Has anyone tried annealing their M3D PLA parts? I’m assuming a part goes from the bed straight to a preheated oven?
M3D’s instructions seem basic.
Annealing:
Any parts made with Matter3D’s Performance PLA can be heat treated (annealed) to improve the material’s physical properties. To anneal a printed part, heat the part at 80 – 130 °C for up to 30 minutes by either submerging in hot water or by baking in an oven.
I have done a little tinkering with it. It certanally improved layer adhesion. It also changes the shape (why only a little) I tried salt packing but it is quite course. I also tried ditamacious earth which worked better. I didn’t try hot water. The strinkage is non uniform and hard to predict. For my need it was a fail due to my ability to predict the changes in shape.
That’s good info @kitedemon. I have been thinking about trying annealing and was leaning toward salt packing or another material because of the shrinking and warping concern. Not having things retain their dimensional accuracy is a fail for me too so you may have just saved me a bunch of time experimenting.
The round holes distorted some they became oblong. Uneaven shrinking. I plan to circle back to the DA. Perhaps using slightly damp and really tamping it down might help. It is getting close to sand casting however.
Yeah really. At that point just make a lost PLA casting and start pouring metal. (Sarcastically, I get that there would be a bunch of clean up after doing that)
Or we could just go in on one of these together.
We can each keep it for two weeks at a time and we’ll just ship it back and forth across the country to each other.
Hi uturnski
The best way to anneal it is by boiling it in water for 10 minutes. Really enhances the mechanical properties.
Let me know if you have any other questions
-A
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@Aman_Bains I have yet to try the Matter3d material. Materials I have tried, have shrunk during the annealing step, I found the X and y shrunk at different rates. Is this also the case for the Matter3D filament?
I was hoping to replace my bread proofing baskets with printed ones but because sometimes these things will get slapped on the counter I wanted them stronger. Seemed like annealing would be a good idea. It could be my oven or temp sensor (to be seen) but at 100 C this thing melted in less than 5 minutes. I really suspect my oven.
What’s annoying is the temp range on the box and on the website differ quite a bit…
vs Website
Nozzle Temp: 225 – 260 °C
Bed Temp: 25 – 75 °C
Fan speed: 0 – 30%
I’ve noticed that for a few filaments now. I have to print at temps beyond specs on the box. Consider above there is 5 C window there between 2 specs… also fan speed, which I think is critical for a good print. NO?
Hi Uturnski,
The best way to anneal your parts is to boil them in water for about 15 minutes. The reason we recommend boiling water is because the heat is applied evenly with a regulated top end temperature. I have done this personally with Performance PLA many times.
Shinkage should be minimal on your parts because of the relatively high amount of symmetry in your print, and the high level of crystallization within the PLA material. The high crystallization ensures that warping is minimal and isotropic.
About the labels, yes there is a discrepency. I will have our operations team fix the box tags. Thank you for bringing that to my attention.
-A
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Thanks Aman! Should that be done right after printing, how much time do I have, or does it even matter?
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Hi Uturnski
It doesn’t matter! 5 minutes or 5 years, the annealing will be the same.
Aman
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For food contact there is so many small gaps in 3d prints it is best and safest to coat the contact surfaces with a food safe sealer, like an epoxy coating. It will lend a lot of strength as well. A larger nozzle diameter will also lend a tremendous amount of strength.
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I was wondering about the gaps and how the outside walls are perfect but some internal walls have room for food do get into. Typicality you’d want the outside of your model looking nice but in my case I don’t care about the outside. Perhaps there is something in the slicer I can explore … I’ll look in to that. Food safe sealer… Got ya…
I used 0.8mm nozzle thinking the same about the strength. Also cut my print time by a lifetime…
Thanks for the advice! Really appreciate it!
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I would wonder about a proving tray which is never going to get very hot if you could use a paraffin wax. Water proof and food grade and super easy. You would need to be careful of washing but it in my little mind would be non stick.
just a thought.
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I wanted to try annealing some parts but I wasn’t willing to test one of the baskets. So these 2 hooks did the job… right one at 50% infill and 15% on the left. No deformation on the right, slight deformation on the left on side touching the bed. Nothing to cry about and for my purpose of making bread proofing baskets, just fine. Temp for usage is 3°C-25°C. Annealing baskets is next. Thanks for all the advice!
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