7 Specialty Filaments that Will Revolutionize Your 3D Printing

In this video, we'll learn about the material characteristics of each filament, the strengths and weaknesses of printing with it, its printability on consumer-grade 3D printers, and how it compares to other filaments. Then once we understand those elements of each filament, we'll look at some of the ideal use scenarios and examples so that you have a better understanding of exactly what you can and should be printing with each of these filaments.

So whether you're a relative beginner or a veteran 3D printing enthusiast, I can guarantee that you'll discover something new.

🎥 IN THIS VIDEO: 🎥
00:00 Introduction
01:33 Polyether Block Amide or PEBA
06:41 Polycarbonate Carbon Fiber or PC-CF
10:33 Thermoplastic Elastomer or TPE & Chinchilla
16:02 Polyvinyl Butyral or PVB
19:20 PolyPropylene or PP
22:35 Co-Polyester or CPE (HG100)
25:40 NonOilen
29:09 Conclusion

🔗 LINKS MENTIONED IN THE VIDEO: 🔗

🛒 RECOMMENDED GEAR: 🛒

❤️ LOVED THIS VIDEO? ❤️
▶️ Subscribe to the channel
🔔 Turn on Notifications
🎁 Send a "Super Thanks" (Tip)
✍️ Write a comment below!
👍🏿 Like this video

#3dprinting #3dprinted #3dprinter

[thenextlayer]

HEY there! Thanks for watching this video. I read every comment... so leave one!

[condorman]

Lots of great content here, but it seemed like there was a LOT of padding and repeated info.

[moseboy]

I love the idea of 3-d printed footwear. Both videos I've seen on youtube went through a single prototype and had mixed results as you'd expect. The design definitely seems to be the hard part. You'll probably want to plan on multiple prints and budget enough printer time so that you're not in a rush to attend a conference/go on vacation/get a video out the door.

[TTS-TP]

Chinchilla is great for making buttstock pads. Anyone that does 2A 3D printing, it's nice to have a sample to make the occasional buttstock cushion

[chatroux]

I use a lot of CPE from fiberlogy, it is food safe, high heat resistance around 110° and easy to print.
It's like a soft PC. I love this one.

For the PP use PP tape with no heat bed, it's cheap and so efficient.

Good video.

[alexanderkhalilieh]

PCCF and ezPCCF also do very very well when used for 3D printer toolheads. High rigidity and low weight gives some great input shaping graphs. Not to mention the added benefit of basically never being able to melt your toolhead+ducts

[zeke]

I bought a roll of Prusament PCCF. Had it over a year before I found anything worthwhile using it for. Made a splash guard for my buddy's electric bike. Probably could've used ASA or even CF PLA but he was paying for it and it will be taking impacts from rocks etc when off roading. I figured I should test out and see if my Bambu P1S could handle it *easily* after changing to hardened parts. To my surprise, I tweaked a couple PC settings on the generic PC profile and it printed like a DREAM.

[benbhp]

Good video, though I think the constant asking for comments is a little annoying. I get that you want engagement but I think asking after literally every filament is a bit much

[darrengravitt]

Thank you for these types of videos. Being new to 3D printing, I love learning about all the different types of filaments and what all they can be used for. You have become one of my favorite YouTubers for presenting content about 3D printers. Keep it up.
Glad you and your family are safe. Best wishes in 2024.

[craigrogers]

I have printed with Prusament PVB and it prints great with no discernible smell. I also have a Polysher for smoothing it with IPA vapor. The Polysher works pretty well but has issues getting to all the surfaces leaving some areas with layer lines. I also found the vase mode PVB prints take almost a week to dry out and become as firm as they were after printing.

[no-page]

I appreciate the work you put into these videos, but I offer some constructive criticism to make them more interesting for me to watch (i.e., these are just my opinions).

1. Your title is deceptive as you did not print all of these filaments. (Okay, you fixed this one already.)

2. Good videos are more “show” than “tell.” You use a too-high percentage of irrelevant and borderline deceptive stock footage. You also play the same b-roll clips over and over; I would rather watch a talking head than b-roll of you spraying alcohol on a PVB vase a half dozen times. Thank you for the kittens, though. I want to see more things that you print, not a half-finished 3DBenchy, and it is not at all clear if the watch strap you showed was yours or stock footage. Please show footage of 3D printed items rather than injection molded mass-produced parts. Yes, filament is expensive, but many manufacturers offer free or inexpensive samples, especially to YouTubers.

3. As you are largely talking about products you have zero or little practical experience with, do more research. Bad information is worse than none. For example, you said that NonOilen was the only food safe filament (you did admit you found another), but you ignored colorFabb nGen, Tauman t-glase, Filament.ca TRUE Food Safe PLA and PETG, and quite a few others. Food safe filament is not uncommon. Another example is that polypropylene will not stick to blue tape as you showed, but common polypropylene packing tape works well.

4.Reduce redundancy. You have a template for discussing filaments consistently, which is good, but you mention some things repeatedly without benefit. One example is when you mention moisture absorption for a filament multiple times. Once is plenty. And I could not count the number of times that you said that TPU is stretchy, same for TPE and PEBA.

Overall, tightening up your script to about 15 minutes would make this video more watchable (and less work for you searching for stock footage).

I hope you find this helpful, I want your channel to do well.

[phoenixcraft]

Thanks for making these awesome videos! You are a great help and please keep creating videos like this

[FreedomToRoam]

Great info on these special-use filaments. I like the idea of the flexible filaments for inside of phone cases.

[railerswim]

Hey hope all is well for you and your family given the situation in your neck of the woods!

[zviratko]

@thenextlayer please try not to fall for manufacturer's marketing BS.
1) CPE is the same non-term as "PLA+". It means nothing. At most it just means "blend". Commonly CPE is PETG+something, but like with PLA+, it could be simply as good (or bad) as any other ordinary PETG, but calling it "CPE" gives it more credibility. What matters is the datasheet (assuming it doesn't lie).
2) NonOilen is PHB (=PHA?), so nothing special. For example Colorfabb PLA-HP is the same thing. But I get it, calling it NonOilen sounds cool and I keep it in stock for various prints because that marketing made me buy it over other PHA/PHB filaments in the past. Also I wonder why it didn't stick to the bed for you, I have trouble getting it of and need to use glue stick as a separation layer. It ruined part of my black Textured PEI sheet from Bambu as I had to literally scrape it off...
3) Food safe filaments are plentiful. Again - making it sound important is mostly marketing BS. If you really care about food safety then you need to make the "product" food safe, and that's not (just) about using food safe materials. I would guess that most filaments out there coming from better manufacturers are food safe, but it really means very little. Btw PP shoud be more food safe in practice as it should be less porous and more likely to produce watertight parts etc.
4) Polypropylene is actually not that bad when it comes to printing. It doesn't warp, so as long as the first layer sticks and isn't too narrow then you are fine. Magigoo PP works great of course. If you want a challenging filament, try Fillamentum Flexfill TPE 90A (Sky Blue is what I have). It sticks to nothing and warps like crazy.

Full disclosure - I actually like Fillamentum CPE HG100 a lot, but please don't talk about CPE in general as if it meant something. And I also like NonOilen, though it's just too expensive, probably because of marketing costs :P I also have my doubts about biodegradability... If manufacturers truly cared about the environment they would buy (or at least take) back filament and failed prints from public to recycle.

[AdamsGarageLife]

Hey I've been in a 3D printing rabbit hole with your stuff. Not sure if it was a recent video or not where you had to leave your home but super happy to see it looks like you're back home safe and sound

[DIMARADOVEDITZ]

thank you for your hard work in making these videos and helping us out

[Lulzigi]

I finally got a 3D scanner, so I'd love to see a video on making footwear! Especially considering i have some of those orthopedic insoles

[DunRiteCreations]

*UPDATE*

Received a roll of PC-CF in the mail yesterday and my god am I in love with this stuff! Prints easy on my P1Ss, amazing mechanical properties, and that finish looks absolutely beautiful. Did a Benchy to torture test with a hammer and torch compared to a PETG and PLA one, and doing some motorcycle helmet comms mounts out of it right now and they look top notch

[mitchstilborn]

Great video, another great entry in your series. FYI it’s my understanding PP is food safe as well.

Idea for another entry this series is a similar type of rundown of “all” the food safe / contact safe filaments, compare and contrast, and more specifics about what is needed to make each “food safe” material create actually food safe objects.

Again great work, keep it up. Congrats