What I printed with it: Robot grippers: We have some Delrin robot grippers that occasionally get shattered from robot crashes (shown in blue). I am trialing this stuff as a replacement (shown in black). The other engineers are always skeptical of printed parts for high-use industrial replacements, as they assume printed stuff is fragile. I let them take a hammer to these without any effect; very few materials can survive a hard-edge impact like a hammer blow. The material was dense enough to hold a part steady but has just enough give to survive some impacts, I think it is a good candidate for this application. Timing belt: I work 3rd shift, and we had a timing belt go out on a conveyor, no replacements in-house, and no place to go buy a replacement, given it was the middle of the night. As always, our production can't stop; so the operators slid parts down the line, and in the meantime, I was able to model and replace the belt within a few hours. The belt I made was left on for approximately 8 hours without issue before replacing it with a genuine belt. The printed belt looked unphased in the end and clearly could have lasted much longer. I do understand this would not be as strong or long-lasting as a real belt because those have nylon strands running the length of the belt, but for an emergency short-term fix I was very impressed that this worked as well as it did. The feel: Naturally rough feeling surface texture (think of it like default fuzzy skin), it is not especially grippy like you may imagine from a rubber or silicone, as it feels more like a timing belt. This stuff is dense, very hard, with a tiny bit of flex if you make your geometry thin enough (Like 2mm or less ), and it doesn't really compress or bend much at all. Easy to print: It is a TPU and a fiber fill, so you should dry/ keep it dry (mine arrived ready to use in a foil and vacuum sealed bag, but still a good idea to dry to be sure), It is AMS compatible, thank you! At least with my Bambu H2D, as it is stiff enough to use in an AMS. I just used the Bambu PETG translucent as a profile starting point and added the manufacturer's recommendations onto that. As with all fiber-filled filaments, you need to use a hardened nozzle and know it will eventually wear on some of the consumable components. What to use this for? It is not going to work in most applications you think of for TPU or flexible filaments, as it is simply way too stiff, and doesn’t stretch, but if you need something that can take a beating, this is your material.
