We know how hard it is to gather the useful parameters of 3D pens. And we know how hard it is to make a useful comparison to pick one… Everything is confusing, and the pen manufacturers seem to have no interest in making the people less confused. But we have done the geeky job of …
So… you’re looking for a cool toy for your creative kid. 3D pens look awesome, so you’ll just grab one that’s not too pricey and seems to have good reviews, and set him up for hours and hours of endless fun, right? Those first reviews look awesome… But the you read on. And you see that things get complicated: …
When you’re doodling with a regular pen, there’s at least one thing you take for granted: there’s no damn wire attached to your pen, and you sure as hell don’t need to plug your pen into a wall socket!!! For most 3D pens mobility seems always to be either not available, or only achievable through an expensive secondary …
What are they?! At first sight, these cool new toys look like “pens that allow you to draw up in the air”. Now, leaving the hype behind and coming down to Earth, we’ll see that they actually work by extruding heated plastic that cools almost instantly into a solid, stable structure, allowing for the free-hand creation …
Most 3D pens on the market today are based on the same technology that most 3D printers use, and that the first 3D pen (inspired by a 3D printer) used. This techniques has many fancy names like FDM (Fused deposition modeling) or FFF (fused filament fabrication) or PJS (Plastic Jet Printing) but they all mean …
How do 3D pens work? – molten plastic (FDM) edition Read More »
The so called “cool ink” pens ( “cool” because it’s not hot , like the tips of the molten plastic FDR pens), work by squeezing out a resin that solidifies when the tip of the pen shines UV-light on it. Sounds cool and new science, now like the old plastic melters, right? Wrong! The chemical process behind …
How do 3D pens work – photopolymer cool ink edition Read More »
…uhm, you just plug it in, press a button, and “draw up in the air”, right? Like this, no? But… we know this is not why you came here … you really want to know how this cool toys work! So, let’s get geeky : There are currently tow kinds of 3D pens, based on their general mechanism: A. Molten plastic …
PLA stands for Polylactic acid and is a non-toxic, eco-friendly biodegradable polymer usually made from plant based materials. It’s a widely used plastic, especially for food packaging. The fact that it’s biodegradable also make it useful in medicine, for the types of implants that need to simply dissolve away in your body. Check out some …
ABS or Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene is one of the most versatile plastics. It’s a petrochemical plastic, and it doesn’t biodegrade easily, but this is a good thing: it lasts, and we generally want the objects around us to last! If you’re like me, you’re probably surrounded by plastic objects, and more than half of them are probably …
Intro There are 3 + 1 types of plastic that are used commonly for making 3D pen filaments. They have different looks and feels, different strength and flexibility profile, and different melting temperatures. (Generally speaking, the maximum temperature that a pen ca achieve is the main determinant of what plastics it can use.) The most …
