MJF - HP High Reusability Pa12 (Nylon)
The All Rounder
Pa12 (Nylon) is a great all rounder for producing plastic parts. It can hold a high degree of complexity and can achieve great surface finishes.
Vapour polished thin parts can exhibit remarkable flexibility while thicker parts provide great strength.
Good chemical resistance and UL94-HB fire rating makes it an incredibly versatile material.
SLS - 2nd Life Pa12
The Eco One
2nd Life Pa12 feedstock is generated by reprocessing excess HP Pa12 from our HP MJF machines. Most Service Bureaus (as we used to) send excess powder to either landfill or energy recovery. We have been looking for years to find a way to reuse the excess powder without it having to leave site for reprocessing and adding to its carbon footprint. We eventually found a way to revive it and feed it directly into our Nexa 230 SLS system to make great parts rather than waste.
At Incremental-AM we tend to run our HP systems packed to lighter than average to yield parts with the highest possible surface finish and mechanical properties. This means that we have Pa12 powder that could be reused in an HP machine but because the refresh rate is a minimum of 20% and we may have packed a build to 8% there is between 5 and 10% by volume of powder that is perfectly good but cannot be reused in the HP ecosystem. This is the basis of our 2nd Life Pa12 feed stock.
CBPa12
The Glamourous One
The HP 580 is one of few machines in the industry that is capable of producing robust load bearing parts in full colour.
The internal core of the parts is pretty much the same Pa12
that you would receive from the production printers. However, there is added magic, the 580 produces a near white layer of Pa12 around the core and then prints colour on this.
"Raw" parts from the 580 have a chalky finish and the colours can be quite muted. If you would like your colours to pop then please select vapour polishing and let the magic begin!