Review on Fused Materials Black Printer Filament Additive Manufacturing Products by Zach Sornsin

BACKGROUND: My black ASA was running low and Revain reported no stock at my usual suppliers. Further research found this one. A search of the Fused Materials website revealed that they only have PVA and dental floss, so it was either brand new or it was thrown away. I kept looking, but the only other find was even more skeptical, so I returned to this one. supply and much stronger. The strength of the odor indicated higher levels of free monomer, raising concerns about volatile organic compounds. I have a heated case with a VOC scrubber so I moved on, but my long retired rubber and polymer chemist nose was wondering if there was a bit of butadiene in that flavor blend. Working with a cut sample of filament proved promising as it could be bent into a 180 degree crimp spool and held together well. I loaded the filament into the dryer box and then into the printer without running the VOC scrubber and when I opened the housing door after filling the nozzle my VOC concern was confirmed. This material should not be printed without a scrubber or external ventilation. I printed a line calibration pattern using my regular ASA profile and it worked fine with all of my previous ASA supplies. The string sample itself looked great, but the edge was falling apart. Let's move on to a larger test pattern. The edge of this pattern was almost as loose, and the pattern itself had significant staining (?over-extrusion?), so I printed more patterns and gradually reduced the flow across Layer 1 to 80%. However, to deal with cracked edges (and potential first layer issues), I increased the first layer flow to 110%, which seemed to help. I was waiting for the big 200g piece to print (fourth but first with this material). It seemed to print fine, but once it was done and slowly cooling it didn't take much inspection to find one problem after another, including the light coming through the part! There were layer separation/deformation and other nasty problems everywhere. There's enough power left that I can salvage and use the functional part with multiple layers of Gorilla Duct Tape, but it won't be pretty! Two photos mounted at slightly different angles to hopefully convey most of the story. CONCLUSION: Given that three chemicals/monomers are used to make the base polymer, I understand that small changes in their ratios can result in significant differences in the final properties. There is also the possibility of adding different components to make a filament out of it and use it for 3D printing, but the fact that I've used ASAs from different vendors and their properties are consistent enough to work with the same print profile work doesn't bode well, good for it if it's an ASA. I'll keep working with it to see if I can get a solid large part profile for it, but if that doesn't happen before my regular inventory can be updated it will be back in the bag the next day. Since I can successfully print at least fine details, I'll stretch it and give it 2.5 stars for now and maybe update this rating later. The package was sent in vacuum packaging, which I did not have. Assuming the thread might have absorbed moisture, I ran a dehydration cycle. The results were significantly different. I'm attaching an additional worst case photo showing the same G-code before (left) and after (right) dehydration. That being said, I'm reducing my rating to 2 stars as the packaging is clearly inadequate (unless it was repackaged after someone else opened it).