off—none is better, but each has some advantages.
Despite some adherents like Lulzbot, the entire 3D printing industry seems to have chosen 1.75 mm filament. The new Printrbots are only 1.75mm, while Makerbots use 1.75mm filaments. The Dremel Idea Builder 3D printer (available at Lowes and Home Depot) uses 1.75 mm filament. If you find that you need to purchase consumables within the next hour, you better hope that your machine uses 1.75 mm consumables.
For a well-designed printer, there is not much difference between 1.75 and 3 mm filaments. A properly adjusted printer can use filaments of any size to produce parts of similar quality. If this is the case, then the market will definitely standardize one type of filament or the other, right?
This seemingly obvious consequence is not so. In conversations with some filament manufacturers and distributors, the sales of 1.75 and 3mm filaments are roughly the same. For some reason, the entire community has established two different standards.
Although there is this completely arbitrary evolution of printer filaments of two different sizes, it is not really important. The engineering choice of designing a printer to handle any kind of filament is very simple, and most people keep enough filament on hand so they don't have to rush to the store within 12 hours to print for 16 hours. However, it is interesting to see how we develop two completely different standards for what should be just one thing.
Have you ever encountered 2.85 mm? Used by printers such as ultimaker.
3mm is usually around 2.8mm to 3.1mm. Anyway, there is no precise 3mm filament
In fact, the "3mm" specification is 2.85 +- 0.05 (usually). At least, this is how we supply it, as are most other major 3mm suppliers.
The main reason we still use 3mm at Ultimaker is tradition. We start from 3mm like everyone else. Before we knew it, the company's development was so smooth that it was not feasible to switch to 1.75 mm when it started to gain traction. At the beginning of the 1.75mm filament, 1.75mm is much more expensive than 3mm.
(I think we are now the main supplier of 3mm printers. Sorry. Hope we all use the same things, it will be easier)
Nice to see you on Hackaday Daid!
I have the original upgrade with a hot end...still love it
I don’t think there is a problem with these two different sizes. As you mentioned, they have their own advantages. I see (probably) put more space above and below these two sizes. For the same reason, Each size has its advantages. For example, you can buy oil of various viscosities and various containers (ie liters, gallons, barrels, oil tanks), but one size is not suitable for everyone.
The "3mm standard" has been split into the 2.85mm camp (mainly Ultimaker and Airwolf) and the 3.00mm camp (generally direct drive).
3 mm poses some challenges for small capacity spools: as the diameter of the spool becomes smaller, the curvature of the thicker wire spool relative to the diameter of the wire is greater-this may cause problems with feeding the wire and feeding the wire into the printer.
Perhaps we should be surprised that there are only two filament sizes in review use.
I think many "3mm" filaments are actually 2.85mm in diameter. This is just shorthand. However, one possible advantage of 3mm filaments is that for flexible filaments, it has fewer feeding problems because it is stiffer. This is especially true in the Bowden system (as far as I know... I have no direct experience).
Well, the 3mm heavy bomb I used in the 2.85mm ultimaker is clogged. The 3mm abs that I use is a very good consistent filament.
I can buy the specific 2.85 mm from the supplier.
When I designed and manufactured my 3D printer, I chose 3mm to be able to share the filament with my girlfriend's printer. To make my hot end, I purchased a part designed for 1.75 mm and replaced the M6 stainless steel insulator with an M6 fixing screw, which was drilled to 1/8 inch (3.175 mm), which was the only necessary change. My printer uses Bowden tubes, so I think it would be better to use a 3mm filament anyway. I noticed that some local shops have stopped their stock of 3mm filaments, which is very inconvenient for owners of 3mm printers, but I don’t think the conversion will be too difficult.
At first, I thought that these two sizes might be the result of a metric conversion, but 1.75, 2.85, 3, and 3.1 mm are almost the same as some common fractions of an inch. But, conversely, 1/8" will become 3.175 mm, which can only draw conclusions that involve both ancient aliens and government conspiracies.
The standard of about 3 mm exists because this is the diameter of the filament in the industrial plastic welding rod spool used by the first batch of RepRap experimenters. It is not specifically used for 3D printing.
The 1.75mm standard is the same size that Stratasys commercial FDM machines have been using for decades. Presumably, they somehow determined that this was the correct size used in their machine.
In addition, only the United States has the problem of converting all content into outdated "customary units" used as standards by only about 6 countries in the world. (Half of them are subject to US trade sanctions)
The rest of us try to stay in decimal measurements based on the fundamental and observable constants of the universe, rather than our distal limb tyvm.
Yes, the distance that light travels in 1/299,792,458 seconds is of course not arbitrary. Or the time it takes for the cesium atom to oscillate 9,192,631,770 times.
The advantage of the current arbitrary metric system is that we can blame the French for anything that goes wrong, which is a common pastime in the UK. :)
What happens every time a leak occurs in New Orleans? Some crazy French people think that mud flats a few inches at high tide are a good place to build a city.
I refuse to argue with the British about the metric system and how we don’t use it in the United States.
Instead, I would rather invite them to the bar to drink 568 milliliters, and then talk about how many stones our weight has and how many miles per British gallon our car can drive.
This is probably my favorite comment I have read on HaD.
The first definition of a meter is one millionth of the earth's meridian. It took years to measure, no one can say that this is arbitrary. Anyone can see it and copy it. If you think about it, this is actually a good idea.
It turns out that observing the distance traveled by cesium and light in a vacuum is easier than going to Paris to make an exact copy of a platinum rod.
As for the American system, what is your excuse? It is so dated and illogical, I don't know where to start. One foot equals 12 inches? One yard and three feet? How much can be counted? ounce? lb? Fluid ounces? gallon? Wait, America or Empire? I mean, to what extreme are you willing to defend your unhealthy conservatism? Even the British gave up this nonsense. Are you still a colony, frozen in the 18th century?
Our "excuse" is that the education system cannot/will not even teach human reproduction or evolution because of fear that the South will rise again. (They are close to adding things like gravity to the list.) Do you think anyone even wants to change the subject of our measurement system across the board? They will be able to see the damn smoke from the tracks!
So, until common sense returns to these lands (hahaha, yes.) wise people will be forced to use wise units in secret, while people around them continue to measure things with barley or other things.
Well, the halves, thirds, sixths, etc. are easily generated on a line or a circle using a simple compass, and can be used to recreate the original yard with a pendulum and observing the stars in one or two clear nights. Better accuracy within 1%. E.g. It is not completely brain dead.
Well, Jimmy Carter tried to restore the metric system in the 70s-but it didn't work well.
One-tenth of a millionth. My fault.
But the resulting volume is definitely more predictable.
You're right. There is absolutely no arbitrariness in any of these numbers. They are based on universally observable and experimentally repeatable material properties, which are the foundation of physics. This is the whole benefit-the repeatability of our measurement unit depends entirely on the accuracy of our observations of consistent physical phenomena. As our observation accuracy improves, we will only become more and more certain of the repeatability of these units.
Unless someone shows up and almost completely changes our physical system, these units are stable.
By further changing the basic unit, things can be made more reasonable. We can formulate a decimal time standard so that cesium oscillates once every "Cecond", and the time equivalent to one second is approximately GigaCecond.
The meter is defined by the emission wavelength of an ordinary atom, so it is not used to define its travel distance (now the speed of light is a fixed constant in the metric system, so even if it is a function, it has nothing to do with the definition)
To be honest, let’s compare how they are derived; length: customary unit; 1 yard = 0.9144 m (based on meters since 1893) SI unit ("metric"); 1 m = 1,579,800.762042 wavelength HeNe laser in vacuum middle.
Popular customary unit; 1 (avoirdupois) pound = 453.59237 grams of SI unit ("metric"); 1 gram = 1/1000 of the prototype kilogram. It is recommended to be replaced by a Watt balance developed in the United States. The Watt balance will define the kilogram based on the Planck constant. This will become "fixed"
The customary unit of time; 1 Emperor second = 1 SI second SI unit ("metric"); 1 second = 9192631770 Cesium 133 radiation period
The customary unit of temperature; 1 degree Fahrenheit = 1/180 the interval between freezing and boiling of water at standard atmospheric pressure (ie 101325 kg/ms^2, or Pascals) SI unit ("metric"); 1 Kelvin = 1/273.16 of water Phase point
The list continues, but basically American customary units are just an inefficient abstraction layer of SI units, and according to a number of federal laws, metric units are the preferred standard in the United States (Integrated Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988, etc.)
The only way that a distant civilization can recreate American units is to 1) create SI units based on (except mass) universal and observable constants 2) apply arbitrarily defined multiples to them and divide them by numbers that are not base 10, thereby reducing them Mathematical utility
TL;DR US customary units are defined by arbitrary definitions, the key is that they are achievable throughout the universe*
Except for kilograms. Currently…
@AussieLauren: One gram used to be "the absolute weight of pure water with a volume equal to one hundredth of a meter at the temperature of melting ice" (Wikipedia). So maybe it's not that difficult to rebuild: after all, there is water on Mars!
Remember, if we use light, one foot is almost (but not exactly) the distance light travels in 1 nanosecond. Annoying closure. 11.8 inches. 29.98 cm. Just to add a little confusion. Also, where do things like seconds come in? Why is our measurement unit still based on 12 bases?
Knowing that the circle has 360 degrees or *wheeze* 2PI radians, how do you sleep at night with the decimal point?
Ask the Maya... Having said that, the "gradient" (symbol "gon") was invented as part of the metric system (but out of favor), with a gradient of 100 right angles.
There is a mistake in this article-the thinner filament prints faster because of its surface area/volume ratio, not because of "smaller mass." The extrusion speed is measured in mm^3/min.
The 3.00mm/2.85mm is just the difference in name. Most parts used in 3mm extruders and Bowden systems (pipes, accessories) have a nominal size of 3mm, so if you buy 3.0 +-0.1 filament, it may get stuck. To avoid problems, the 3.0 mm filament size is too small to allow a safety margin.
Of course, sometimes you will encounter someone with no 3D printing experience asking the extrusion shop to run the actual 3.00 mm filament, and then you start to experience problems.
The 1.75mm filament does not have this problem because it uses a metric 2.00mm connector and tube.
Hush those inexperienced people. Glad they were sorted out by poorly conceived and deceptive conventions!
I want to say the same thing. Damn it! This actually means that the thinner filament melts faster and the distance to the core wire from the outside is shorter. If you use any material to print at the same speed, the amount of extruded plastic must be the same, otherwise the wall will be thinner.
I also think that reducing the core depth is helpful. Easier to squeeze out also helps. If you are talking about mounting the motor on the bracket instead of the Bowden setting, it can also reduce the weight of the bracket, which requires a lighter motor.
It seems that there are relatively few machines that fully use 3mm instead of the nominal (~2.85mm).
After talking with people who sell materials and parts, I got the impression that recent sales of hot ends and filaments are biased towards 1.75 mm. I don’t remember some specific sellers, and I probably shouldn’t name them anyway. I think the numbers range from 2:1 to 10:1, which is in favor of 1.75mm.
If your printer can handle it, 1.75 mm is usually a better choice. Less force is required to extrude it, less unnecessary force is applied to the extrusion head due to the stiffness of the filament, and there are fewer problems when the end of the roll is used up due to the very tight roll.
Oh, and there is a conceptual error in this article. If your printing requires a large amount of material to be deposited quickly, you usually want to use a material with a smaller diameter. The bottleneck is never getting enough material to enter the head quickly... but to allow the material to melt quickly enough as it passes through the head. Your extruder drive can push the filament into the head faster than it can melt and move away. Thinner filaments have a smaller volume relative to the surface area of the extrusion chamber and have advantages in terms of melting rate.
* I would say that historically, 3 mm may be a better choice-first because it is cheaper (more easily within tolerance), and second because a given absolute change in diameter means a percentage change in volume Smaller, so 3mm is a terrible filament will be more reliable than the crappy 1.75.
Now that an extensive supply chain has been established, the two types of filaments cost the same, and the tolerances should be there, so the only reason I can think of using 3 mm is if you have a Bowden setup.
Unless you want to print with flexible fillers. Then 3mm is much better.
3 mm doesn't have to be that strict, but as long as you have a tightly fitting catheter, a 1.75 mm flexible filament can print well. There must not be too much gap between the hob and the guide leading to the hot end. I used a PTFE sleeve and shaped it close to the drive pulley. With this small improvement, I can print very well, even with a lot of retraction on the 1.75mm flex without penalty.
I think Adrian originally proposed the 3mm standard, you have to ask him why, but when we print at 8mm/sec, it seems to work very well.
I tried to make my extruder print faster and spent some time measuring the force that various extruders might exert on the filament. My final version reached 15 kg on 3 mm filament; details are on the old wiki page: http://reprap.org/wiki/Geared_Nema17_Extruder_V0.5
The pressure of the extrusion head is about 3000 psi; this is a lot of pressure. Reducing the filament size to 1.75 mm gives you the same nozzle pressure and 1/3 of the extruder force, so you can use a smaller and lighter stepper/gear combination. In addition, you can get 3 times the extrusion resolution, which is a problem when we use a direct drive extruder.
Glad to see that old extruder on Hackaday, thanks to Brian for shouting!
Due to availability, I also think that the 3mm size is "chosen"; you can buy 3mm plastic welding rods. (If you sign a service contract with Stratasys, you can also buy their filament; only 1/10 of the cost of gold) On the other hand, I remember that 1.75mm is driven by "famous" players like makerbot, who Organized their own filament extrusions in an attempt to reduce the number of parts.
Does this match other people's memories?
I kind of hope you can divide this article into two separate articles. You start talking about extruders, then suddenly you dive into it and end with filament size. It's great to see the 3D printing series discussing how each specific part of the 3D printer has evolved over the years, the advantages and declines it brings. Now, a large part of it can be found in the (decentralized) RepRap wiki and random forums. It is difficult to say what is what, what is effective, and what is the new frontier.
I am very interested in upgrading (or even just replacing) my old school Makergear Prusa. When I got it, it was a top-of-the-line kit, but a lot of changes have taken place in the past few years, and it's almost worthless in comparison. At the time, there were only a few choices (mainly Makerbot's weird conveyor belt printer, UP's first printer, Makergear's printer, and some weird Ebay kits). There are endless printers, and unless you have been working hard in the forums for the past five years, you can’t tell which way is up.
These days, your kids bring your favorite nichrome wire. Why in my time, we use 5 ohm 5 watt resistors (especially 805F5R0E), we are lucky to have them! Leave my lawn now!
5 watts? That must be too slow! Now most extruder heaters are more like 40 watts...
5W means that when it is used as a resistor instead of a heater, it will not catch fire when cooled with ambient air under standard conditions. If you connect a radiator (extruder) and don’t mind 200+°C, you can push more power, more...
Don't draw your own conclusions without evidence. 3mm sales are likely to only apply to traditional machines. Just because sales are comparable to 1.75 mm, it does not mean that the new machine uses 3 mm.
Due to technical reasons, we are lucky that there are only two types. Otherwise we will have about 563, because each manufacturer has to make a product that is not compatible with other manufacturers' products.
We do not have 563 different filaments because the cost of establishing high-quality extrusion lines is high, which is why all manufacturers supply to different distributors. (I think there are about 15 actual filament producers in the world, the rest are just for resale)
Don't worry, tomorrow HP or Dell will launch a faster printer, their future and exclusive 0,2 filament (this is an example). Now everyone just ran to occupy their land.
We use 1mm filament on Ultimaker (small experiment). The problem is that it does not provide much more than 1.75 mm, but it is more difficult to produce, and it is more difficult to make a suitable feeder.
You can wind it around a small radius, so that you can make a very cute filament roll.
Stratasys Mojo uses 1.3 mm filament. But in any case, it is a sealed, chip-based system. The spool bag even includes its own disposable hot end.
This sounds important, but if you have a RepRap, it's not.
I bought E3D clone hotends from Aliexpress, each priced at about $8. I have 1.75mm and 3mm equipment available, and it only cost me about $14/size (extra nozzle for all sizes).
This means that I can track eBay for those who convert from 3mm and get very cheap and high-quality filament transactions. I just bought 2 kg of 3mm black ABS for $20, including shipping. It prints well.
When I switched, I wanted to sell my old filament for 3mm, and then I found that buying a 3mm extruder is cheaper than shipping old spools.
I'm pretty sure that the average sales between 1.75mm and 3mm is because those in our 3mm team are stocking it as much as possible because we expect it to be discontinued, haha
We at Ultimaker will definitely ship in the next few years. Since we are still selling 3mm printers, we have no plans to stop selling UM2. (Never even talked about the end of life)
So you can always get something from us. I know this is not the cheapest option. But we are big enough to guarantee availability. And I think Colorfabb will also keep their 3mm production running to see how many Ultimakers they use for testing.
Don't forget that 3 mm filaments can be produced faster with controlled thickness compared to 1.75 mm. This makes the manufacturer's cost lower.
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