CF reinforced nylon!!

Ye gods, I just discovered eSun have a nylon based carbon fiber filament. I want some, and how!

[www.esunchina.net]

Are you familiar with MarkForged Onyx filament? It is a high-quality, high-cost version of this, and I have had excellent experiences with it.

What do you expect from such a material combination?
Nylon is often used for self lubricating gears and such, but carbon is abrasive and destroys gears in no time.
Do you expect, the carbon particles are completely enveloped in nylon?

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epicepee
Are you familiar with MarkForged Onyx filament? It is a high-quality, high-cost version of this, and I have had excellent experiences with it.

No, I haven't tried that. I tend towards the low cost end of the market, so I have yet to explore any of the premium filaments. It sounds great though

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o_lampe
What do you expect from such a material combination?

Nylon is one of my favorite printing materials due to the strength and wear resistance, but I struggle with the amount of warp which I find even worse than abs. The flex isn't always what you want either. I have some CF/abs filament and the CF seems to greatly reduce the warp as well as increase stiffness. So a CF/nylon filament I'm hoping will keep the nylon strength and wear characteristics while being significantly easier to print and stiffer. If that were true it would come very near the top of my list for an engineering plastic for 3d printing, although price is likely to be a problem for me

(I'm not a believer in a single 'best' filament, sometimes you want a flex filament, sometimes you want hardness etc. But an easy to print, hard wearing and stiff plastic is certainly a key capability to have in the tool box.)

Right after I'd sent the above comment about carbon being abrasive, I thought: Graphite is 100% carbon and is used as dry grease. Maybe I was wrong with my statement and the nylon filament just contains a shot of graphite? I hope you can show us some parts later, I'm curious about the surface finish.

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o_lampe
Right after I'd sent the above comment about carbon being abrasive, I thought: Graphite is 100% carbon and is used as dry grease. Maybe I was wrong with my statement and the nylon filament just contains a shot of graphite? I hope you can show us some parts later, I'm curious about the surface finish.

I was wondering about the abrasiveness - the CF filaments are supposedly hard on nozzles so vendors recommend using steel instead of brass. I wonder what form the carbon is in - perhaps there's a marketing opportunity for "diamond reinforced filament"

I'd love to show you some parts, if only I had some filament. I contacted filaments.ca who distribute eSun, but they don't have any. I offered to review a sample if they get some in It would be interesting to compare CF/pla, CF/abs, CF/nylon and their non-CF counterparts.

The problem with carbon fiber filament is that the fibers are not giving anisotropic strength to the part, they are only giving strength in the XY plane, which if your printer is set up correctly will already be terrifically strong.

If you want awesome strength, consider annealing. Even PLA performs well with annealing.

Then I'd give CF/ABS a chance and just dip it in aceton for a short moment. That would improve layer bonding a lot.

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o_lampe
Then I'd give CF/ABS a chance and just dip it in aceton for a short moment. That would improve layer bonding a lot.

Funny you should say that, I've been printing the corners for my next printer in ordinary ABS and experimented with brushing acetone on them as a post processing step. My impression is that it penetrates into any gaps and helps form a stronger shell around the print. I think I'll be using this technique for the majority of structural parts. I'll try it next time I print some CF/ABS as well.

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Origamib
The problem with carbon fiber filament is that the fibers are not giving anisotropic strength to the part, they are only giving strength in the XY plane, which if your printer is set up correctly will already be terrifically strong.

If you want awesome strength, consider annealing. Even PLA performs well with annealing.

Strength is a multi-faceted concept - I'm already happy with the shear strength and layer bonding of nylon, what I'm hoping for with the CF mix is less warp and more stiffness. If it can provide that then I just have to figure out how much $$$ that's worth to me

On a somewhat related note, I did a first print with eSun's ABS+ last night. Nothing particularly adventurous, but it seems promising. They claim it to be abs with less warp and if that's true it will be a very pleasant upgrade, but again I have to figure out if that's worth enough to me to justify the extra cost.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/04/2017 08:54AM by JamesK.

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Origamib
If you want awesome strength, consider annealing. Even PLA performs well with annealing.

I've tried annealing PLA, but have seen a significant amount of shrinkage. In particular, I tried annealing a CF/PLA guitar body and it distorted enough to render it useless. Has anyone else had this issue when annealing PLA?

I have just ordered a roll of "Carbonyte" from Rigid.ink, i will let you know what its like but its muchos £££

Oh my, that really is expensive! Look forward to hearing how you get on with it.

Yeah, put the phrase "carbon" to something and sell it for it's weight in gold...

Like James said, lets call it diamond reinforced filament and earn even more bucks.

So it's got Soot in it.

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MechaBits
So it's got Soot in it.

Pretty much I had some real CF tube that I cut down and sanded square for one project - that sure made a mess! Looks pretty though, they do a great job of the clear top coat over the woven fibers.

In the continuous fibre form, you would think a super furry fiber would help to bond with other layers(if hairs protruded from printed layer), and in the filaments with cf as additive, once again the furrier the better, also a rough print job, with high temp ooze blobs etc could help inter layer bonding too? Carbon Tubes could act like lattice structure...but how do you get plastic inside tube, it would be too small for flow.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/07/2017 02:33PM by MechaBits.