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@koz FDM. There are three filaments fairly available that is ferromagnetic and reasonably available.

Amolen iron filament (it's shitty though, relative permeability of 2)
Protopasta Iron filament (what I'm using for this prototype, relative permeability of 8. Easiest handling characteristics)
Virtual Foundry 7-14 stainless (relative permeability is 60? But needs their inline heater)

You don't actually want this solid, because Eddy currents. And less performance is okay for these prototypes

@koz goal is to bring them to RMRRF. Real goal is to aquire this new class of material coming online that is basically silicon steel powder with a polyurethane thin coating. Can be tamp sintered and makes a magnet just as strong as Esteel lamination with even less Eddy currents. Currently in use in newer electric car designs.

@koz want to do a startup if my plans pan out. Got some ideas for winding these exotic coils, automated assembly, and functions that really lean into 3d printing of them

@reprapryn @koz That's really interesting.

I had the idea of 3D printing guitar pickups (which are just coils) a while back but I never managed get it past the noodling in cad phase.

@linux_mclinuxface @koz looking at a guitar pickup, if I could find someone interested in testing local to me, would be neat to test it. Looks easy to design

Was told by a friend that if enough folks requested it, we could get Protopasta to make a variant of the iron filament with E Steel powder.

@reprapryn @koz Well, I imagine that it would need a decent/custom pre-amp since the resistance would be _far_ higher than anything in copper.

But 3d printing would introduce a lot of new possibilities of shapes and sizes that would just be hard to do in a traditional wrapped coil.

@linux_mclinuxface @koz it's less the resistance (still copper windings) and more that you will probably need a higher voltage to get around the lower permeability of the core.
But for a pickup may be less of an issue.

@dalias @koz not familiar with that group.

Was it the YouTuber that was doing electroplating printing?

@dalias @koz their filament has a large amount of metal powder and if it isnt run through a powder, it will snap it's so brittle. It was meant to be used for sintering to direct metal

Also recommendation to directly feed it to the extruder. I think a reverse Bowden direct drive . may work though if it's not too long though.

There were talks of ferrosilicon being brought to market soon. That will change the game alot

@dalias @koz ran through the inline heater it will snap I mean