I am wondering why there aren’t more house colors of filament. I have my own filament, but it seems like the in-house stuff is always gone and you are left with hot pink and military green. And often I will want a color, but not want to buy a whole spool. We did recently just get more, so that is great! but we need to do a better effort of keeping it in stock. If people pay honestly, it is actually quite profitable to provide people filament to use. 1000g @ $0.10/g yields $100- which is 400% profit for a standard $25 1kg spool.
I would be trying hard to keep lots of colors in stock to encourage house filament usage. It would be win-win for everyone and help generate funds for repairs and upgrades.
There is a swatch chain that shows like 40 possible colors, but at any given time we usually have 3 or 4.
Just my $0.02 that I think would add to the 3d fab dept.
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filament comes from many sources:
the swatches are colors available from Polyprinter. all those are available online, and when needed we can order them for 35. bucks a roll
we also get it from Microcenter and Amazon. microcenter because its in town and cheap, amazon cause they ship it directly to us- sadly we are at the mercy of whats in stock and it seems at microcenter its very choosy
i try to get different colors all the time and am more than willing to get ANY color from any source if needed, sadly i am not a mind reader- my powers are limited in that aspect…
so if there is a color you want… lemme know and i will get it
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While I do not usually get filament that is black for the space it tends to the nozzles a lot faster however since it was requested I put a procurement officer email to get black filament for the space It should be here soon. Amazon hatchbox is pretty quick
I suggest maybe 20 colors in 1kg rolls. Like I said, the economics work out favorably. We could easily add desiccant to the drawer and keep them good longer. It has a larger upfront cost, but we’d make it back plus some, which would allow us to save for more projects - new printers.
I personally use black because I am usually making functional pieces rather than things off the web (thingiverse)!although last time I got sainsmart brand and it just didn’t anneal as well. But a range of options just increases the usability Of this highly utilized department. And Amazon is cheap. If it’s a question of upfront cost- I can set up a micro loan so that we can get a good supply, which will be paid back from filament sales.
If anyone is interested in building a multi head multicolor printer and staying a task force on the same, I know we could do it with the resources available. I think it would be a great addition, although there is an argument to be made to wait for the slicing software to catch up. It would be a fun project and most there parts can be bought from China. And it would be a great ready to teach those interested about making and by extension fixing 3d printers.
Depending on style, I put these cost at $1000-2000 for one as good as the polyprinters. I’d use Marlin on top of a beaglebone replicape (32 bits with lots of extra overhead room). If we cut the steel from stock, process fall dramatically. And I have a slew of surplus parts- powersupplies, z sensors, steppers, end stops, LCDs. LED’s for lighting Etc. And we can make custom PCB, cut acrylic and mill aluminum. All to make a dream printer with high print rate and up to 32x microstepping for detail.
With the expertise in there space we should be pretty capable.
If there is any interest PM me and we can set up a working group.
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When is the next committee meeting? I think that would be a better venue for this type of discussion on my ideas rather than what sounds like griping on Talk.
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next committee meeting is 19th. i had to reschedule it for that date to be before the board meeting. ill be more than happy to hear everything then.
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Black filament is in it is in the drawer in 3D Fab please use it sparingly as black does clog up the nozzles
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It’ll have to be the next one. In away at a medical conference. Is it monthly?’