FFF 3D printing
FFF … fused filament fabrication (newer term) FDM … fused deposition modeling
Local manufacturing. Make stuff at home.
Some non-exhaustive list of available plastics (as of 2025)
Easy to print
- PLA, PHA (no need for moisture management, deforms in mere hot car, micro-cracks on permanent high mechanical load, usually stiff and brittle, from biamaterials but biodegradability is questioned)
- PETG / PCTG (hygroscopic & more banana-warping tendency than PLA, less still less brittle but can still shatter)
- TPU Thermoplastic PolyUrethane & similar (softest end can be challenging, can't shatter)
- PVB (alcohol soluble => gluing to itself or glass, powder-pigment-painting, smoothing; weird ok smell, mechanically similar to PETG)
- PVA (water soluble, same stuff as in PVA glue, from crude oil but biodegradable)
- PCL PolyCaproLactone (can be deformed at temperatures not burning ones hand, used by easiest RepRap 3D printers)
More challenging to print - easier when fiber filled
- PA PolyAmide (aka Nyon, notoriously bad warping tendency, usually can't shatter)
- PC PolyCarbonate (hard and tough but so hard that it can shatter)
- Polyolefine (?? seems interesting …)
- PPS Polyphenylene sulfide (so hard that is sounds metallic, must be brittle)
- Various challenging and very expensive high performance polymers
Stinkers: (all stink aggressively viscerally toxic, list increases in price and quality, how much does the HI proprietary magic help?)
- HIPS High Impact Poly Styrene (Germman joke name for PS:"polysprödol" translates to polybrittleol)
- ABS Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (cheap, decent heat resistance, available in early days thus it found use beside PLA)
- ASA Acrylonitrile styrene acrylate (less cheap, better for UV exposure)
Better stay well away type hard to print:
- POM (low friction), HDPE (low stick)
Difficulty comes from three aspects:
- thermal expansion coefficient withing heating range
- elasticity modulus withing heating range
- filament to print-bed material adhesion (low friction is bad)
(and filament to itself adhesion under printing conditions)
Relation to atomically precise manufacturing
These is some overlap with the design constraints for
future mechanosynthesis and design of crystolecules.