3d Printing Carbon Fiber Nylon For Beginners (Ender 3)

Love the channel? Consider supporting me on Patreon:

In this video we take a look at what goes into 3d printing carbon fiber material. With the right hotend, proper adhesion, and slicer settings you can produce high-quality functional parts with this awesome material. Carbon Fiber Nylon is incredibly rigid with high tensile strength and it also looks awesome!

Find out more or purchase NylonX here:

Video On MicroSwiss Direct Drive All Metal Hotend:

(´∀｀)♡ As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases:

Lets Get Social!

Time Stamps:
0:00 - Intro
2:56 - Hotend
4:10 - Upgrading Nozzle
5:56 - Heated Bed
6:54 - Drying Filament
8:12 - Slicer Settings
10:22 - Printing

[raycarrasco]

One of the most underrated channels out there. This man knows his stuff and his content is gold. Keep it up 👍🏻

[ruzickarob]

Garolite sheets can be purchased at many of large plastic companies on-line if you want to make several (they come in like 4' x 4' sheets). It will have a spec sheets which will tell you temp it can handle. Industrial supply companies (like Grainger) stock smaller sheets (like 12" x 12" for $12, 24" x 24" for $36). Garolite has a few different specs G-10, G-11, CE which you can search on as well.

[RentableSocks]

a lot of CF nylons or other filled filaments will clog with a 0.4 nozzlee over time, several vendors recommend using at LEAST a 0.6mm nozzle in ordere to allow enough room for larger fibers to escape the nozzle. You'll find it takes about 3kg for 3dxtech CF nylon to completely clog a 0.4mm nozzle with basically pure carbon stuck in it.

[reiniertl]

I like your video, it teaches how to use this material in a not so Nylon-CF ready printer. The problem is the printed part, it creates the idea that you need such an expensive and difficult to print material for something light and not so demanding. The chosen part helps perpetuate the idea that functional parts need these materials. Let me explain a bit more in detail.
Before getting my own 3D printer I watched several videos using Nylon-CF for some functional applications. Since my 3D printer is mostly a complement to my hobby machine shop I thought that PLA was useful only for toys and that kind of stuff, really nothing appealing to me. In fact that is one reason I waited years to get a 3d printer, I did not want to spend money and the hassle of adding another expensive hobby to my list. So when the time came I got a Bambu Lab X1-Carbon. Among other things because I know I will be printing a lot of technical stuff where "relatively tight" tolerances are necessary and some engineering materials as well. I also talked to some people and they dispelled several concerns about PLA. PLA is great for a lot of things, basically most objects sitting indoors and away from heat and direct sunlight can be done in PLA. PLA is cheap, prints easy and can be used for so many functional things.
Honestly that bracket printed in PLA will do just fine, no need to use such an expensive material for something sitting in your family room that will hold at most ten pounds of weight. As a demonstration that is OK, I liked the video, but sometimes it creates the illusion that other materials are not that good for said "functional" parts. I would not print it in PLA if I planed to use it outside or for a heavy item or something that can create a safety hazard if the part fails (like a mirror which can be heavy and dangerous).
I was expecting a lot of printing with ABS, ASA, CA-CF, etc. So far I find myself using PLA most of the time. If a part needs more strength I just increase the infill and change the infill pattern to make prints stronger.

[freman]

When replacing nozzles, keep a ceramic bowl under the print head so it can only drop into the bowl, not onto the bed or the floor.
Also, if you have the time, you can heat it up, loosen it off, let it cool, replace the nozzle, heat it up, tighten it up.

[mbdulka]

As a noob, this was great info -- my Ender 3 is still in a box (my first 3D printer) ... it's my winter project, just learning as much now as I can so thank you for spending your time to inform noobs like me. Appreciated!

[davidr]

This looks perfect for creating upgrade buckets for radio controlled RC construction equipment! Buckets created with PLA/ABS/PETG are just aesthetic.

[biofall]

I remember when I thought that 3D printing was never going to be affordable

[ellafoxoo]

The audio quality has improved a ton over the years. Hearing the echo in this video made me realise that

[birdzynest]

It would have been cool to see how durable the nylon prints are compared to PLA, PETG and ABS. :)

[inkman]

Would like to see a strength comparison test

[ApexPredatorOutdoors]

Just printed Inland CF Nylon with a Hardened steel nozzle with stock hot end and it went fine.

[Sleepery]

I print a lot with Carbon Fiber Nylon (and CF PolyCarbonate).
Functional parts mostly, for robotic components, even parts for vehicles (motorcycle).
Recently, I managed to print Ultem9085 and CF-PEEK on my (significantly modified) CR-10.

You covered it up pretty well, I'd just add few things for CF-Nylon and for anyone wanting to go over 300C (CF-PC):
- If you print a lot with CF, get a Ruby nozzle - it'll pay it self off very quickly! Some types of CF-Nylon have up to 30% of Carbon Fibers and that will destroy brass nozzle within an hour or even the hardened steel nozzle within a days.
- To go over 300C, I use BP6 HotEnd with High Temp Heat Break (black hexagonal) and PT1000. But there are some new Hot Ends (NF-Crazy V6 Magnum & Dragon V6) that should work even better. I personally don't like MicroSwiss.
- Consider Direct Drive Extruder, especially if you get High Temp Heat Break
- To go over 120C bed temp, I highly recommend AC bed heater
- For 300C+ Hot End, don't print mount (or anything else around it) in PLA or PETG, it will fail very quickly, it might even melt. I use SLA printer for such parts and Phrozen TR250 + Siraya Tech Blue resin mix.

[rickrucker]

Hi, you asked about using nylonx . A friend of mine runs a museum for vintage slot machines. They got a used machine in and it was broken. Its front panel was actually a door that accessed the coin box and electronics. I\The door is very heavy (probably around 30 pounds). The machine is old and no parts could be found for it. The broken part was one of the hinges that holds the panel. Someone had made a very crude hinge that sort of worked, but I thought i could do better. I bought a reel of NYLONX and started to design a new part. It took a couple of tries, but I finally made a hinge that looked great and worked well. The hardest part about printing with the Nylon was to keep it form warping. I used a blck trash bag and it worked terrifically.

[bentracy]

Thanks for this video - just came back now to re-watch and see if there was anything I might have missed since a year ago.

I've been printing with nylonX a fair bit now and love it. The first big project was a carb hat for an odd sized (100mm) blow-thru [turbo] carburetor setup for a Mazda 12A rotary engine which worked beautifully. Now I'm working on an EFI conversion for the same vehicle and using this material as the main body to house a TBI setup. Looking forward to getting it all set up and working.

The abilities of this material are honestly impressive (especially when considering its solvent resistance). I've even used it for 3D printed venturis with great results. Thanks again for the informative video.

[lsellclumanetsolarenergyll]

You nailed it's now April and on average my humidity is around 50% inside and outside. I run 2 whole house dehumidifier. And Yes I need to print out a few tiny hand sockets for my 8 and 9mm sockets so I can screw on and take off my nozzels from the printer. Also Nylon is perfect when enforced as a door stopper spring shaped as a bigger D clipped over the door itself. It prevents the door handle from leaving a big hole in the door.

[fred]

I've never used an enclosure on my Ender 3 Pro while printing Nylon and I've never had any problems. No warping, adhesion problems, etc. Nylon has become my favorite plastic to print, actually. I did try one time to use an enclosure and it kept my motherboard and motor drivers so hot that I got a layer shift.

[MonsterPartsRc]

Carbon also has an amazing surface finish...

[weissgal]

I haven't even purchased a 3d printer yet, but I already thought "this guy knows his stuff", so I subscribed, I'll definitely need this awsome channel later.

[meltsky]

You should mention printing with a .6 sized nozzle is a better choice for stronger prints with nylon x. Matterhackers explains this on their "successfully printing with nylon x" page. Other than that, great video