Is it possible to open the aliexpress front page without getting 1337 new project ideas?

@gigabecquerel since the front page looks like this for me in an incognito window, yeah, I'm mostly fine!

@funkylab wdym this does not inspire you to build something

@gigabecquerel sadly it is not.

@gigabecquerel Project idea number 1337 (not from Aliexpress): A nixie clock.

@gigabecquerel I dunno, sometimes the front page delivers some incredibly insane bullshit

@jpm It used to be the same for me, but at some point it just... got me

On an entirely unrelated note:
Has anyone here tried this condctive filament?
There's tons of it on there, and they promise really low resistance. Some call it PLA-Replacement, some call it Nylon, I can't find anything about what it actually is, but if it holds its 1.4 Ohm*cm claim... damn.

https://de.aliexpress.com/item/1005011856720742.html

@gigabecquerel

Sounds useful for very low power heating. Bit high for printed inductors or transformers...

@angelastella ...and just right for detectors!

@gigabecquerel @angelastella

I'm wondering about it's absorbing RF shielding properties. Could be really useful for printing enclosures for EMI sensitive stuff (not to mention its ESD protection capabilities). Also, how well does it electroplate?

@datenwolf @angelastella tbd 😉

@gigabecquerel we use a lot of ESD filament at work and from what I heard the results are very mixed, some areas have too high conductivity, some areas too low

@fesix This isn't sold as ESD, but as properly conductive

@gigabecquerel same could be with this filament, no personal experience but I would think it will vary a lot as well

@fesix True.
However, when you want something to be conductive, "too low resistance" rarely is an issue, and I'm not operating at currents where spots with higher resistance might cause thermal issues

@gigabecquerel it might be PA6-CF.

@gigabecquerel I have a few different CF filled filaments coming, I'll do some test prints and check the practical bulk resistivity.

@gigabecquerel I have some Proto-Pasta conducive PLa but it’s not really conductive. Enough for touch and things like that. It’s some weird space between too high resistance to be good conduction but too low to be ESD dissapative

@petrillic Which is perfect for the kid of stuff I do!
What's a few kOhm when you're talking fC and kV.

@gsuberland What makes you think that?
At first glance PA6 filaments seem to print a lot higher than the 220-250 quoted here.

@gigabecquerel ah, my bad, I had just woken up and hadn't looked very closely. gimme a sec, I can do a comparison on spec with the stuff I have on order.

@gigabecquerel the material specs all match closely to PLA-CF (your mention of nylon threw me off when I replied originally), but that resistivity is almost unbelievable. every source I can find quotes bulk resistivities in carbon filled filaments as being at least four orders of magnitude higher, even for fancy carbon nanotube stuff.

a more believable answer would be that they achieved 142 Ω·m (still extremely good!), and incorrectly converted that to 1.42 Ω·cm when it should be 14.2 kΩ·cm.

@gigabecquerel but for that price I might just order some and try it. if their numbers are to be believed then a solid D10xL5mm cylinder would come out at about 1Ω, which would be quite acceptable for a low current passthrough.

@gigabecquerel if any of the AMS-compatible CF filaments I have on order turn out to have reasonable electrical properties I'm gonna try making some 3D printed capacitors. I can probably get down to 60μm dielectric thickness on my H2S with some tuning, which isn't terrible. I bet the parasitics will be awful, but that's half the fun.

@gsuberland @gigabecquerel MLPC (multilayer printed capacitor)

Well, one good thing came from this:
I thought about using this filament to print a few detectors, and then one thing lead to another and I finally ordered the PCBs for my wire chambers!

Maybe then, finally, I'll have my muon tracker.

Honey, I shrunk the filament!

@gigabecquerel Ah. Mine arrived too yesterday and it must be the tiniest of spools I’ve ever seen. Classic case of online order with comically mismatched size only apparent upon delivery. I mean… it says 0.2kg in the offer… but… so tiiiny.

@nblr I really gotta buy a set of those, just for all the funny pictures

@nblr @gigabecquerel "während wir auf die Getränke warten, spielen wir ne kleine Runde Maumau?"

Oh boy, the manufacturer recommended 50 mm/s max print speed really makes you appreciate modern day printers and materials.

@gigabecquerel @nblr want

@gigabecquerel @fesix I wonder if it has the required properties to build the ultra high isolation toroidal transformers described by MarcoReps. It has to be just enough conductive but not too much to avoid shorting the transformer.

Phew, 5 hours something later and I'm quite happy with the results!

@gigabecquerel very interesting!

@gigabecquerel poke @vince

@gigabecquerel Underfloor heating for bee hives?

@gigabecquerel Is it for bees but without the bzzt?

Far from perfect, because I had to abort it early. But plating copper onto this filament works very well, and I ran the entire 1.5 A of plating current through the plastic!

@gigabecquerel Wow, this is great. Last year I was dabbling with 3D printed open cell gyroid structures, coated with copper lacquer, as a replacement for EMI shielding honeycombs used for shielding ventilation openings in electronics enclosures. Results were… meh.

But this looks surprisingly good.

@datenwolf Open cell foams are going to be near impossible to electroplate I fear. But this should do just fine for small enclosures, maybe antennae or similar

@gigabecquerel

My motto: "Versuch macht kluch…!"

Here's my Gyroid generator (Blender Geometry Nodes). Try tinkering with some of the Node parameters and see what happens. Have fun!

https://dl.datenwolf.net/gyroid_sponge.blend

@gigabecquerel that's... not awful conductivity!