2016 has seen a variety of great advancements in 3D printing technology with new products that help empower hobbyists and manufacturers. One of the most talked about 3D printing products has been Polymakers revolutionary Polysher and PolySmooth technology, a filament and post processing system that removes those nasty layer lines from your 3D prints, leaving behind a beautiful smooth and glossy surface.
PolySmooth & Polysher introduction video
The Polysher creates an aerosol of isopropyl alcohol or ethanol that absorbs onto a model printed in PolySmooth. Over the course of 10-40 minutes the “ridges and valleys” on the surface of your 3D printed part are smoothed and eliminated, resulting in a part that looks like it came straight from an injection moulding machine.
PolySmooth is Polymakers new filament developed to be compatible with this new technology. Alongside its fantastic smoothability, PolySmooth features great warping resistance, easy to remove support material, low printing odour, no heated bed required when printing and balanced mechanical properties allowing it PolySmooth to outperform standard ABS and PLA on most attributes!
These products are now available to pre-order from your favourite authorised 3D Tech Supplies reseller with an ETA of November / December 2016. Current sales indicate demand for this product will exceed supply and we are excited to see how people use this technology to help empower their creations and products.
Back in May we were fortunate enough to be sent a pre-production roll of PolySmooth to test. Our experience with this material has been extremely positive. One of our test prints was an extremely difficult to print 2.75mm working nut and bolt. In our experience we have only been able to print this model with one specific brand of ABS, seeing PolySmooth successfully print this model was amazing. Since we didn’t have access to their Polysher machine, we tested the material as a standalone filament and we summarised that PolySmooth could truly be a better replacement for ABS in many scenarios. You can read our first impressions/pre-production review here!
In Polymakers tests they found polishing a PolySmooth printed part in some cases actually increased the impact resistance of the part by up to 50%. This isn’t due to a chemical change in the material but rather the layer lines on a 3D printer part are weak points on the surface, similar to a wood grain. Polishing the part and thus removing these layer lines eliminated those surface weak points and increased the impact resistance.
To read more information including specs, pictures and videos for these products; visit our Polysher and PolySmooth catalogue pages!
PolySmooth Catalogue Page
Polysher Catalogue Page
Click here to find an Authorised 3D Tech Supplies reseller to pre-order from