Assistive tech for people that have trouble holding forks/spoons/etc. Made from my favorite lesser known material, polyhydroxyalkanoates, which is fully biodegradable in any biome. Anyone else making AT for people?

    • Remy Rose@lemmy.oneOP
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      1 year ago

      I use it at work (a library makerspace) in an Ultimaker S5 Pro, an Ender 5 Pro, and a Snapmaker Artisan. It’s actually somewhat easier to print with than PLA, except that wide flat parts warp pretty terribly? But there’s ways to overcome that!

    • Remy Rose@lemmy.oneOP
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      1 year ago

      Right?! I wish I could also get it in sheet form for our vacuum thermoform machine

    • lightingnerd@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Oh that is very interesting! I guess the main way that they decompose is through PHA depolymerase–according to ChatGPT a lot of the species that have been tested in the decomposition of PHA are bacteria. It would be interesting to try inoculating some samples of PHA with different mushroom species as well. It would be really great if PHA could be fully-decomposed into proper food-safe compost.

      • roboTRASH@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Be aware that ChatGPT will simply make things up in the most convincing way if it doesn’t actually know the answer. It’s really no good as a search engine.

        • lightingnerd@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          True, it’s always good to verify with academic articles. I’d never trust ChatGPT without also verifying with sources–if for no other reason than its training dataset was cutoff in 2021. It’s generally good to seek out research that is less than 3-5 years old when possible, due to how quickly the scientific landscape changes. According to this particular article from 2019, ChatGPT’s response was pretty accurate.

          https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ejlt.201900101

  • brian
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    1 year ago

    What sort of cost per kg difference is PHA over “regular” PLA? I would be willing to give it a shot, but I have a hard time throwing $40 at a spool as it is.

    • Remy Rose@lemmy.oneOP
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      1 year ago

      It’s not too bad, if you consider the huge range of prices for PLA. Like Matterhackers “Build Series PLA” is $0.02/g at the low-ish end while Ultimaker’s “Tough PLA” at the high-ish end is $0.07/g. Filaments.ca’s “Regen PHA” is between those at $0.05/g.

      So, if you’re trying to use the cheapest filament possible? Probably not a great choice. On the other hand, there’s literally only like 3 people selling PHA filament right now, so you’d think it’d be more expensive than ANY brand of PLA. That makss me wonder if it’s relatively cheap to produce. If so, it may come way down in price if it catches on and becomes more available, right? I hope, anyway.