Ah, cool. Siraya's never steered me wrong. Thanks, I'll check the TDSes.

Some asa/abs cf/gf is similar in that it has better layer adhesion and impact than non filled.

Do you remember the brands by any chance? I'd love to give something like that a try. I like PLA+ but I really don't like its thermal properties, and some kind of ABS that behaves that way seems like it might be just what the doctor ordered, especially since ABS is usually like half the price of nylon.

I bought a spool of ABS+ that on paper should perform similarly, but I haven't gotten a chance to try it yet and I like the GF/CF external finish.

I personally don't see an issue with it being here. Fosscad is about making guns. It doesn't mean only 3d printing guns. Especially since CNC milling and 3d printing are slowly converging to become more like one another.

Yeah, the Z1 is cheaper than MSRP right now because it's not technically released yet. Initial reviews seem positive, but those are surely using specially curated demo units, so quality in release units isn't proven yet. It's gonna go up to ~$1200 on full release, sort of like how the Snapmaker U1 printer was like $850 on kickstarter with a MSRP of $999.

I like how it bills itself as easy to use. Kind of feels like they're selling it as the Bambu of CNC mills. That would be huge if it works like that.

But yeah, being able to make anything you'd otherwise have to buy from SCS seems nice. Especially because while SCS doesn't care what they cut now as long as it's legal, there's no guarantee that will remain so in the future. And it's not like CNC mills can only do metal. They can do plastic and wood too. Obviously most plastics you'd still print, but I could see something like plastic paneling/sheeting being way quicker on a CNC mill than trying to print a bunch of square flat layers

I've been looking at the Makera Z1 at, what, $1200 MSRP?

But MetallicFOSS' thread with the AnoleX is looking really interesting for half that. Yeah, I'd probably need to DIY an enclosure and some sort of vacuum system to gobble up dust and shavings, and I'd probably want some sort of hose dispensing cutting oil, but $600 ($550 on Amazon right now) is edging dangerously close to "it's worth taking a chance on this." That's basically what I spent on my printer alone.

That's super informative! Thanks so much for explaining in such depth.

Fascinating. What's the difficulty like with using a CNC mill like this versus using a printer and slicer? I've been eying a desktop mill for making the parts I can't make on a printer, but I heard the software side of things isn't nearly as developed as it is for 3d printing.

Larger caliber... Are you talking about a 5.56 Urutau? Because that would be incredibly cool.

In theory, no. There is an archive program floating around somewhere here that downloads every 3d2a project.

In practice... Probably, the sea is the central repository, most people wouldn't know where to go to get files if the sea should boil away, and we'd all need to establish hosting ourselves. It would be a terrible blow.

So... Am I tripping, or does the new blend actually sacrifice some mechanical properties in the name of speed compared to the old PLA pro blend, going by the TDS?