Last November, I have attended the annual Formnext 3D printing conference in Frankfurt.
Besides all the amazing innovations and new 3D printers I was introduced to, I have managed to get hold of lots of new, exotic filaments for my upcoming projects.
In this article, I’d walk you through all those new exotic filaments and tell you a little bit about each one of them, so you could see what’s new this year when it comes to 3D printer filaments.
Let’s get right into it!
List of Exotic 3D Printer Filaments
Without further ado, here is my list of the most unique filaments I managed to find:
Azurefilm Silk Lime Green Filament
So first things first, let’s start out with the bigger samples.
Some Filament manufacturers were really generous and actually gave me full roles of filament, including this really awesome silk lime PLA from Azure Film.
What’s cool about Azure is they actually make everything in house, including the spools and even the manufacturing machines, the extrusion machines to produce this filament.
I love lime greens and I love oranges and all these kind of fluorescent colors, and this is the only fluorescent silk green that I’ve ever printed with.
Rosa3D Gradient Filament
Another roll that I’m really excited about is from Rosa 3d.
This is a company that manufactures a hundred percent of their filament in Europe, just like Azure film.
What’s unique about them is that they are the only manufacturer making these color gradient filaments, right in Europe.
One of their main selling points is that they can tell you exactly how many meters in between each transition so you know exactly how long you need to print and how much infill you need to put in if you want to go through a certain number of variant transitions.
I’ve never printed with gradient filament before, so I’m really excited to try this out. I also ordered some gradient filament recently, so I’m gonna be playing around with gradient a little bit more.
Smartfil rPET Recycled Filament
Up next, we have a new filament from Smartfil.
They make all of their materials from reclaimed and wasted materials in other industries.
This one in particular is actually an rPET, fully recycled PET made from plastic bottles. Now each one has a little bit of a different color and this one has a greenish clear, which means it was some green PET and some clear all mixed in there, and I’m really excited to print it.
Smartfil Red wood filament
While we’re on Smartfill, let’s talk about their wood filaments. Now, wood filament is fairly common and you may have printed with it in the past.
This particular wood filament is made using wasted materials from different industries, like the carpentry industry.
And I don’t know about you, but I have never seen a red wood filament. I’ve printed with a lot of different kinds of wooden filament.
This one is actually red wood and 40% of its weight is wood. So it’s really using the wood as a filler to cut down on the need for new plastic. Kudos to Smartfil for that!
Smartfil Olive 3D Printer filament
Here’s another exciting, exotic filament from Smartfil.
I don’t know about you, but I always have wondered when they make olive oil, what do they do with the rest of the olive and what do they do with the pits of the olives?
Based on my experience from my home composter, olive pits are really, really hard to compost. So what do you do with them?
Now thanks to Smartfil, you can put them in filament and again, use them to actually fill the plastic, so you need to use less plastic.
This filament, which honestly feels like sandpaper, is very coarse, but it is made with crushed olive seeds and it actually has a little bit of an olive smell.
Maybe I’ll print myself a desk organizer or something like an iPhone charger that I want on my desk to look like.
I wish you guys could feel this filament. It feels like unsanded wood and I wonder how that’s gonna go through the extruder, but I’m really excited about trying it.
AzureFilm Dual Extrusion Filament
Now let’s talk about, again, AzureFilm. One of the only companies in Europe making these special filaments, alongside Rosa 3D (Which I’d mention later).
Their next filament is a dual extrusion filament. When you print a model with this filament, the model will have different colors depending on the angle you look at it.
This stuff is really great for statues and any model you’d like to display in an open space, where people can walk around it.
Rosa3D PVB filament
Here’s another exotic filament – a PVB.
This filament from Rosa3D can actually be smoothed using just basic alcohol.
You need 99% alcohol to smooth it, but if you want something that actually will look like glass and is completely transparent and translucent – you should go with this filament.
Rosa3D Orange TPU Filament
Next on the list, we’ve got an orange TPU from Rosa, which I’m really, really excited about.
I love TPUs. I love printing with Flexi Filament.
This is a pretty hard one at 96 A, but I’m excited to print with it as I have only ever printed in three or four different colors of TPU and I think this is gonna be really cool to print.
Orange ABS Filament
The next entry is a basic range ABS, again from Smartfil.
This one I took because I love the color of the orange and it will be perfect for my hexagon honeycomb wall.
I think it’ll match some of the other filaments that I’ve used for creating the brackets on my wall.
Fishy Filament by Fillamentum
Let’s go back real quick to the recycling filaments.
This is “Fishy Filament”. It was made by Fillamentum, which has a lot of different really cool products.
Some of you may know that nylon fishing nets are just discarded in the oceans by fishermen once they have gone past their prime, and that the type of material that is making up so much of the different plastic waste in the ocean.
Fillamentum had this brilliant idea idea that nylon is actually a really expensive, really strong material, so what if we just recycled that ocean waste?
So they made this filament!
Now, what’s cool about it is that this filament’s color will change depending on where the fishing net is sourced. Different fishing nets have different colors, so they blend in with different waters from around the world.
Carbon Fiber PETG by Rosa3D
While we’re on the topic of filaments that I’ve never printed with, check out this carbon fiber, PETG from Rosa3D.
Some of you may know that carbon fiber adds an incredible amount of rigidity to your filament when you print it.
It does require printing with a hardened nozzle or a ruby nozzle, but I have plenty of those.
Recycling Fabrik Recycled Filament
Now let’s talk about what I think is one of the coolest things that I saw in this year’s FormNext conference.
This is recycling fabrik’s rPLA filament, and what’s cool about this is it’s made from 100% recycled 3D prints, not recycled PLA from other industries.
They are taking all the different 3D prints from all the different industries that are using them and consumers sending in their failed prints, purge lines, support structures, and all of that, and they’re recycling it.
Now, you might ask yourself, well, it can’t really be one hundred percent, right?
The answer is yes, it is 100%. They are using sorting and mixing the colors based on the different colors that they get in, in order to come out with the same predictable colors every single time.
And I think that this is amazing. No new PLA, no added pigment. And of course, if they don’t have enough of the materials that they need to come out with the right colors, then they just turn it into black.
They overload it with black recycled filament, which they get a ton of, and they also have a big log of requests so they can meter out what goes blue, what goes red, and have these amazing neutral kind of earth toney color.
AzureFilm Multicolor Filament
We have here another color transition filament from Azure film.
It would be used for Benchies and other types of cool models.
I don’t currently have enough material to print a bust, but maybe I’ll pick up some more rolls of this Azure film filament in the future for different decorative parts.
In terms of color mix, they come in mustard, yellow and a turquoise.
Fillamentum Non-Oilen Food Safe Filament
I have saved the best to last.
This is Non-Oilen by Fillamentum. This is a really unique filament because it uses no oil, petroleum or gas products whatsoever.
It is pure PLA with additives to make its temperature significantly higher so it can withhold and withstand higher temperatures than standard PLA, which means that you can actually use it for different applications around the kitchen.
Now I know what you’re thinking. It can’t possibly be food safe, but it is.
It actually is certified food safe in the EU, as long as you get the right surface finish sanding it down, getting rid of the micropores .
They had in their booth an espresso cup that you can use made out of PLA! Think about all the new possibilities that this filament offers.
