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FDM Polymers — A Technical Reference ›

Appendices

Cross-poly­mer prop­er­ty com­par­i­son ta­bles, the au­thor's bench-mea­sured cal­i­bra­tion pro­files for a rep­re­sen­ta­tive pro­sumer setup, an al­pha­bet­i­cal brand index keyed to chap­ter ref­er­ences, and the con­sol­i­dat­ed source list for data val­ues cited through­out the vol­ume.

Appendix A — Master cross-polymer property comparison

Con­sol­i­dat­ed prop­er­ty ta­bles across the poly­mer fam­i­lies in this vol­ume. Val­ues are typ­i­cal FDM-print­ed-spec­i­men en­velopes from man­u­fac­tur­er TDS data, bi­ased to­ward XY-di­rec­tion ten­sile and mod­u­lus val­ues where ven­dors pub­lish them. Spe­cif­ic fil­a­ment brands and batch­es will vary with­in each poly­mer's range by 10–25%. Cross-ref­er­ence the per-poly­mer chap­ter for en­gi­neer­ing de­ci­sions.

A.1 Ther­mal en­ve­lope

Polymer Tg(°C) Tm(°C) HDT @ 0.45 MPa (°C) Continuous service (°C)
PLA 55–65 150–170 55–60 50
PLA annealed (HTPLA) 55–65 150–170 ~120 100
PETG 75–80 — (a) 70–75 60
PCTG 85–95 — 76–99 70
ABS ~105 — 90–98 80
ASA ~100 — 90–98 85
HIPS 90–100 — 85 70
PP unfilled -10 160–170 85–100 60
PP-GF -10 160–170 115–140 100
PP-CF -10 160–170 115–160 100
PE / HDPE -110 ~130 50–60 60
PA6 (dry) ~55 215–225 150–170 80
PA66 (dry) ~70 255–265 180–200 100
PA12 ~45 175–180 140–150 90
PA612 ~50 210–220 150–160 100
PA11 ~45 180–190 140–150 90
PPA (unfilled, filament) ~80 ~230–260 75–85 70–90 (c)
PPA-CF (filament) ~80 ~230–260 120–200 (c) 130–150 (c)
PC blend (general) 105–150 — 95–145 100
PC-CF 142+ — 140 130
ESD-PC 143 — 135–138 120
Polymer Tg(°C) Tm(°C) HDT @ 0.45 MPa (°C) Continuous service (°C)
PEI 9085-CF 186 — 180 170
PEI 1010-CF 217 — 210 200
PEEK 143 343 160 / 240 annealed 250
PEKK-A (amorphous) ~165 — 160 150
PPS-CF ~90 ~280 200+ 180
PMMA 80–110 — 94 70
POM -60 165–180 100–120 90
PVDF -35 165–175 110 120
TPU 95A — ~200 50–70 70
TPEE 55D — ~200 90–110 110
PEBA 40D — ~200 80–95 90
Table A.1 — Ther­mal en­ve­lope across the poly­mer fam­i­lies cov­ered in this vol­ume. Con­tin­u­ous ser­vice tem­per­a­ture is derived from RTI/HDT data and creep behavior per polymer — there is no reliable T-offset formula — and is not the ab­so­lute upper limit, which is clos­er to Tg or HDT. Use this col­umn for ser­vice-life cal­cu­la­tions; use HDT for short-du­ra­tion ther­mal events. (a) PETG is an amor­phous copolyester with no true crys­talline melt­ing point; it is pro­cessed across a melt/pro­cess­ing range of rough­ly 230–250 °C rather than at a de­fined Tm. (b) The PEKK row is the amor­phous grade (PEKK-A); semi-crys­talline PEKK runs a high­er con­tin­u­ous-ser­vice en­ve­lope of rough­ly 220–240 °C, as noted in §19.4. (c) The PPA rows give print­able fil­a­ment-grade val­ues: com­mer­cial PPA fil­a­ments are print­abil­i­ty-mod­i­fied semi-aro­mat­ic copoly­mers with a melt­ing point near 230–260 °C, well below the 290–320 °C of neat high-tem­per­a­ture PA6T/PA9T resins. PPA-CF HDT is strong­ly load- and an­neal-de­pen­dent — rough­ly 120 °C at 1.80 MPa ris­ing to ~200 °C at 0.45 MPa after an­neal­ing — so the fil­a­ment datasheet should be read with the test basis in mind. The continuous-service figures reflect RTI-class data adjusted for grade: the low-crystallinity printability-modified unfilled grades are creep-limited near their ~80 °C Tg, while CF grades retain stiffness well above it; the 180–200 °C figures sometimes quoted for PPA-CF are short-term or annealed HDT values, not continuous service.
**A.2 Me­chan­i­cal en­ve­lope (XY-di­rec­tion, dry as-print­ed)**
Polymer Density (g/cm3) Tensile (MPa) Modulus (GPa) Elongation (%) Notched Izod (kJ/m2)
PLA 1.24 50–70 3–4 3–8 2–4
PETG 1.23–1.27 40–50 1.9–2.1 8–25 4–8
PCTG 1.18–1.23 44–58 1.5–1.6 TDS up to ~220 (b) ~8–24 (b)
ABS 1.0–1.1 30–45 ~2 10–40 15–25
ASA 1.05–1.1 30–45 ~2 10–35 15–25
PP unfilled 0.90–0.91 15–25 1.0–1.4 100–600 5–15
PP-GF (15–30%) 1.05–1.15 30–50 2.0–3.0 3–10 7–12
PP-CF (15–30%) 0.91–1.00 25–45 2.0–4.0 3–6 10–15
Polymer Density (g/cm3) Tensile (MPa) Modulus (GPa) Elongation (%) Notched Izod (kJ/m2)
PA6 dry 1.13 70–85 2.0–3.0 30 / 5 (Z) 5–8
PA12 1.01 45–55 1.1–1.5 30–80 4–6
PA6-CF (15–25%) 1.15 90–130 5–9 3–6 8–12
PPA-CF (15–20%) ~1.20 120–170 6–10 2–5 6–10
PC blend ~1.20 40–65 ~2.0–2.5 6–80 50–80
PC-CF (10–15%) ~1.25 64–76 ~5 ~3 15–30
PPS-CF (10–20%) ~1.30 90–110 5–12 ~2 ~5
PEEK unfilled 1.30 90–100 3.5–4.0 30–50 5–7
PEEK-CF (15–30%) 1.35 130–170 12–15 ~2 5–8
PMMA 1.18–1.20 60–75 3.0–3.5 2–5 ~2
POM 1.4 65–75 2.5–3.0 10–30 6–8
PVDF 1.75–1.80 35–50 1.5–2.5 50–200 10–15
TPU 95A 1.20–1.25 30–45 ~0.05 400–600 —
PEBA 40D 1.01 35–55 ~0.08 400–700 —
Table A.2 — Me­chan­i­cal en­ve­lope across the poly­mer fam­i­lies. Re­in­forced grades (CF, GF) carry the high­est stiff­ness num­bers but the low­est elon­ga­tion and notched im­pact — the brit­tle/stiff trade is struc­tural. Elas­tomer mod­u­lus val­ues are re­port­ed low be­cause the poly­mer flex­es under test load; ten­sile strength re­mains use­ful as a rel­a­tive met­ric even though elon­ga­tion dom­i­nates elas­tomer ap­pli­ca­tions. (b) PCTG elongation and notched-impact figures vary widely with resin grade, test method (ISO 180 Izod vs ISO 179 Charpy), specimen basis, and print ori­en­ta­tion; the ~8–24 kJ/m2 impact range spans ven­dor TDS val­ues near the low end and in­de­pen­dent­ly mea­sured flat-print­ed spec­i­mens near the high end. Treat these as ori­en­ta­tion- and method-de­pen­dent, not single allowables.
**A.3 Process en­ve­lope**
Polymer Nozzle (°C) Bed (°C) Chamber Drying Tier
PLA 200–220 50–60 none 45–55 °C, 4–6 h (optional) 1
PETG 230–250 80–90 optional 60–70 °C, 4–6 h 1
PCTG 240–270 70–90 optional 65–70 °C, 4–6 h 1
ABS / ASA 240–270 95–110 enclosed 60–70 °C, 4–6 h 2
PP family 200–280 20–105 optional unfilled: not required; GF/CF: follow TDS (some specify none; some 60–80 °C, 4–6 h) 2
PA12 / 612 / 11 245–280 60–90 enclosed 70–80 °C, 8–12 h 2
Polymer Nozzle (°C) Bed (°C) Chamber Drying Tier
PA6 / 66 260–290 90–110 passive 40–50 80–90 °C, 10–16 h 2
PA-CF / GF 265–295 90–110 passive 40–50 90–110 °C, 8–10 h 2
PPA (unfilled) 275–310 80–110 passive 40–60 80–140 °C, 4–12 h (d) 3
PPA-CF / GF 280–320 90–120 active 55–65 80–140 °C, 4–12 h (d) 3
PC blend 270–290 100–115 passive 40–50 80–100 °C, 6–8 h 2
PC-CF / GF / ESD 275–300 100–120 passive 45–60 90–110 °C, 8–10 h 3
FR-PC 240–280 90–110 passive 40–50 60–80 °C, 4–16 h 2
PPS-CF 320–350 110–120 active 55–65 80–110 °C, 6–8 h 3
PEI-CF 350–390 140–155 active 65 130–150 °C, 4–6 h 3–4*
PEEK / PEKK 380–440 140–155 active 85+ 120–130 °C, >=4 h 4
PMMA 240–270 100–110 enclosed 90 °C, 4–6 h 2
POM 210–230 100–115 optional + ventilation 80 °C, 4–6 h 2
PVDF 230–250 90–110 optional 80 °C, 4–6 h 2
TPU / TPE 220–250 40–70 optional 50–65 °C, 4–6 h 1
TPEE 230–250 50–70 optional 65–75 °C, 6–8 h 1
PEBA 225–250 50–60 optional 70–80 °C, 6–8 h 2
PVA / BVOH 195–225 50–65 none 45–60 °C, 8–12 h 1
PVB 215±10 70–80 none 45 °C, 8 h 1
Table A.3 — Process en­ve­lope and hard­ware tier across the poly­mer fam­i­lies. The tier col­umn maps to the §4 hard­ware def­i­ni­tions: Tier 1 base­line desk­top, Tier 2 en­gi­neer­ing desk­top, Tier 3 ac­tive-cham­ber en­gi­neer­ing, Tier 4 ultra-high-tem­per­a­ture in­dus­tri­al (be­yond pro­sumer scope). Fil­a­ment se­lec­tion out­side the hard­ware's tier ca­pa­bil­i­ty pro­duces un­re­li­able re­sults. *PEI-CF strad­dles the Tier 3/Tier 4 bound­ary: it prints in a Tier 3 ac­tive cham­ber, but its 140–155 °C bed and 350–390 °C noz­zle ex­ceed the Tier 3 en­ve­lope de­fined in §4 (bed <=120 °C) and re­quire Tier 4 ther­mal hard­ware. Treat it as bound­ary hard­ware, not stan­dard Tier 3. (d) PPA dry­ing guid­ance varies by brand: the upper end (~140 °C, 8–12 h) suits the high­er-melt­ing en­gi­neer­ing PPAs such as Bambu PPA-CF, while the print­abil­i­ty-mod­i­fied grades such as Sir­aya Fi­bre­heart PPA spec­i­fy a milder 80–100 °C for 4–6 h and treat dry­ing as need­ed only when mois­ture symp­toms ap­pear. Fol­low the spool's own datasheet rather than a sin­gle fam­i­ly sched­ule.
### Appendix B — Example calibrated filament profiles

Bench-mea­sured cal­i­bra­tion val­ues for spe­cif­ic fil­a­ments, cap­tured on a rep­re­sen­ta­tive pro­sumer setup as worked ex­am­ples of the §23 cal­i­bra­tion work­flow. These val­ues are mea­sured, not ven­dor-sup­plied; they should be treat­ed as start­ing points for re-cal­i­bra­tion on the read­er's ac­tu­al hard­ware rather than as uni­ver­sal val­ues. Spool-to-spool drift of 5–10% on EM and PA is nor­mal with­in the same brand and color.

B.1 Ref­er­ence hard­ware setup All val­ues below were mea­sured on a sin­gle en­closed CoreXY pro­sumer print­er with a 0.4 mm hard­ened-tip noz­zle (PCD-tipped for the CF-load­ed and abra­sive grades, hard­ened steel for the un­filled en­gi­neer­ing poly­mers), in an ac­tive-cham­ber con­fig­u­ra­tion ca­pa­ble of 45–55 °C am­bi­ent. Per-spool dry­ing was per­formed to the §3.5 pro­to­col be­fore each cal­i­bra­tion. The cal­i­bra­tions re­port­ed here used the Cal­iflow­er Mk2 XY-shrink­age method­ol­o­gy and the 12-sam­ple wall mea­sure­ment EM method de­scribed in §23.4. Where a dif­fer­ent noz­zle size was used (0.6 mm high-flow), it is noted in the per-pro­file entry.

B.2 Cal­i­brat­ed pro­files (en­gi­neer­ing poly­mers)

Filament Nozzle (°C) Bed (°C) Max vol. (mm3/s) EM PA XY shrink (%)
Prusament PC Blend 275 110 ~10 1.045 0.025 —
Prusament ASA (in progress) 260 105 9.5 1.030 pending pending
Kexcelled K8 PC 270 105 ~10 1.049 0.045 —
3D-Fuel Pro PCTG 265 85 ~10 0.937 0.053 0.20
Spectrum PCTG Matte Black CF (0.4 mm) 245 85 11 0.960 tuned 0.20
Overture Easy Nylon (CoPA) 245 50 11 1.000 0.030 0.25
Polymaker Fiberon PA6-CF20 290 95 ~9 0.898 tuned 0.20
iglidur I150-PF (PA6 tribological) 245 60 4 1.030 geometry-dependent (not converged) —
Siraya Tech TPU 64D 260 45 5 0.970 tuned —
Table B.1 — Bench-mea­sured cal­i­bra­tion pro­files on a 0.4 mm PCD-tipped or hard­ened-steel noz­zle. Bed sur­face varies by poly­mer fam­i­ly per §24; the val­ues above as­sume the bed sur­face from that chap­ter's rec­om­men­da­tion. The Prusa­ment ASA pro­file is in progress at com­pi­la­tion; pres­sure ad­vance and XY shrink­age are pend­ing.
**B.3 Cal­i­brat­ed pro­files (0.6 mm high-flow noz­zle)**
Filament Nozzle (°C) Bed (°C) Chamber (°C) Max vol. (mm3/s) EM PA
Overture ASA (0.6 mm HF) 265 95 45 14 tuned 0.025
Polymaker Fiberon PET-GF15 (0.6 mm HF) 290 80 55–60 13 tuned 0.030
Polymaker Fiberon PPS-CF10 (0.6 mm Diamondback) 350 120 55–65 ~10 tuned tuned
Table B.2 — 0.6 mm high-flow pro­files where the larg­er noz­zle was used in­stead of the 0.4 mm de­fault. Over­hang fan set­tings: 40% for PET-GF15 (re­duces string­ing on the longer-melt high-flow setup); 0% for ASA and PPS-CF (in­ter­lay­er ad­he­sion sen­si­tive to cool­ing at this noz­zle scale).
**B.4 Notes on work­flow** Pres­sure ad­vance is best stored per-fil­a­ment rather than as a sin­gle ma­chine-wide value, so the cor­rect com­pen­sa­tion trav­els with the ma­te­ri­al in­stead of re­quir­ing a man­u­al reset be­tween fil­a­ments. Most firmware im­ple­men­ta­tions ex­pose a way to do this: a per-fil­a­ment start-G-code com­mand (for ex­am­ple, `M900 K…` on Mar­lin, `M572 D0 S…` on RepRap­Firmware and Prusa Buddy firmware, or the `SET_PRESSURE_ADVANCE` macro on Klip­per), or a per-fil­a­ment field in the slicer pro­file on print­ers that man­age the value in firmware. The pro­files above were cap­tured with the value in the fil­a­ment start G-code; the read­er should use which­ever mech­a­nism their own firmware and slicer pro­vide. Skew cor­rec­tion, where the frame is mea­sured out of square, is ap­plied ei­ther in firmware or as a G-code post-pro­cess­ing step and val­i­dat­ed against a print­ed skew cal­i­bra­tion model; the resid­u­al after cor­rec­tion on the ref­er­ence setup was below 0.02°. Z-shrink­age com­pen­sa­tion was in­ten­tion­al­ly skipped on most pro­files where Z-axis di­men­sion­al pre­ci­sion was al­ready with­in the en­gi­neer­ing tol­er­ance for the in­tend­ed ap­pli­ca­tion; it is worth mea­sur­ing only where tall parts must hold a tight Z di­men­sion.

Appendix C — Brand index

Al­pha­bet­i­cal index of fil­a­ment brands cited in this vol­ume, with their pri­ma­ry prod­uct fam­i­lies and the chap­ter ref­er­ences where they ap­pear. Brands with sin­gle-chap­ter cov­er­age are list­ed once; brands span­ning mul­ti­ple poly­mer fam­i­lies are list­ed with the pri­ma­ry ap­pli­ca­tion axis noted.

Brand Primary product families Chapters
3D-Fuel Pro PCTG (Tritan), ReFuel PCTG, PETG, PLA 6, 7, 8
3DXTech CarbonX (PEEK, PEKK, PEBA, PA6-CF, PC-CF, PPS-CF, HTN, PETG-CF); ThermaX (PEEK, PEKK, PEI 9085-CF, PEI 1010-CF, PSU, PPSU); FluorX PVDF; 3DXSTAT ESD-Safe PC; FibreX PPA+GF15 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19
American Filament PCTG, PETG (US food-contact focus) 8
AzureFilm PC-ABS, PETG, PLA, ABS (European budget tier) 15
Bambu Lab PC, PC FR, PPS-CF, PPA-CF, PAHT-CF, PA6-CF, PA6-GF, TPU 95A, TPU for AMS, Support W 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20
BCN3D PAHT CF15, BVOH; primarily for BCN3D printer ecosystem 14, 20
Braskem FL900PP-CF (recycled CF), FL500PP-GF, FL100PP, FL105PP, FL300PE 11, 12
colorFabb LW-PLA, PLA/PHA, allPHA, nGen copolyester 6, 7, 21
Creality Generic "Nylon" SKUs (CoPA / PA6 base), budget engineering filaments 13
eSun PVA, eTPU-95A, generic Nylon (CoPA), generic engineering filaments (budget tier) 13, 16, 20
Essentium PCTG (Tritan) 8
Fiberlogy PCTG, Nylon PA12, PA12-GF, PP, R PP (recycled), Inox metal-filled 7, 8, 11, 13
Fillamentum PP 2320, Porthcurno (with Fishy Filaments; 100% ocean-recovered PA6 from fishing nets), NonOilen PLA/PHA, PMMA 11, 13, 17, 21
Flashforge PPS-CF (LUVOCOM), PPA-CF, PEEK (limited) 14, 18, 19
FormFutura AthenaX (PCTG-class), ApolloX (ASA), TitanX (ABS), Centaur PP, Atlas Support 7, 10, 11, 20
Forward AM (BASF) Ultrafuse PC/ABS FR, PC GF30, TPU 64D/85A/95A, PEBA 15, 16
Gizmo Dorks Acetal (POM) 17
Kexcelled K8 PC, K-class PLA and engineering grades 15
Nanovia PC family (PC-CF and PC-ABS variants); French specialty 15
NinjaTek NinjaFlex 85A, Cheetah 95A, Armadillo 75D 16
Nobufil PCTG, color-focused European specialty 8
Overture Easy Nylon (CoPA), ASA, PETG, generic engineering 10, 13
Brand Primary product families Chapters
Polymaker PolyMax PC, PolyLite PC, PC-ABS, PC-PBT, PolyMide CoPA, Fiberon PA6-CF20, PA612-CF15, PA6-GF25, PPS-CF10, PolyFlex TPU, PolyMax TPU, PolyDissolve S1, PolyTerra PLA, PolyMax PETG 6, 7, 13, 15, 16, 18, 20
PPprint P-filament 721, P-support 279, P-surface 141 (PP system) 11
Prusament PC Blend, PC Blend CF, PC Space Grade Black, ASA, PETG, PVB, PA11-CF Carbon Fiber, PP CF, PP GF, PLA 6, 7, 10, 11, 13, 15, 21
Qidi PAHT-CF / PAHT-GF (PPA-based) 14
Raise3D Industrial PPA CF, PPA GF, breakaway PPA support 14
Recreus FilaFlex 60A/70A/82A/95A, PP3D, PP-GF 11, 16
SainSmart TPU 95A, generic flexibles (budget tier) 16
Siraya Tech Fibreheart PPA, PPA-CF, PPA-CF Core, Mecha PA6-CF, NylonPro CoPA, TPU 64D, Pro Flex 85A, foaming TPU line, Mushroom foaming PLA 13, 14, 16
Spectrum Premium PCTG, PCTG CF10, PCTG GF, HDPE, PC CF, PC/PTFE, PC/ABS FR V0, PMMA, ABS, ASA, PLA 7, 8, 10, 12, 15, 17
Sunlu TPU 95A, PETG, PLA, generic Nylon (budget tier) 7, 11, 13, 16
Tangled Filament PCTG (aggressive pricing target) 8
Verbatim BVOH (soluble support); Primalloy (TPE flexible) 20, 16

Appendix D — Consolidated references

Source list for the data val­ues, method­olo­gies, and ref­er­ences cited through­out the vol­ume. Per the ed­i­to­ri­al prin­ci­ple in §1.3, the ci­ta­tion hi­er­ar­chy is man­u­fac­tur­er fil­a­ment TDS first, resin man­u­fac­tur­er TDS sec­ond, peer-re­viewed lit­er­a­ture and in­de­pen­dent test­ing third, with ven­dor mar­ket­ing rel­e­gat­ed to the bot­tom of the source stack. Where a sta­ble canon­i­cal lo­ca­tion ex­ists, the URL is given below with the date it was last checked (May 2026). Fil­a­ment tech­ni­cal datasheets are ver­sioned and their doc­u­ment paths change with ven­dor web­site up­dates; for those, the man­u­fac­tur­er's of­fi­cial do­main is given as the sta­ble entry point rather than a deep link that will rot, and the read­er should ex­pect the live TDS to su­per­sede any fig­ure quot­ed here. This list does not claim per-claim ver­sion prove­nance: in­di­vid­u­al nu­mer­ic val­ues were drawn from which­ever TDS re­vi­sion was cur­rent dur­ing prepa­ra­tion, and that re­vi­sion is not al­ways re­cov­er­able. Values that drive material selection should be tied back to the relevant table note or current TDS, including method, specimen type, print orientation, dry/wet conditioning, and anneal state. Treat the vol­ume's fig­ures as start­ing points to be con­firmed against cur­rent ven­dor data, ex­act­ly as §1.3 and the Pref­ace state.

D.1 In­de­pen­dent test­ing datasets MyTech­Fun com­par­a­tive fil­a­ment test data­base. An in­de­pen­dent­ly com­piled dataset of ten­sile, layer-ad­he­sion, and ther­mal mea­sure­ments for a large num­ber of fil­a­ments, test­ed on a sin­gle ref­er­ence ma­chine with a uni­form test ge­om­e­try. It is a use­ful cross-brand san­i­ty check on man­u­fac­tur­ers' TDS-pub­lished val­ues. The data­base is the prop­er­ty of its au­thor and is dis­trib­uted to the project's Pa­tre­on sup­port­ers; its spe­cif­ic mea­sured val­ues are not re­pro­duced in this vol­ume. Read­ers who want the un­der­ly­ing num­bers should ob­tain them di­rect­ly from the MyTech­Fun project (mytech­fun.com and the as­so­ci­at­ed Pa­tre­on), under that project's own terms. §13.7 and §14.11 dis­cuss, in gen­er­al terms, the pat­terns such in­de­pen­dent test­ing re­veals — datasheet stiff­ness over­stat­ing print­ed-part per­for­mance, and heat fig­ures di­verg­ing by test method — with­out cit­ing any of the data­base's fig­ures.

Pro­sumer-print­er com­mu­ni­ty trou­bleshoot­ing anal­y­sis. The au­thor's sta­tis­ti­cal anal­y­sis of ~910 com­mu­ni­ty-re­port­ed trou­bleshoot­ing threads on a sin­gle pro­sumer print­er model, clas­si­fied into 15 issue cat­e­gories. Cited in the poly­mer chap­ters as the em­pir­i­cal basis for the rel­a­tive fre­quen­cy of fail­ure modes (VFA, layer ad­he­sion loss, bed ad­he­sion, warp) across poly­mer fam­i­lies. Method and clas­si­fi­er are doc­u­ment­ed in the au­thor's pub­lished write-up; see the re­vi­sion note in D.5 for where er­ra­ta and sup­port­ing ma­te­ri­al are tracked.

Cal­iflow­er Mk2 di­men­sion­al cal­i­bra­tion method­ol­o­gy. A multi-fea­ture XY-shrink­age test ge­om­e­try pub­lished on com­mu­ni­ty model repos­i­to­ries along­side the cal­i­bra­tion method­ol­o­gy used through­out this vol­ume. Pro­vides both ex­ter­nal and in­ter­nal di­men­sion­al checks for shrink­age com­pen­sa­tion tun­ing. The model and ac­com­pa­ny­ing method notes are pub­lished on its creator's (Vector3D's) Print­a­bles pro­file (ac­cessed May 2026).

D.2 Man­u­fac­tur­er tech­ni­cal datasheets Fil­a­ment TDS data is cited from the man­u­fac­tur­ers' pub­lished doc­u­ments on their of­fi­cial web­sites and dis­trib­u­tor por­tals. The prin­ci­pal man­u­fac­tur­er ref­er­ence points used across the vol­ume:

Manufacturer Product families with TDS data cited
3D-Fuel Pro PCTG, ReFuel PCTG
3DXTech CarbonX, ThermaX, FluorX, 3DXSTAT product families
AzureFilm PC-ABS
Manufacturer Product families with TDS data cited
Bambu Lab PC, PC FR, PPA-CF, PAHT-CF, PA6-CF, PA6-GF, TPU 95A
Braskem FL900PP-CF, FL500PP-GF, FL100PP, FL105PP, FL300PE
Eastman Tritan TX1001 resin TDS (foundational PCTG reference)
Fiberlogy PCTG, PA12, PP, R PP
Fillamentum PP 2320, PLA-PHA NonOilen
Forward AM (BASF) Ultrafuse PC/ABS FR, PC GF30, TPU, PEBA
NinjaTek NinjaFlex, Cheetah, Armadillo
Polymaker PolyMax PC, PC-ABS, PC-PBT, Fiberon PA, PolyDissolve, PolyTerra, PolyMax PETG
PPprint P-filament 721, P-support 279
Prusament PC Blend, PC Blend CF, PC Space Grade, ASA, PETG, PVB, PA11-CF, PP CF, PP GF, PLA
Recreus FilaFlex product line
Siraya Tech Fibreheart PPA/PPA-CF/PPA-CF Core, TPU 64D, foaming product line
Spectrum PCTG, PC CF, PC/PTFE, PC/ABS FR V0, HDPE, PMMA
Table D.1 — Man­u­fac­tur­er TDS sources by fil­a­ment fam­i­ly. Each man­u­fac­tur­er pub­lish­es cur­rent tech­ni­cal datasheets on its of­fi­cial do­main (e.g. bam­bu­lab.com, prusa3d.com, poly­mak­er.com, 3dx­tech.com, fiber­l­ogy.com, spec­trum­fil­a­ments.com, basf-for­ward-am.com, east­man.com); those do­mains are the sta­ble entry point and were the live source checked May 2026. Deep links to in­di­vid­u­al TDS PDFs are de­lib­er­ate­ly not list­ed be­cause ven­dors re­vise doc­u­ment paths fre­quent­ly — but, un­like a prior re­vi­sion of this ap­pen­dix, the of­fi­cial do­mains above are given so the source is lo­cat­able. Where a datasheet states a ver­sion, the vol­ume cites it in­line (for ex­am­ple Table 14.6 cites the Bambu Lab PPA-CF TDS V1.0); where it does not, the fig­ure should be treat­ed as the re­vi­sion cur­rent at the time of writ­ing and re­con­firmed against the live TDS.
**D.3 Resin man­u­fac­tur­er ref­er­ence data** Base-poly­mer TDS data is cited from the resin pro­duc­ers where the fil­a­ment TDS is silent on a prop­er­ty of in­ter­est and the fil­a­ment is clear­ly built on a doc­u­ment­ed resin grade. The prin­ci­pal resin pro­duc­ers ref­er­enced, with their of­fi­cial ma­te­ri­al-data do­mains (ac­cessed May 2026):

  • East­man — Tri­tan, Am­pho­ra, Eas­t­ar copolyester grades (east­man.com; prod­uct cat­a­log at pro­duct­cat­a­log.east­man.com).

  • Cove­stro — Makrolon poly­car­bon­ate (cove­stro.com / so­lu­tions.cove­stro.com).

  • SABIC — Lexan PC, ULTEM PEI (sabic.com).

  • BASF — Elas­tol­lan TPU, Ul­tra­mid PA, Ul­tra­son PSU/PPSU (basf.com; For­ward AM at basf-for­ward-am.com).

  • Arke­ma — Pebax PEBA, Kynar PVDF (arke­ma.com; hpp.arke­ma.com for the Kynar flu­o­ropoly­mer fam­i­ly).

  • Solvay / Syen­sqo — Radel PPSU, Ryton PPS, Ke­taSpire PEEK, AvaSpire PAEK (syen­sqo.com, for­mer­ly solvay.com spe­cial­ty poly­mers).

  • DuPont — Zytel and Zytel HTN polyamides, Del­rin POM (dupont.com; note Del­rin and the HTN line have moved through di­vesti­tures and may ap­pear under suc­ces­sor-com­pa­ny do­mains).

  • Vic­trex — PEEK 450G and re­lat­ed grades (vic­trex.com).

  • Ku­raray — Gen­es­tar PA9T (ku­raray.com). Resin TDS and SDS doc­u­ments on these do­mains are ver­sioned; cite the ver­sion shown on the re­trieved doc­u­ment for any audit use.

D.4 Stan­dards bod­ies and oc­cu­pa­tion­al safe­ty Test-method stan­dards are cited by their stan­dard num­ber, which is the sta­ble iden­ti­fi­er; full texts are ob­tained from the is­su­ing body's cat­a­log. Me­chan­i­cal test­ing: ISO 527 (ten­sile), ISO 178 (flex­u­ral), ISO 179 / ISO 180 (Charpy / Izod im­pact); ASTM D638 (ten­sile), ASTM D790 (flex­u­ral), ASTM D256 (Izod) — ISO stan­dards via iso.org, ASTM stan­dards via astm.org. Ther­mal test­ing: ISO 75 / ASTM D648 (HDT), ISO 306 / ASTM D1525 (Vicat), ASTM D3418 (DSC), ASTM D955 (mold shrink­age). Op­ti­cal and sur­face: ASTM D1003 (haze and trans­mit­tance), ASTM D785 (Rock­well hard­ness). Flamma­bil­i­ty: UL94 (flame test, via ulse.org), EN45545 (rail-ve­hi­cle fire-safe­ty, via cen.eu / na­tion­al stan­dards bod­ies).

In­door air and emis­sions. ANSI/CAN/UL 2904, "Stan­dard Method for Test­ing and As­sess­ing Par­ti­cle and Chem­i­cal Emis­sions from 3D Print­ers" (first edi­tion, 2019) — UL Stan­dards & En­gage­ment, ulse.org; back­ground and the un­der­ly­ing UL Chem­i­cal Safe­ty / Geor­gia Tech re­search at chem­i­calin­sights.ul.org. NIOSH, "Ap­proach­es to Safe 3D Print­ing: A Guide for Mak­erspace Users, Schools, Li­braries, and Small Busi­ness­es," DHHS (NIOSH) Pub­li­ca­tion No. 2024-103, at cdc.gov/niosh/docs/2024-103/. NIOSH Health Haz­ard Eval­u­a­tion Re­port 2017-0059-3291, "Eval­u­a­tion of 3-D print­er emis­sions and per­son­al ex­po­sures at a man­u­fac­tur­ing fa­cil­i­ty," at cdc.gov/niosh/hhe/ (re­ports/pdfs/2017-0059-3291.pdf). All ac­cessed May 2026.

Food con­tact and bio­com­pat­i­bil­i­ty. U.S. FDA food-con­tact reg­u­la­tions under 21 CFR Part 177 (poly­mer-spe­cif­ic sub­parts), via ecfr.gov; NSF/ANSI 51 (food-equip­ment ma­te­ri­als) and NSF/ANSI/CAN 61 (drink­ing-water sys­tem com­po­nents), via nsf.org. FDA, "Tech­ni­cal Con­sid­er­a­tions for Ad­di­tive Man­u­fac­tured Med­i­cal De­vices — Guid­ance for In­dus­try and Food and Drug Ad­min­is­tra­tion Staff" (fi­nal­ized 5 De­cem­ber 2017; dock­et FDA-2016-D-1210), via fda.gov. ISO 10993-1, "Bi­o­log­i­cal eval­u­a­tion of med­i­cal de­vices — Part 1: Eval­u­a­tion and test­ing with­in a risk man­age­ment process," via iso.org. All ac­cessed May 2026. As §8.9 and §19.4 stress, food-con­tact and bio­com­pat­i­bil­i­ty cer­ti­fi­ca­tions at­tach to a resin grade or a cleared de­vice and val­i­dat­ed process — not to fil­a­ment gener­i­cal­ly.

D.5 Ed­i­to­ri­al scope and re­vi­sion con­text This vol­ume was com­piled May 2026, with brand sur­veys cur­rent to early 2026 and cal­i­bra­tion pro­files mea­sured on the au­thor's pro­sumer hard­ware in 2025–2026. The poly­mer-chem­istry foun­da­tions and process-physics prin­ci­ples will re­main ac­cu­rate; the brand sur­veys, price ranges, and spe­cif­ic prod­uct avail­abil­i­ty will drift and should be ver­i­fied against cur­rent ven­dor data for pro­cure­ment de­ci­sions. Er­ra­ta and up­dates are tracked on the au­thor's GitHub repos­i­to­ry along­side the sup­port­ing cal­i­bra­tion method­ol­o­gy and the as­so­ci­at­ed slicer cal­i­bra­tion-edi­tion fork.

Appendix E — License and terms of use

This doc­u­ment is re­leased under the Cre­ative Com­mons At­tri­bu­tion-Non­Com­mer­cial-NoDeriva­tives 4.0 In­ter­na­tion­al li­cense (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). The full legal text and the plain-lan­guage sum­ma­ry are pub­lished by Cre­ative Com­mons at cre­ativecom­mons.org/li­cens­es/by-nc-nd/4.0/. The sum­ma­ry below states what that li­cense means in prac­tice; where this sum­ma­ry and the of­fi­cial li­cense text dif­fer, the of­fi­cial text gov­erns.

E.1 What you may do

  • Down­load and keep it. You may down­load this doc­u­ment, store it, and read it on any de­vice, at no cost.

  • Share it un­changed. You may copy and re­dis­tribute the doc­u­ment in any medi­um or for­mat — for ex­am­ple, shar­ing the PDF with oth­ers or host­ing it for free down­load — pro­vid­ed it is the com­plete, un­mod­i­fied doc­u­ment.

  • Use it freely for your own work. You may apply the in­for­ma­tion here to your own print­ing, cal­i­bra­tion, and ma­te­ri­al-se­lec­tion de­ci­sions with­out re­stric­tion.

E.2 Con­di­tions and lim­its

  • At­tri­bu­tion. When you share the doc­u­ment, keep the au­thor iden­ti­fi­er ("hyiger") and this li­cense no­tice in­tact, and do not imply the au­thor en­dors­es you or your use of it.

  • Non­Com­mer­cial. You may not use the doc­u­ment, in whole or in part, for com­mer­cial pur­pos­es. It may not be sold, bun­dled into a paid prod­uct or ser­vice, placed be­hind a pay­wall, or used pri­mar­i­ly for com­mer­cial ad­van­tage or mon­e­tary com­pen­sa­tion.

  • NoDeriva­tives. If you remix, trans­form, adapt, or oth­er­wise build upon the doc­u­ment, you may not dis­trib­ute the mod­i­fied ma­te­ri­al. Share it as the com­plete orig­i­nal doc­u­ment, not as ex­cerpts repack­aged as a new work. (Brief quo­ta­tion for re­view, com­men­tary, teach­ing, or sim­i­lar pur­pos­es, where per­mit­ted by ap­pli­ca­ble copy­right ex­cep­tions such as fair use or fair deal­ing, is un­af­fect­ed by this li­cense.)

E.3 No war­ran­ty and lim­i­ta­tion of li­a­bil­i­ty This doc­u­ment is pro­vid­ed as-is and as-avail­able, for gen­er­al in­for­ma­tion­al and ed­u­ca­tion­al pur­pos­es only. To the fullest ex­tent per­mit­ted by law, the au­thor of­fers it with no war­ranties of any kind con­cern­ing the doc­u­ment — ex­press, im­plied, statu­to­ry, or oth­er­wise — in­clud­ing, with­out lim­i­ta­tion, war­ranties of ac­cu­ra­cy, com­plete­ness, fit­ness for a par­tic­u­lar pur­pose, or ab­sence of er­rors. This as-is/as-avail­able dis­claimer is part of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 li­cense and is re­stat­ed here for clar­i­ty.

3D print­ing in­volves high tem­per­a­tures, mov­ing ma­chin­ery, elec­tri­cal equip­ment, sol­vents, and ma­te­ri­al emis­sions. The pro­cess­es, tem­per­a­tures, chem­i­cals, and set­tings de­scribed in this doc­u­ment carry real risk of per­son­al in­jury, prop­er­ty dam­age, and equip­ment dam­age. Ma­te­ri­al data is sum­ma­rized from man­u­fac­tur­er datasheets and other sources that change over time and may con­tain er­rors. You are re­spon­si­ble for your own safe­ty and for ver­i­fy­ing any in­for­ma­tion be­fore you rely on it. Fol­low the safe­ty data sheet and tech­ni­cal datasheet for your spe­cif­ic fil­a­ment, the doc­u­men­ta­tion for your spe­cif­ic hard­ware, and the chem­i­cal-han­dling and ven­ti­la­tion guid­ance ap­pro­pri­ate to your workspace.

To the fullest ex­tent per­mit­ted by ap­pli­ca­ble law, the au­thor ("hyiger") ac­cepts no li­a­bil­i­ty for any loss, in­jury, or dam­age of any kind aris­ing from the use of, or re­liance on, this doc­u­ment or the in­for­ma­tion in it. Use of

this doc­u­ment is en­tire­ly at your own risk.

E.4 Trade­marks and third-party ma­te­ri­al Brand names, prod­uct names, com­pa­ny names, and stan­dards des­ig­na­tions in this doc­u­ment are the prop­er­ty of their re­spec­tive own­ers and are used for iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and de­scrip­tive pur­pos­es only. Their use does not imply any af­fil­i­a­tion with, spon­sor­ship by, or en­dorse­ment from those own­ers. This li­cense cov­ers the text and orig­i­nal ta­bles of this doc­u­ment; it does not grant any rights in third-party trade­marks, datasheets, stan­dards texts, or other ref­er­enced ma­te­ri­al, which re­main gov­erned by their own terms.

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FDM Polymers — A Technical Reference

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