Hi I am George,
3D Printing for 6 years now, mostly for parts that go into industrial end products. We use a lot of ABS, carbon ABS, Nylon, TPU, PC, Nylon with Carbon.
Different 3D Printers, and some modified internally. Looking to built something better when time will allow.
Happy to share our experience, looking fwd to meet 3D printers alike.
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Jason H
Hi there, George, I am wondering about CF-Nylon. Have you ever tried SainSmart’s CF-Nylon?
Hi,
We never tried the SainSmart’s CF-Nylon. We are using the Esun ePA-CF Natural filament, and it works really nicely. We might try the SainSmart’s as well.
Hi George In your experience what kind of things do we need to do with consumer printers to make them able to reliably print this material?
Hi,
From our experience, if you can print in ABS with your printer, you should be able to print with Carbon filled nylon. An enclosure is a must, so ambient temperature is high enough (40 and plus), we tend to print the material at 270C, we actually do test the part to make sure inner bonding is good, and play around the temperature, etc…
A small note for the printer if using an enclosure and temperature is high within the enclosure, you have to make sure you motors do not skip if their temperature is getting too hot. We added some thermal sinks on ours. Also, the electronic boards might not be able to work in elevated ambient temperature, so you need to double check (an extra fan blowing internal air onto the electronics might be enough).
Just added a picture of the extruder of one of the printers, as you can see it is a pretty basic one, nothing fancy. The second picture is one small printed part.
I’m making an enclosure for mine now and was wondering how big a problem heat would be to these little steppers. I know I can get some brand name ones that are probably ok up to 100°c and wondered if that would be necessary. I’ll try it the way it is now and if it’s an issue i’ll look at better motors or maybe some closed loops ones I see are around for cheap now. there is a chance I can have the enclosure leave space for the motors to be outside altogether. I started this because I’m having trouble even with PLA peeling up and ultimately I want to print some nylon and POM
What kind of nozzle and heatbreak tubes do you use for that? Are you making them in house?
Hi Glenn,
Found the stainless steel nozzles to work best for us. Stainless steel heat break as well.
Great I saw that Titanium ones became available for my machine for a lot cheaper than I can buy Titanium for … machining it scares me too. I just don’t know if I need to go back to PLA or PETG if I have to change this back to the coated kind?
Hello George, thanks for offering your knowledge. I have been trying to print with nylon gears for a little now and been having mixed results I was wondering if you might be able to offer some assistance.
First off I am using Nylon¶ from Filaments.ca with the recommendations of;
Nozzle 230-270C
Bed 90-100C
I print at 50mm/s but have tried slightly more and less. I Have Found the best results at 280C and the bed at 50C(using gluestick on a wham-bam) Print width between .5-.7mm using a 4mm nozzle. I am using a direct drive with 0 retractions. and a layer height of .28, but I have tried .2-.3. No cooling. I have found 100% infill to work the best so far
So the problem I am having is mostly with layer separation, it seems no matter what I do I can just peel the layers apart with my nails. I have had some issues with warping but not too much. I also tend to get a split in the layers around 1mm from the bed on EVERY print no matter the settings. I have found better results with more “squish” but then my parts no longer fit the accuracy I need.
any suggestions would be appreciated, Thanks!!
Hi TriPunk,
I would try this out:
Set the layer height at 0.15mm, leaving the other settings unchanged.
Increase bed temperature at 80C just so that you get more heat around the part.
Increase the speed to 60-65mm/sec.
Can you take some pictures as first layer, the 1mm layer, etc…?
Regards,
Hi TriPunk,
Congrats on your print!! Not the same part as before .
For those splits I think you should check the mechanical Z axes on your printer, or any fade away setting (if you have it set on your printer for the Z axis calibration compensation).
Regards,
