POLYMER POWDERS
PHOTOPOLYMER RESINS
POLYMER FILAMENTS
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Colors
Finishes
Characteristics
Our food-grade blue PA12 material is a plastic designed for safe use in environments involving food handling, preparation, and storage. This material is typically compliant with food safety regulations, such as FDA or EU standards, ensuring they do not contaminate food or beverages.
To ensure a 3D printed product is truly food-safe, the material used must comply with the stringent requirements of EC 1935/2004 and be manufactured in line with the EC directive 2023/2006, which outlines Good Manufacturing Practices. Meeting these standards guarantees that the material is safe for products designed for consumption or direct contact with food, providing confidence in both quality and safety.
Why is the material blue?
Plastics are often blue in the food industry for practical and safety reasons:
Blue is a color rarely found in natural foods. Therefore, in the case of accidental contamination (e.g., a piece of plastic breaking off), it is much easier to spot fragments in food products, either visually or with optical detectors.
The printing price of your design is calculated automatically the moment it is uploaded. As you modify your object (changing material, finishing, size, using batch control or hollowing feature, etc.) you will note that the price changes automatically. The pricing is based on a series of factors, including total volume, object size, and bounding box – to name a few.
The estimated shipping time is also calculated automatically as the object is uploaded and each time you make a modification on it. Delivery time should be added to processing time.
For more information, check our pricing page.
This material is printed using Selective Laser Sintering. The SLS printing process uses a highly specific laser that sinters thin layers of our nylon powder together one layer at a time. After each round of lasering, the printing bed is lowered and another layer of powder is evenly swept across the top for another round of sintering. This process is repeated until the object is completed.
Raw: your part will be sandblasted but unpolished, the surface remains somewhat rough.
| Standard layer thickness | 100 – 120µm |
| Accuracy | ± 0.45% (minimum of ± 0.45 mm) |
| Maximum Size | 310 x 310 x 590 mm |
| Minimum wall thickness (flexible) | 0.8mm
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| Minimum wall thickness(rigid) | 2mm
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| Minimum wall thickness stemmed elements | 0.8mm with support
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| Minimum wall thickness particular design aspects | 1-2mm |
Disclaimer: While parts with a minimum wall thickness of 0.8 mm are printable, we kindly remind you that a minimum wall thickness of 3 mm is required in order to be compliant with the materials Blue Card and UL-94 V-0 certifications.
The walls of your design must adhere to a minimum thickness of 0.8 mm in order to guarantee the structure will not break. If the walls of your model are less than 0.8 mm, you can add a support structure to maintain stability.
A stemmed element is a design aspect which is at least twice as long as it is thick. For unsupported and stemmed elements or parts of the design with a particular design constraint, it is also important to respect a minimum thickness of 1 mm in order to guarantee the object will not break.
Add a support structure to maintain stability. For example, if you are modelling a bust of a person, you can attach thin aspects of the design like the ears in more places around the model’s head. Doing that will avoid cantilevered and easily breakable elements in the final print.
With a 0.8 wall thickness, your design will be slightly flexible. To obtain more rigidity, we advise a 2mm wall thickness.
Thin walls supporting large, heavy models can warp under the weight of itself.
Sculpteo offers an online solidity check tool which highlights parts of the print that may be too thin for a print. From there you are able to tweak your design in order to create an object that is an appropriate thickness. To use it, you just need to upload your 3D file, select your material and click on “Verification” tab.
It is also important to keep in mind that the object is to be printed into real life. Thus if a thin aspect is supporting something that is too heavy for it, it may break – even though it is possible within the physics provided by your 3D modeling software. We recommend adding a bit of thickness to the places that will get a lot of handling, or that support the most weight.
Do not forget
Keep in mind that our solidity check tool does not detect physical aberrations such as floating parts, unstable position, parts supporting too much weight relative to their thickness, etc. Particular care must be given to the geometry of your design and the most stressed parts must be thickened.
| Minimum size of details | 0.3 mm |
| Minimum height and width details | Embossed : 0.5 mm
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| Minimum height and width for a readable text | 0.5mm |
| Enlargement ratio | 1/1
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A detail’s minimum precision is mainly determined by the resolution of our 3D printers. However, during the cleaning process, a fine layer of detail can also be lost. In order for a detail and text to be visible we recommend following our recommended sizes at the very least.
It’s possible that particularly fine embossings and engravings will not be visible, as the carving could get filled with excess powder that is later unable to be cleaned out. If an embossing or engraving is an essential part of your design we recommend making them as deep as possible.
| Enclosed parts ? | Yes |
| Interlocking parts ? | Yes |
Our food grade PA12 (blue) material has the ability to print some of the most complex designs of our materials thanks to Selective Laser Sintering technology. An example of a complex design is a volume enclosed within another volume, like a chain or maraca. Our printers have the ability to print a fully interlocked chain, with no support structures to remove.
| Minimum spacing between fixed walls | 0.5 mm |
| Minimum clearance between parts | 0.5 mm |
For a successful 3D print a minimum clearance between objects is required to allow excess material to be sand blown out. If this space is not left within the design, the object will be a solid. This is particularly important for articulated objects – as the space left between the walls will define the object’s ability to move.
Clearance should be at least 0.5 mm, however that is the minimum for small objects. Larger objects require more space between their parts. This is due to the SLS printing process. Our printer beds are heated during the process, and larger objects are heated for longer periods. A small space between large objects runs the risk of melting together as it remains under heat for a long period of time. In some other cases, holes should be added to allow us to drain for the excess powder material within the clearance.
| Assembly ? | Yes |
| Minimum space | 0.5 mm |
Objects printed in polyamide can be printed to be assembled. As long as a width of at least 0.5 mm is left between the different parts of the object.
| Hollowing ? | Yes |
Our online hollowing optimization tool has the ability to greatly reduce the price of a print by reducing the amount of material used.
Using the tool requires adding two holes to your model, which will serve as the drain for the excess powder material within the object. The minimum size of these holes is determined by our website. Otherwise it is possible to hollow your object manually in your 3D modeling software.
| Files with Multiple Objects ? | No |
It is not possible to 3D print a 3D file containing several objects with our 3D plastic printers.
With Sculpteo’s online 3D printing service you’re just a few clicks away from professional blue PA12 3D printing. Your 3D model is printed with the highest quality and delivered straight to your door.
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