With the excellent work by the folks at MIT as to 3D Printing glass, some of our customers have asked if t-glase can be used with the same or similar results. The answer is to extrude t-glase in very large threads. Larger than nozzle and material size. These settings can used to 3D Print parts similar to those MIT printed, with similar optical results. (Video is on the site)
The Setup:
This is printed using a Volcano E3D nozzle 1.2mm on a standard E3D Hot End. – This gives us a larger melt zone, increasing print speed. Temp is 260C, material is 1.75mm clear t-glase, Thread is set to 1.8mm, final thread width in slicer is 2.16mm. Speed set to 12mm/s and layer height is 1.6mm. The effect of lack of cooling can be seen on the right rear in the video. This gives a mottled look, similar to glass. A slow fan speed will correct this. Due to such a slow print speed, fans may not be needed on large parts. t-glase has one of the highest transmission specs of all polymers at 92%. t-glase is also trans missive as well as reflective.
Again, hats off to the folks at MIT for their glass printer and instilling greater curiosity within the 3D Printing community!
http://taulman3d.com/t-glase-options.html
Is there a technical reason why you didn’t use a volcano heater block?
@Jos_van_der_Plas I’m sure he did. Can’t use Volcano nozzle without it. Just have the option to use it on a chimera or e3dlite6 as well.
Heh, so you’re right. Didn’t know that was even possible.
The volcano hotends were all being used on other printers at the time, so we just grabbed a nozzle to up the melt zone.
As soon as that MIT vid came out I though the exact same thing as you guys. Nice results! Will have to give this a shot on my Volcano as well 