3D Printing Medical Grade Filament

The 3D printing FibreTuff biocompatible materials as filament have a bone like surface texture, as well as appearance and radio density - vertebrae's, skulls, femurs, calcaneus, talus, metatarsal, skull cap, mandible, sacrum. Plus, FibreTuff can be sterilized with standard methods such as Autoclave. 

3D printing FibreTuff, a biocompatible polymer composite has bone like qualities including radiopacity to show device location for removal and bone bridging in CT Scans. 

The 3D printing FibreTuff medical grade filaments have biocompatible qualities and can be annealed to increase physical performance in some cases beyond 10%. The oven temperatures of 225F / 127C up to 45min will help increase flexibility and strength. 

FibreTuff has now produced it’s biocompatible compound with ISO 13485 certification. The company will be able to produce filaments for 3D Printing to use in surgical guides and implants. FibreTuff has global recognition to produce the most advanced 3D Printed anatomical bone like models for clinical and pre surgical assessment.

The specific gravity of FibreTuff I filament is 1.05 - 1.08 g/cc. This filament for 3D Printing is user friendly and doesn't require extensive drying like other highly engineered Nylon resins. FibreTuff I has proven to be biocompatible with similar properties to Nylon 11 or 12.  Further, printed FibreTuff has twice the strength as bio resorbables like PCL. The FibreTuff is anisotropic, prints are stronger in the Z direction versus X and Y.  

3D printing in the Z direction is an absolute for bone like construction including radio density. The cortical bone will have 100% infill and cancellous bone being less with different infill patterns available through printer manufacturer. 

FibreTuff PAPC is biocompatible and needs to be desiccant dried for 8-10 hrs. for optimum 3D printing performance. It can be 3D Printed with various break away materials or support structure polymers to help with the vertical printing in Z direction. Standard  breakaway or water soluble PVA for the Ultimaker 3D Printers can be used.

Recommended processing conditions.

The nozzle size should be .4 or .5mm with temps at 235 - 240C.

The printer bed should be heated at 80 -100C. 

Cooling Fan on for first few layers than turned off 

Recommended layer height .1 - .2mm

Printer oven is desired - temps 80C.

Printing speeds 45 -50 mm/sec

Density or infill is at 90 - 93% infill

Recommend Adhesive or breakaway - PVA  

Please note: A new spool of FibreTuff Medical Grade filament is packaged in a vacuum sealed package with desiccant and  will require some desiccant drying. If you leave spool exposed to elements over a period of time estimated at 3-4 days, moisture pickup is possible and may effect adhesion for layering. An indication of too much moisture is over extrusion or nodules present. It is recommended to desiccant dry spool for 10 hrs before printing.
 

The 3D printed hand models produced at VosFox medical with FibreTuff showed details having 27 segmented bones attached with wires and pins. The process controls to make the hand included proper drying of FibreTuff before 3D printing. VosFox Medical in the Netherlands is now printing feet with each bone segmented to show realistic construction. see website www.vosfoxmedical.com 

FibreTuff has biocompatible medical grade filaments and participates on the Ultimaker 3D Printer Materials Marketplace for 3D printing 

VosFox Medical an established 3D printing company in Europe uses Ultimaker with FibreTuff to print biocompatible bone like replicas. These printed foot bone segments were connected with wires and glued. On the Vosfox Medical website Sandra de Vos, founder, explains how the printed foot bone was manufactured. She will sell both the bone like foot and hand models.

VosFox Medical located in the Netherlands, has been 3D printing segmented bone like models to produce human hands. They have been 3D printing with Ultimaker 2+ and FibreTuff filament. The company explains the process and technique for printing the hand bone models with FibreTuff on they're website and how to purchase.