I tried a little impromptu mechanical testing with the bracelets. My sister-in-law snagged the magenta one, but I printed another in ultramarine blue, then printed another in regular grape colored PLA. I then pulled them until they broke. The standard PLA elongated to about 5". The PLA/PHA got to about 8.5". More important than the total elongation may be the failure mode. The regular PLA shattered into 2 fragments, snapped back, and cut my finger. The PLA/PHA broke at a single point with a lot less force. So, this definitely supports the more ductile type claims. I also broke them into more pieces because I like to break things. Here are the pieces. Next up I tried out a no coin bottle opener. Rush print on this one at 200 micron in blue grey at high speed so the layers are a little rough. Opened up my bottle with no issue! No coin bottle opener mk. II (JeppeHeiniMikkelsen) / CC BY-ND 3.0
You tube video of it in action: Another off the ultimaker by one of my favorite creators.
NOW we get to the really good stuff. I also received a sample of their new material XT. This prints at a higher temperature, but is still a biopolymer. Not exactly sure what the blend is, but it smells like sugar when it melts. Another stretchy bracelet Some tensile dogbones (guess what I'll be doing with these?) Finally I ran this.
I wasn't paying attention and initially printed it at tiny scale. Here it is in my wedding ring. I ran it again a little bigger. It's kind of hard to capture the detail in a photograph, but this material is really amazing for 3D printing. The layers blend together incredibly well giving it the appearance of a matted molded part.