3D filament for outdoor use

3D filament for outdoor use

Not all printing filaments are durable when exposed to a prolonged outdoor environment. Whether it's UV rays, temperature variations or humidity, these different factors will degrade certain characteristics of your printed parts. Plastics tend to lose their colour or even turn yellow after prolonged exposure to the sun. Changes in temperature or positive or negative excesses can deform, bake or break your objects. The choice of your 3d filament spool for outdoor use is therefore important.

UV radiation is the main cause of degradation of plastics in outdoor use. Some plastics perform much better than others in this respect, hence this selection of filaments for outdoor use.

Among the most resistant filaments suitable for outdoor environments are ASA filaments, which are particularly effective for their UV and even chemical resistance. Very suitable for the automotive or marine industries, this filament will be durable and high-performance. More generally, PC Polycarbonate filaments also perform very well over the long term.

For moisture resistance, ABS (and ASA of course), PETG and PC will also have excellent durability without loss of performance.

Nylon filaments, for example, will have a tendency to gradually absorb water, softening and losing stiffness. Our materials selected here will not do this.

PLA is not one of the filaments considered to be the hardest, but there is a slight loss of performance in the first few months, with significant degradation generally occurring after several years and depending on exposure to the sun.

How do you choose your filament for outdoor use?

If you have a printer that can print ASA filament, that would be our recommendation. The ASA-X version from forshape is a very good example of a high-performance, high-quality filament at a good price. For other more specific needs, the logic is the same: depending on your 3d printer (hobbyist or professional) and the operating temperatures, you can select the filament best suited to your application from PC or PETG.