I specifically use the color changing material on my Voron fan cover/plates. It doesn’t require much structural priority, and it visually tells me if the electronics are heating up due to the passive air temperature rising. It’s cool to see it change 10 minutes into the print from cold start.
Colour changing filament could make for a fun hot drink coaster if you can match the room temperature colour with a regular PLA. The design would only reveal itself when lifting your hot cup!
Use cases for color changing filament: I mentioned the Raspberry Pi case in a comment. I also made indicators for the central heating radiators, so I could see if they are on or not. You could put one in a bath tub as a "warm water" indicator as well. My favorite use was to make "coins" where the backing was printed in black to white color changing filament and the graphics on the coin with black filament. When the coin is cold, it looks black, but when you hold it in your hand, the background fades and you get black graphics over a white background. I used the Marvel S.H.I.E.L.D. logo as graphics and "engraved" my tag on the backside.
Great list! I would appreciate a video on the soft PLA and perhaps directly comparing it to a common TPU. I considered getting some a while ago, but couldn't find much info, and have just been using TPU instead.
Color changing plastic could be useful where visual indication of temperature could be useful. I could imagine like electronics prototyping where you could look at a glance if your device is overheating, especially if it's used in enclosure. For example if a PCB is attached to the enclosure like to a backplate. Though I'm not confident that it could be optimal for such use since for a generic semiconductor device critical temperatures are usually in 70-100C range that can be bad for PLA.
I printed my Raspberry Pi cases using color-changing filament, so I can see if they heat up (and where the heat is). I had the old case for years and it actually lost most of the color over time (probably because of UV?). The new one is purple/orange filament and it's currently a nice raspberry color, so it turned out to be a nice choice.
Can the soft version be useful and work as buttons on a remote control with lettering? Some of the buttons on my remote control are faded and if this works, could be replaced with new buttons with a deeper engraved number or symbols.
I hope you enjoyed the video.
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I specifically use the color changing material on my Voron fan cover/plates. It doesn’t require much structural priority, and it visually tells me if the electronics are heating up due to the passive air temperature rising. It’s cool to see it change 10 minutes into the print from cold start.
That's a cool use case!
Colour changing filament could make for a fun hot drink coaster if you can match the room temperature colour with a regular PLA. The design would only reveal itself when lifting your hot cup!
Use cases for color changing filament: I mentioned the Raspberry Pi case in a comment. I also made indicators for the central heating radiators, so I could see if they are on or not. You could put one in a bath tub as a "warm water" indicator as well. My favorite use was to make "coins" where the backing was printed in black to white color changing filament and the graphics on the coin with black filament. When the coin is cold, it looks black, but when you hold it in your hand, the background fades and you get black graphics over a white background. I used the Marvel S.H.I.E.L.D. logo as graphics and "engraved" my tag on the backside.
Very cool! I didn't know about soft PLA. If you added timestamps in the description, this would be a great reference video!
Definitely add timestamps.
Thank you! Actually, there are timestamps in the video description, you just need to scroll down a little bit!
@@JanTecEngineering Ah they weren't functioning on the video yet properly. :)
Great list! I would appreciate a video on the soft PLA and perhaps directly comparing it to a common TPU. I considered getting some a while ago, but couldn't find much info, and have just been using TPU instead.
Thanks! That's a great suggestion and I will consider a comparison between SoftPLA and TPU.
Color changing plastic could be useful where visual indication of temperature could be useful.
I could imagine like electronics prototyping where you could look at a glance if your device is overheating, especially if it's used in enclosure.
For example if a PCB is attached to the enclosure like to a backplate.
Though I'm not confident that it could be optimal for such use since for a generic semiconductor device critical temperatures are usually in 70-100C range that can be bad for PLA.
I printed my Raspberry Pi cases using color-changing filament, so I can see if they heat up (and where the heat is). I had the old case for years and it actually lost most of the color over time (probably because of UV?). The new one is purple/orange filament and it's currently a nice raspberry color, so it turned out to be a nice choice.
Can the soft version be useful and work as buttons on a remote control with lettering? Some of the buttons on my remote control are faded and if this works, could be replaced with new buttons with a deeper engraved number or symbols.
Can you recycle plastic pieces that have broken, instead of just tossing them out?
Find more detailed filament tests on my German channel!