Interesting, little bit expensive but for a 3D printing business seems like a good

3D Printing
,
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Interesting, little bit expensive but for a 3D printing business seems like a good add on tohave
http://www.polymaker.com/shop/polysmoothpolysher/

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Can’t you already do this with abs and acetone?

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@Jared_Eldredge ​ have you done it? Its very very nasty and can send you to the hospital

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@Ariel_Yahni_UniKpty haven’t done it, no. So this differs by being safer? Easier? Both?
The basic feature isn’t new, but safety and ease could be.

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@Jared_Eldredge ​ I believe so , that’s the way it looks, also results seem to be much better than what you get with abs

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this works with a special filament and alcohol. Looks safer than acetone, but you will be tied to only 1 filament provider

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@Ariel_Yahni_UniKpty but it will always dissolve in IPA… rubbing alcohol… That makes it kinda vulnerable to accidental damage-by-cleaning

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@Nicolas_Arias ​ still has its value depending on the market, having a print smooth can add some value to a special type of costumer

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Smooth prints can be used as positives for molds for casting allowing mass production of high quality resin parts for relitively cheap

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Not only resin but also metal casting such as Aluminum,brass,bronze,silver,gold,ECT… Low melt metals in general

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Using alcohol is thousand times better than acetone or chloroform, I can assure that. Anyway, the machine is easily DIY

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@Nicolas_Arias Polysmooth is PVB (no relation to PVA), so the hope is that if the Polysher catches on, other filament manufacturers will start producing filament for it as well. The manufacturers of the Polysher aren’t trying to keep the composition of the filament to themselves – I guess they couldn’t patent PVB even if they tried as it’s already a thing.

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I’m an early-bird backer of the Polysher so should be getting one within the next couple of months or so. I’ll let this group know my experiences when I do.

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Here’s a review which amongst other things talks about Polyshing vs acetone vapour smoothing for ABS:

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I used a lot of acetone working with polystyrene resins doing surfboard and boat hull fiberglass lamination repairs, it is not user friendly it is dangerous nasty stuff that the chemical engineers that manufacture it advise will shorten your lifespan. Seriously it is so not for making a plastic print smooth when elbow grease can do that. This is just a crazy overvaluation of a smooth print versus cancer and nervous system damage. Any other method would be preferable to me including just living with a rough print over breathing one molecule of Acetone vapor after my previous experiences with it.

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@Nathan_Walkner it’s an unprotected monopoly. Anyone can make PVB.

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@Nathan_Walkner Not quite: they don’t have a monopoly on PVB filament, they’re just the only ones making it at the moment. Anyone can produce PVB filament should the Polysher prove popular enough.

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@AlohaMilton thanks for sharing. Ok I’m convinced acetone sucks.

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http://dbclunie.com - I too am a early backer, and should have one soon as well, I also visited them at makerfaire and they gave me a sample smooth object as well as some free filament (not the smoothing kind) Seeing the object quality and the amount of smoothing done, its ideal case would be as previously mentioned as a positive for a mold, which instead of sanding and then using a filler/glue/spraypaint to get a glass surface for molding an object, you can just print, run for a number of minutes and then you’re golden after a bit of drying.

Also as someone who has also done and has a contraption for ABS smoothing using acetone, there is a high chance to melt your object with the direct heat( along with the change of accidental inhalation of hot acetone vapors, can fuck you up pretty hard) with a heated acetone bath if you want the same kind of “smoothing time” that the polysher provides, otherwise you do cold smoothing and it can take hours and then, depending on the purity of the abs you could end up with good to poor results, etc. Also with the polysher you can use 70% to 99% alcohol which can be purchased at any supermarket/pharmacy here in the USA just the % higher you can get the less time you have to run the polyshur.

@Nathan_Walkner i don’t think your viewpoint is accurate, if we look at history. We now have more PVA options available and now PVA blends via different companies, as well as various carbon fibre, woods, metals, etc. Why yes initially the price on the polysmooth is a tad high, but should drop as well as there will be other providers to make it, if I recall there is one other company that is developing PVB as well, I’ll have to do a search. Essentially if there is a high demand and the cost of production is low there will be other providers.

but anyways it’s an exciting time to be playing around in the 3d printing realm.

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I will probably just do acetone on paper towels in a coffee can and if I am worried about my health I will open a window which might be too much efforf since I would seal lid on the can.