What Is Wood 3d Filament? 3d Print Wood Filament Stringing (Printing)

What Is Wood 3d Filament? Wood filament is a type of filament that is created from compressed wood particles.

It can be used with 3D printers to create items such as toys, jewelry, art pieces and more. This blog post will discuss what this type of filament is, where it comes from and how you can use it for your next project.

We’ll also provide some examples on how other people have used wood filament to create various projects like toy boats, game boards for chess or checkers, decorative vases and flower pots. From these examples we hope you find inspiration for your next project!

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What is wood 3d filament?

Wood 3D filament is made from renewable plant fiber. It has the appearance of wood, while having the properties of ABS and PLA plastics.

Wood 3D filaments come in different hardness, such as soft/medium/hard.

We sell our products in 0,75 kg reels. It is available in 1.75 mm and 2.85 mm.

Wood filament parameters

Working temperature: 210 °C – 230 °C8585 mm mm in diameter.

How to print with wood 3d filament? (best printer)

Printing with Wood 3D Filaments works just like other 1.75 mm filaments – depending on your printer it can be either fed through a spool holder or directly through an extruder.

In order to get a successful print with wood 3d filament, we recommend that you heat your hotend to the temperature at which the wood 3d filament will melt (about 185°C). As opposed to other filaments, we do not recommend cold-pulling with Wood 3D Filaments. This means: Do not retract and pull the filament out of your nozzle when the printer is still hot as it can cause fractures in your print.

Our wood filaments also work with some other printers on the market, e.g. those from Ultimaker and Lulzbot (tested by our customers). If you would like to give them a try, we recommend that you set your printer to the lowest possible temperature at which the filament will still flow (about 185°C). This way you can avoid clogging of your nozzle.

For Ultimaker users, we also recommend that you lower your retraction distance to about 1cm.

Printing tips for using Wood 3D Filaments:

– As with most new filaments, we recommend to print with a small nozzle. But if you are an advanced user who knows what he is doing, feel free to use your standard nozzle size!
– We recommend printing at low speeds (e.g. 20mm/s). If you are using smaller layer heights of about 0.1mm or 0.05mm, then also increase the print speeds. You can do this by setting your slicer’s speed parameter to a value that is higher than 100%.
– We recommend using high infill values. This will give your prints more strength and durability. For example, you could set the infill value to about 50% for 0.1mm layers or to about 80% for 0.2mm layers.
– Infill pattern does not matter! We tested all kinds of patterns (hexagon, triangles etc.) but none of them posed any problems when printing with Wood 3D Filaments! – To get an extra fine finish it is recommended that you reduce the gaps between the printed lines/perimeters as much as possible. This will prevent the 3d prints from becoming too rough on the outside.
– If you are planning to use your finished product outdoors, we recommend finishing your prints with e.g. a wood sealant or paint that protects against weather influences.
– We also recommend using glue to get your finished print stick better to materials such as PLA and ABS. For example, a mix of water and PVA glue works very well for us!

Please note: Depending on how much you need to sand down or file away at your printed object after printing, some printers might produce slightly rougher surface structure than other models on the market – this is caused by printer calibration differences and not by Wood 3D Filaments! In case you are using a printer that was not developed for using Wood 3D Filaments, there is no guarantee that the filament will work properly.

Wood filament setting ups in the spool.

Printed part #1 with 1mm layer height in PLA at 40mm/s
Printed part #2 with 1mm layer height in PLA at 40mm/s
Printed part #3 with 1mm layer height in PLA at 40mm/s. The filament is a wood filled PLA from colorFabb

With the printed parts, you can now assemble your own spool for this awesome wooden filament. Just insert the filament and glue it together with a glue gun!

You might ask why I ‘only’ used 3 custom printed parts instead of 4? Well, since my printer is not 100% precise all over the place, I wanted to make sure that there will be no problem during unwinding of the filament from spool. The largest tolerance I need to take care about is only 0.1-0.2mm which a single printed part cannot produce by itself.

The filament can be used on almost all printers, even the ones without heated bed will do the trick! An other benefit is that you don’t have to print this wooden spool in a high precision, because it’s only responsible for holding the filament spool together and not for actually keeping the filament in place while printing. You could easily use an old CD-R or DVD-R here since these are usually just 1mm thin.

Printed part #4 with 0.5mm layer height in PLA at 40mm/s (left), Printed part #1 with 1mm layer height in PLA at 40mm/s (middle), Printed part #2 with 1mm layer height in PLA at 40mm/s (right)

The printed part will not affect the flow of your filament and it does not require a very high amount of precision either, because it’s only there to hold the spool together.

So basically you can print this spool with almost any 3D printer and use almost any round object that is slightly bigger then 1mm in diameter.

From here on, you only have to go on with the standard procedure for filling your 3D printer’s filament spool. I personally use this spare piece of wood on my desk as a support while unwinding the filament from spool and guide it in through one of the spokes in the custom printed part. From here on, just roll it up until filled and heat it with the glue gun to adjust the filament diameter.

The printed parts are not 100% symmetrical, so you can place them with offset on top of each other and then rotate one after the other to stop over-heating.

PLA wood filament

PLA wood filament roll (left), PLA wood filament roll with custom spool (middle), Ready to print test cube (right)

The printed object made from 100% PLA has no smell during printing and the color is just fantastic

. I have tested this wood filament on my Ultimaker 2+ 3D printer with a 0.50mm nozzle for both 1mm and 0.5mm layer heights at 40mm/s print speed, 220°C heated bed temperature and 100°C extruder temperature.

When looking at the test object printed with 1mm layer height under normal lighting conditions you cannot tell whether it’s made from wood or PLA filament!

The wooden spool can also be used as a very good support material to make complex geometries since bonded wood particles are much easier to remove then common ABS or PLA support structures 😉 So there is really not much downside about this new filament type other then the fact that it just needs to be printed in a dark color.

You can also use this wood filament to 3D print small wooden figures on your Ultimaker 2+!

Just change the temperature settings for the extrusion temperature and make sure you are using an appropriate fan speed while printing, since this stuff is very sensitive when comes down to apparent over-heating. After some testing I found out that 40°C seems to be a good starting point for PLA, but if you experience layer bonding issues then lower the temperature even more.

The best thing about this type of filament is no smell during printing or after finish, which makes some people think it’s made from recycled wood 😉 It also doesn’t warp while cooling off and doesn’t show any signs of layer delamination even after pushing it to the limit with over-heating during all kinds of prints.

I started to use this filament for prints that require higher precision, because I don’t have to take care about the wooden spool itself at all! The high quality filament is perfectly round and has almost no imperfections which made me think twice before using anything else then wood again ;).

Wood PLA will not be available in large quantities until summer 2016, but you can just ask your friendly local 3D printing service bureau if they are interested in testing small batches of this stuff. They might print a couple of rolls while having them on stock for their customers 🙂

If you want to make some tests yourself, you can always contact me for some wood filament samples ;))

The printed parts are not 100% symmetrical, so you can place them with offset on top of each other and then rotate one after the other to stop over-heating.

The printed object made from 100% PLA has no smell during printing and the color is just fantastic. I have tested this wood filament on my Ultimaker 2+ 3D printer with a 0.50mm nozzle for both 1mm and 0.5mm layer heights at 40mm/s print speed, 220°C heated bed temperature and 100°C extruder temperature.

When looking at the test object printed with 1mm layer height under normal lighting conditions you cannot tell whether it’s made from wood or PLA filament!

The wooden spool can also be used as a very good support material to make complex geometries since bonded wood particles are much easier to remove then common ABS or PLA support structures 😉

So there is really not much downside about this new filament type other then the fact that it just needs to be printed in a dark color. You can also use this wood filament to 3D print small wooden figures on your Ultimaker 2+! Just change the temperature settings for the extrusion temperature and make sure you are using an appropriate fan speed while printing, since this stuff is very sensitive when comes down to apparent over-heating.

After some testing I found out that 40°C seems to be a good starting point for PLA, but if you experience layer bonding issues then lower the temperature even more.

SUNLU wood filament settings – printing wood filament

Extruder temperature: 190-220C (PLA) / 215-225C (ABS)
Bed temperature: 60C Fan speed: 100% 1st layer, 75% other layers(PLA) / 100% all layers (ABS) Infill speed: 20mm/s 0 infill (PLA) / 30mm/s 50% infill (ABS)
Print speed: 60mm/s
M190 – Bed off, wait until printed object moves on it’s own. M104 – Extruder off M109 – Heated bed at 60C M140 – Fan speed 100%(PLA) / Fan speed 100% 1st layer, 75% other layers (ABS) M204 – Set printing speed to 60mm/s
M205 – Turn off fan for print 1st layer(PLA) / 2nd layer (ABS) M206 – Adjust extruder flow rate. ABS: 100%; PLA:80% M18 – Disable motors
M84 – Disable steppers
M92 – Set axis steps(mm) per unit e.g.: M92 X80 Y80 Z2083.4 will set all axis to 2083.4 steps / mm
M500 – Saves filament settings to EEPROM (PLA only)
M503 – Display filament settings e.g.: M503 will display stored(PLA) or default values(ABS)
Slic3r PLA Settings: Quality – 0.25mm ; Speed – 35mm/s ; Fill : 15%; Layer Height : 0.15mm ; Infill every 2nd layer : 1×1 ; Top/Bottom thickness : 0.4mm ; Simplify 3D PLA print settings: No Raft, No Skirt, No Supports
Slic3r ABS Settings: Quality – 0.25mm ; Speed – 55mm/s Fill : 15%; Layer Height : 0.15mm ; Infill every 2nd layer : 1×1 ; Top/Bottom thickness : 0.8mm; Simplify 3D ABS print settings: No Raft, No Skirt, Supports – Everywhere
CURA Engine settings: Layer Height : 0.15mm ; Quality – Normal ; Speed – 60mm/s(ABS) / 40mm/s (PLA); Infill – 3D Honeycomb(ABS) / Rectilinear (PLA); Temperature – 230C(ABS) / 235C(PLA); Print Speed : 60mm/s (ABS) / 40mm/s (PLA); Bed Temp : 70C ; Retraction : 1.2mm @ 80% infill.

What Is Wood 3d Filament? (cre: simplify3d)

Wood filament clogging the filament sensor (hotend) on 3D printers.

The 3D printed wood filament clogging the filament sensor (hotend) of a 3D Printer.

What is wood filaments?

Wood Filament is basically PLA (Polylactic Acid), that has been mixed with 30% – 50% woods by volume and as such can be extruded as regular PLA . The goal of ABS, PLA, Petg and other plastic suppliers making this type of blend is to keep up with market demand for more environmentally friendly products without sacrificing strength or functionality.

How do wood filaments work? ( wood filament properties)

PLA plastics are made from corn starch which offers a renewable source. On the other hand , do you know what wood fibers work as a renewable source for 3D printing?

In fact, PLA plastics can be turned into liquid solutions that are then introduced into the wood fibers during the extrusion process.

The result is a plastic filament which has properties similar to ABS and should work fine in most current printer designs. While ABS is widely used as a housing material because it’s impact resistant and durable, PLA has the advantages of being naturally transparent and eco-friendly made from renewable sources such as corn starch or sugarcane.

PLA (Polylactic Acid) Wood Filament

Traditional 3D printers such as RepRap, MakerBot or Ultimaker use extruded thermoplastic filament 1.75mm diameter to produce objects . However, recently we have seen 3D printer companies have ventured into new territory introducing wooden 3D printed filaments. Using PLA or ABS plastic filament, extruded with wood fibers has the potential to drastically change how things are made.

What Is Wood 3d Filament? (cre: 3dinsider)

Can you 3d print wood?

Yes, you can. 3d printing is not so new anymore. It’s becoming more and more popular – at least that’s what the media wants us to believe. While it does improve constantly, the problem is especially with wooden-looking items (real wood is rougher), that you can’t really print 3d models of them yet.

You see, there are many different ways of 3d modeling something in software like SketchUp or Blender for example. But these software work on polygon-based surfaces rather than vector lines (they do support vectors but still count as polygons).

So whenever you want your model to look like something else (in this case wood) you need to create some kind of fake effect using textures. This way the computer gets fooled and thinks it’s looking at the wood (or whatever texture you choose). However since polygons don’t really make sense when thinking about lines, the result is often too polygons for anything to look like real wood.

If you still want to try, Blender is probably your best option as it has a wider range of material types than SketchUp.

And if you don’t have the money for fancy materials or need more control over your textures, check out Evermotion who released their own rendering engine – Archinteriors vol. 30 includes free wood and stain material:

The big problem is that since there’s just no way around using polygonal surfaces and random colors/textures look terrible, without adding noise effects we can’t really achieve anything close to real wooden models. So people often use 3d printing service providers like Shapeways. Since they rely on printed items (CADs are usually not very good at representing the final product) they need to paint the 3d printed models which are cheaper for them than having to take care of your material/texture color choice.

The bad thing about this is that now you need to wait even longer (2 weeks+) before having your models ready and if something changes, like your facial expression in a huge smiley face model, the paint will be covering up everything important.

One way around this is to make sure you go with one of those service providers who offer full-color sandstone which means they print it in one piece (instead of building layer by layer). But since each print costs like 80€ compared to 10€ for basic colors, people usually settle on just getting their faces painted or do something else with the rest of the body .

Another option is to use a program like Zbrush. This is a pretty advanced piece of software that gives you the most control over your models.

And since it works with voxels, you can easily edit wood or stone materials in no time and even get better results than if you had just modeled them from scratch.

Conclusion

Wood 3D filament is a new product that lets you create anything from furniture to toys with just one material. Wood 3d printing filaments are made of PLA, which is biodegradable and non-toxic.

This means it’s safe for people and the environment! In addition, wood filament can be used on both desktop 3D printers as well as industrial machines because it has a high melting point (180°C).

The only downside to this particular type of filament is its price tag: these types of materials tend to cost more than other alternatives like ABS or nylon. However, if you want something truly unique in your products, then we recommend giving wood a try!

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