3D printing is gaining more and more popularity and 3D printers are becoming less expensive and more affordable, all of which contribute to a huge demand for high-quality high-performance 3D printer filament. With a strong eagerness to enter, build and develop your own 3D printer filament business to make profits, you may ask yourself these questions, “what are the top trends in 3D printer filament?”, “how to choose high-quality 3D printer filament” and “what can you get from reliable, professional and right 3D filament suppliers”. Today, as a professional China-based 3D printer filament maker, we’ll share with you our ideas and propose some tips for those who want to step into 3D printer filament business.
Top Trends in 3D Printer Filament
3D filament is the lifeblood for a great majority of 3D printers, and without it, you couldn’t print your models even if you own an advanced 3D printer. Let’s first explore several top trends in 3D printer filament.
1. 3D Printing Becoming More Affordable
With 3D printers becoming less costly and more affordable, strong advocacy and support from government and industry, and a variety of affordable filaments from different 3D filament suppliers, 3D printing is becoming more popular and more affordable. Many individuals and small businesses are getting their own 3D printing setups to speed up the pace of product development. 3D printing technology is being used by many new types of businesses for a wide range of applications. The more printers on 3D makers’ desks, the more 3D filament will be used.
2. Increased Diversity of Exotic Blend Filament
Exotic materials like wood and metal are being utilized to create specific properties in 3D filament. Using exotic filament blends, you’re now able to create the unique finish, right look and physical properties for your 3D printing projects. Below are some of the hottest filament blends:
Wood: Wood particles/powders in filament create wood-like look and finish, and also gives off a sweet smell while printing;
Metal: Metal particles/powders in filament make your 3D parts strong, heavy and sleek, and may also make your prints magnetic and carry an electrical charge or signal;
Minerals: Elements like glass, sandstones and gemstones can be added to create different finishes, textures and other properties to the filament.
3. Powdered Materials for Custom Blends
Although it takes a longer time to manufacture, powdered feed stock mixes more uniformly for complex filament formulations. Powdered feed material is getting a respectable position in 3D filament production as new filament blends are created. Particularly, higher concentrations of metals and exotic materials can be mixed when utilizing powders, and the filament consistency is therefore far higher for complex blends.
4. Custom Filament Colors
You’ll benefit a lot from a broad array of colors if you want to make lifelike 3D prints with vibrant colors. In the past days, there weren’t as many color choices available for 3D printer filament as now. In order to match branding or visual requirements for their customers and project needs, 3D makers are now customizing their own filament colors. Below is a picture of the most common RAL & Pantone references.
(Source: filaments.directory)
5. Plant-based, Sustainable Filament
With people’s growing awareness of green environment and ecological sustainability, more and more new filaments are made from plants like sugar cane, corn starch and other materials, called bio-polymers or bio-plastics. Ecologically speaking, these filaments are more sustainable and less likely to clog up landfills as they naturally break down over the passage of time. For example, 3D filaments made from Polylactic Acid (PLA) use a plant-based plastic which is biodegradable and compostable.
6. Spool-less Filament Rolls
Filament spools are heavy for shipping and also generate lots of waste for those who 3D print on a frequent basis. In recent days, there has been a push to remove the spool from filament rolls. What’s more, with premium filament extruding machine becoming less expensive, a growing number of 3D makers are extruding their own material around used filament spools, which completely eliminate the need for shipping and disposing of print waste.
Considerations on Choosing High-Quality 3D Printer Filament
Now that you’ve known the top trends and innovations in the world of 3D printing and 3D filament, you must also have the business idea to engage in 3D filament business to grab your share in the lucrative 3D printing industry. Once you hook up with your local business owners and clients, then it’s great for you to obtain recurring income each month, each quarter, and each year. However, the key problem is to find high-quality high-performance 3D printer filament from right 3D filament suppliers. Therefore, we’ll then introduce and analyze several factors that need to be taken into consideration when choosing high-quality 3D printer filament.
1. Filament Types
Finding the right material is an important step for starting 3D filament business and getting the optimum print results. However, faced with a great variety of choices of different filaments from different 3D printer filament makers or 3D printing materials factories, finding the right one is not always that easy. We therefore must have a basic understanding of some common 3D filament types used in FDM/FFF 3D printing.
(Source: filaments.directory)
We can see from the above picture that the two most common types of filament used in FDM/FFF 3D printing are PLA (45%) and ABS (26%), followed by PETG (6%), Composite (3%), TPU (3%), and others (all other filament types only account for 17% altogether). Therefore, it’s safe to conclude that PLA is a great starting point for you to begin your 3D filament business.
2. Filament Diameter
(Source: filaments.directory)
Different 3D printers use different diameter 3D filaments. In general, there are three common filament diameters adopted in 3D printing industry – 1.75mm, 2.85mm and 3mm. From the above picture, we can see the most common diameter used for 3D printer filament is 1.75mm (54%), followed by 2.85mm (24%) and 3mm (20%). Why is this the case? 1.75mm 3D filament is more common in the marketplace and is a fresher quality plastic. It’s normally newer and rotates out of retailers inventory faster, which lead to newer products to be produced and to be replaced on the shelves. What’s more, it seems to have better extrusion, retraction as well as plastic flowability.
3. Filament Consistency
Apart from the filament diameter you choose, it’s also important to take into account such specifications as filament tolerance and roundness. The tolerance is a measurement of how much larger or smaller the diameter of the filament can deviate from the indicated size at any given point. Roundness, which is a measurement of deviation expressed as a percentage, shows how consistent the shape of the filament is. Nowadays, many 3D printers have spring tensioners installed in the extruders so that small variations in diameter such as ±0.03mm no longer pose a threat.
Advice from TIANSE 3D
All things are difficult before they are easy. To choose 3D printer filament that most suits your market and your needs, TIANSE 3D recommends you to make a brief research in your local market and try out several different filaments. In this way, you can well know your local market and clients, establish various possibilities of different filaments, and finally find what you actually need.
If you’re completely new to 3D printing, we recommend you choose TIANSE PLA 3D printer filament as your starting point as it is the easiest material to print. As one of the most commonly used materials in FDM/FFF 3D printing, PLA performs pretty well during 3D printing and is available in a wide array of colors. Furthermore, PLA is biodegradable and more environmental-friendly than ABS.
TIANSE 3D Printer Filament – Global Partner Program
After you have a basic knowledge of considerations on choosing high-quality printer filament, we’ll then present you TIANSE 3D Printer Filament – Global Partner Program. As a China-based professional 3D printer filament maker, TIANSE provides high-quality high-performance 3D printer filaments and tailored solutions to its customers and partners. To expand 3D printing business and to find potential partners worldwide, TIANSE has specially launched its TIANSE 3D Printer Filament – Global Partner Program, in earnest hope to looking for distributors, agents, wholesalers, resellers in each country worldwide to achieve mutual benefits and win-win results.
Advantages of TIANSE 3D Printer Filament
1. Factory Direct Prices & Strict QC Process
TIANSE has its own 3D printer filament factory equipped with the latest equipment and experienced professionals. With strict QC process and rigorous in-house testing in its modern 3D printing materials factory, TIANSE makes solemn promise to only provide customers with the highest quality affordable products. You can rest assured to get stable supply of quality filaments from TIANSE. If you buy in bulk or plan to develop a long-term partnership with us, TIANSE can actually offer wholesale 3D filament factory direct prices.
2. A Variety of 3D Printer Filaments
TIANSE has a wide variety of 3D printer filaments made from materials like PLA, PLA PRO, ABS, TPU and PETG in a full range of colors for your choice. The 3D printer filaments manufactured by TIANSE are non-toxic, vacuum packaged, eco-friendly with excellent performance, which comply with the Restriction of Hazardous Substance (RoHS) directive and are free from potentially hazardous substances.
3. High-quality High-performance Filaments
TIANSE has been committed to restoring the essence of nature, making 3D printing much easier and more colorful. TIANSE 3D printer filaments feature high purity, high strength, strong toughness, easy molding, high temperature resistance and stable melting point, without bubble or clogging issue.
4. High-accuracy High-compatibility Filaments
TIANSE attaches great importance to details. TIANSE 3D printer filaments has a tolerance of ±0.03mm and a roundness of ＞95%. For instance, TIANSE 1.75mm PLA 3D printer filament has a ±0.03mm dimensional accuracy and is compatible with a majority of all FDM 3D printers on the marketplace that accept 1.75mm filament, including Makerbot, Mendal, UP plus, Prusa series, Prusa i3, Monoprice MakerSelect, SainSmart xCreality, WanHao & Qidi, RepRap printers and many more other printers.
5. Special Exotic Blend Filaments
TIANSE is constantly making improvements and innovations on its 3D printer filaments. TIANSE has succeeded in improving the formulations of its PLA-based filaments. For example, TIANSE added wood particles/powders, silver metal particles/powders, red copper particles/powders into its PLA-based filaments respectively to generate specific filament properties and make the filaments have wood-like finish or metal-like finish.
6. Custom Order for Special Color/Spool Size
Though TIANSE mainly manufactures 1.75mm 1kg/spool 3D printer filaments, it also produces 3D filaments in other specifications like 2.85mm and other spool sizes like 3kg and 5kg. If you have special requirement for filament color or spool size, you can feel free to tell TIANSE your specific requirements. TIANSE accepts custom order to manufacture special color/spool size 3D printer filaments to suit your needs.
Supports from TIANSE Global Partner Program
How To Join TIANSE Global Partner Program
3D printing opens many new possibilities and opportunities, and we believe 3D printer filament business is one of them. You just won’t regret your investment in the promising 3D filament business. You also will not regret your win-win cooperation with TIANSE, a professional 3D printer filament maker from China. Contact us at sales@tianseoffice.com or WhatsApp +8613537813501. Don’t hesitate to join our TIANSE Global Partner Program to develop a good cooperative partnership for mutual benefits and win-win results!
Post time: May-14-2019