Polymorph Plastic Pellets?

I think that rules out making coffee cups..

D from BC myrealaddress(at)comic(dot)com BC, Canada Posted to usenet sci.electronics.design

It's this stuff apparently:

Dave.

When cooled it's physically fairly tough and hard. Should be good for any low temp applications although I wonder what the dielectric loss and dielectric constant are.

...

From the Wiki link: "PCL has been known to become brittle, lose its tensile strength and fall apart after several months so is not suitable for permanent or critical applications." Doesn't sound its good even for low temp.

Tom

Could be very useful for investment casting, provided it "melts" easily enough. Is this the stuff that prototyping printers use?

James.

That's when you mark it as "biodegradable" and double the price.

That's no problem if you making staff for sale, different story if you building something for yourself... Tom

Used them a couple of times for non-electronic stuff. Last was to make a plastic "handle" for a key which I had to modify slightly. It works fine but I found getting a good finish was difficult after hardening - filing was not very successful so I had to remelt and get a better shape second time round. If you have some sort of mould it should be fine.

We used PCL for years for making electrospun fibers in the 1 micron range. It doesn't decay that much at all, indoors. It is brittle, but gives/flexs slightly like most non blended polymers. Dissolves nicely in warm acetone if you heat it about 10'C over room temp. The acetone quickly evaporates, so you can "paint" with it. Yes, it is what the home rapid prototyping machines use. It doesn't like sunlight unless you add a UV stabilizer.

Steve Roberts

The machine shop was interested in this. Someone also had bought some two part thermal epoxy, that was machinable and nonconductive for another application. I don't have that info right now.

greg

Sounds like any old ordinary thermoplastic, with a really low softening point. They* doesn't have a "melting" point - they just get softer as the temp. rises, unless this one is different.

Then, you'll have to make molds for all your parts, or dick with it like modeling clay and cast fingerprints into the part. ;-)

Will 150F burn your fingers?

Cheers! Rich

• thermoplastics in general.

Don't forget to read the fine print: "PCL has been known to become brittle, lose its tensile strength and fall apart after several months so is not suitable for permanent or critical applications."

--- from that WIKI article.

Cheers! Rich

And I thought I just read something about use inside the body ??

greg

And apparently it's fine for use inside dental fillings. For some uses the plastic is mixed with starch. Possibly it's the impurities that cause problems, just like higher quality epoxy has simply been purified of any contaminants from the manufacturing process.

Pure pcl is highly biocompatable, when we electrospun it, it was for skin cell scaffolding for burn patients.

Steve

Hi

I used some many months ago to repair a broken Thermos Stopper. (Top & insides broke). As others have mentioned, it doesn't give the best finish & I found it easy to get it contaminated (discoloured), but it worked & is still going strong.

Brian Toowoomba, QLD