1

Topic: Nylon

So browsing the local thingiverse I came across 3D parts printed in Nylon.  Following some links I came to the end result of:

taulman3d

A quick googling of the term results in the website.

It seems as though it only comes in the 3mm variety, after a quick email shoot off I learned the 1.75mm filament would become available towards the end of this year.  On this website it references tester prints being done on some of the reprap printers.

They say to use circuit board for it to get to stick, and seeing everyone switching to a glass bed, this doesn't seem too hard to do.

So my question boils down to this: does the community believe this filament would be able to be used in our printer once the correct size is available.

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Re: Nylon

It depends on the temperature.  Some other materials, like polycabonate, require temperatures that would cause the PEEK barrel (the black part) of the hot end to melt.

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Re: Nylon

aFoote wrote:

So browsing the local thingiverse I came across 3D parts printed in Nylon.  Following some links I came to the end result of:

taulman3d

A quick googling of the term results in the website.

It seems as though it only comes in the 3mm variety, after a quick email shoot off I learned the 1.75mm filament would become available towards the end of this year.  On this website it references tester prints being done on some of the reprap printers.

They say to use circuit board for it to get to stick, and seeing everyone switching to a glass bed, this doesn't seem too hard to do.

So my question boils down to this: does the community believe this filament would be able to be used in our printer once the correct size is available.


I've just bought some 1.6mm nylon. (hoping that will fit OK)
there are some pre-printing steps that nylon requires, (basically drying it out)
Once I've done the testing I'll let you know how well it works

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Re: Nylon

Wikipedia wrote:

Incineration and recycling
Various nylons break down in fire and form hazardous smoke, and toxic fumes or ash, typically containing hydrogen cyanide.

Be careful

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Re: Nylon

I'm interested to hear about your results. I know of some nylons with additives such as weed whacker feed line has unsuitable nylon.

Anyhow ill be picking some up depending on results after I get my printer.

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Re: Nylon

indeed.

the stuff i've bought is weed whacker line,
it looks pretty good, I need to investigate melting temps a bit more, as I don't want to push the only hot end I have too far within days of having the printer!!

whilst I'm looking at the melting temperature of the nylon that I have, (which could be anywhere from 180 - 260) I'll have a look at the temperature that the gassing occurs at.

I'm pretty hopeful for nylon. - there are reports that it's really viscous and stringy, and of course that it will release hydrogen cyanide at a mere 10degrees C above it's melting temperature.

I'm hoping that a little investigation, and starting at a low temperature and having a slow controlled extrude will mean that I can literally "just" melt the nylon - and so avoid melting it to a runny liquid. and in keeping the temperature down I can also avoid releasing hydrogen cyanide gasses.

of course, like all good idiots I don't recommend that others try this, and I don't have appropriate gas analysis equipment to tell you whether there has been gas released on not...


to be honest, even if I were to jump into this straight away, most reports are that it takes at least 3 days to dry the nylon to a usable state anyway...

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Re: Nylon

Just keep in mind that what whatever temperature someone recommends, subtract by 30 or so.  Most other printers use a different heater/thermistor setup, so 230 on something like a Makerbot is equivalent to about 200 on the Solidoodle.

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Re: Nylon

good to know.

I'll start at 150 then and try extruding 5mm amounts,
raise the temperature in 5 degree increments.

hopefully will report back on Saturday, as to what temperature it melts at, and how good the quality of the prints that come out are.

9

Re: Nylon

well. I did some test prints this morning.
150 is too low, the firm ware prevents cold extrusion.

I set the extruded temp to 180, this was if anything a bit hot for nylon.

nylon is a very very runny material, so I pulled the temp back to 175.


Firstly, sticking to the bed.
I printed the heart box that I've uploaded in the STL section.

as you can see, sticking can be an issue.
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t166/daniel_rainbow/solidoodle/Nylon/IMG_1980.jpg

I think that the problem is actually a lot more likely that my first layer wasn't extruded properly. - i.e. not enough material. the Pre-feed was not set right, (it took a while for a decent amount of filament to squirt out. and I believe that the top right corner of the bed was a bad place to print.
my bed was set to 85, but I'm fairly certain that are of the bed does not reach that temperature.

Reprap forums suggest printing directly onto unheated cardboard. -I'll try this as a last resort.

Today is the first day of experimentation.
the nylon used is not dried at all, and has come straight out the packet.

I've not "dialled" it in at all, by changing settings, and I won't over the next few days as right now my only goal is to see how long the drying process will take. and how the properties of the object improve

http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t166/daniel_rainbow/solidoodle/Nylon/IMG_1981.jpg
right now you can see that the material is pretty rough.
the filament is just about translucent, but the prints are full of pits and bubbles, also a lot of steam comes out of the hot end as it's printing. - However, unlike the reports of printing with 3mm nylon on the reprap forums, there is not popping and crackling, I'm guessing that it's because there is not as much water in 1.6mm nylon, and it passes through the hot end a lot faster.

As well as being very rough, containing bubbles the extruded material is very brittle, the raft layers can be pulled in half with very little effort.

http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t166/daniel_rainbow/solidoodle/Nylon/IMG_1982.jpg
You can see that not enough material is being extruded, this is likely because the gcode that I used is generated with extrusion settings for 1.75mm filament, and the nylon I have is 1.6mm prints may improve once settings are dialled in more.


removing the nylon from the extruder is a bit of a mission though.
you have to have the extruder hot so that it doesn't stick, but in being hot it's also soft and doesn't reverse a long way properly. then it flattens against the extruder drive wheel and is stuck pretty fast!!


So that's what happens when you print nylon with 0 hours drying time.

the rest of the roll I have is currently sat in a food dehydrator,  which is set to 50degrees C.

I'll try printing some more tomorrow, hopefully I'll get a 24, 48 and 72 hour benchmarks for drying times.

After that I'll play with the extrusion settings some more - the theory is what's the point in trying to get quality prints until I have quality material to print with!

10 (edited by jooshs 2012-11-07 13:29:00)

Re: Nylon

Danny, you can change the low cold extrude temp in the firmware which might be worth while since this stuff is so dangerous and tough to print with. You should try using a glass plate and then a raft at the bottom with hairspray to promote the sticking. It would still be cool to see a print on a circuit board though. Also, in slic3r, you can set for the filament width and extrusion multiplier.

Have you noticed the nylon being extra runny?  It would be cool if you find a sweet spot to print with since this stuff since it is so good at vibration damping. Is there some end goal you have for printing with nylon?  And be careful, these fumes are a lot more dangerous than acetone vapors. Might be a good point to come up with a filter. Ian's acrylic case design seems to have some promise for including a side door filter.

11 (edited by danny 2012-11-08 11:27:38)

Re: Nylon

jooshs wrote:

Danny, you can change the low cold extrude temp in the firmware which might be worth while since this stuff is so dangerous and tough to print with. You should try using a glass plate and then a raft at the bottom with hairspray to promote the sticking. It would still be cool to see a print on a circuit board though. Also, in slic3r, you can set for the filament width and extrusion multiplier.

Have you noticed the nylon being extra runny?  It would be cool if you find a sweet spot to print with since this stuff since it is so good at vibration damping. Is there some end goal you have for printing with nylon?  And be careful, these fumes are a lot more dangerous than acetone vapors. Might be a good point to come up with a filter. Ian's acrylic case design seems to have some promise for including a side door filter.

I've done some further testing today.
results are even better. but I'll respond to this first.

with changing the firmware etc... I really want to get this working at factory spec, to me it's far more valuable to work on accessible work for this community. what I mean is I don't want to promise you that you can print like me, but only if you jump through hoops to setup your machine like me. make all these modifications.

my ideal situation at the end of this will be just uploading a slic3r profile for reliable .3mm printing in nylon, and then a second profile for reliable 0.1mm printing.

are for nylon being runny, yes, it can be really really runny, but I dialled back my temperature today, I ended up running at about 185 yesterday, I ran at 175 today, (just enough to keep the PID from dropping below 170 and preventing extrusion.

but at 175 (which actually floats from 172- 178) there is pretty much no runnyness, and no threads.

the sweet spot is going to be around 180 I think. perhaps 179, or 178.
too hot and it runs, too cold and it doesn't extrude properly. (though I could always slow down the extrusion)

but I do get skips on the extruded, and as you'll see in the pictures, if you dial the temp back too far the material can't melt fast enough and you get holes in the print.

regarding Hydrogen cyanide.
I'm a smoker, i.e I purposefully pull that shite into my lungs on a daily basis...
that said.
https://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&sug … mp;bih=664

https://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&saf … mp;bih=664

There is some amount of hydrogen cyanide released during printing with nylon, as I said I don't have the equipment to measure it.


Anyway. onto the good news.

After 24 hours of drying nylon.
the material feels a little stiffer, as I said, it's strimmer/weed whacker cord, normally that's very flexible, (especially the 1.6mm stuff) but this albeit the 1.6mm variety felt more like it was stronger/thicker. just not normal I guess.

http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t166/daniel_rainbow/solidoodle/Nylon/IMG_1988.jpg
as you can see it's still not 100% dry. there is still a bit of "bubbling" in the middle of that raft layer.
I also moved the print to the centre of the bed. - I know that my bed does not heat evenly and I want to give myself the best chance of getting the numbers right

but as you can see, that water is drying out, by the tie it got to the end of the raft there was a pretty good filament feed going on.

http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t166/daniel_rainbow/solidoodle/Nylon/IMG_1989.jpg

it's worth noting as I said above, I believe that the temperature was too low, there was a bit slightly missing in the middle of the raft, I think the extra time in the extruder may have dried off the last of the water in that part.

however, with a bed temperature of 85, sticking is still a little bit of an issue.

http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t166/daniel_rainbow/solidoodle/Nylon/IMG_1992.jpg

when I get properly clean (water free) material to work with I'll play with the bed temperature some more.

http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t166/daniel_rainbow/solidoodle/Nylon/IMG_2001.jpg
the print (and I didn't print the whole box as there is no point) is not good, the hotend temperature is too low, the extrusion is too fast and consequently parts of the print are missing.


http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t166/daniel_rainbow/solidoodle/Nylon/IMG_1997.jpg
that picture shows the missing parts better. next to a piece of the filament.
(yesterday top, today bottom)


So far:

drying is happening quite effectively, the method I'm using seems to work, but takes more than 24 hours.
when I reach the end of this spool and need another I'll try changing the drying method temperature, but right now I want something controlled and therefore repeatable.

as far printing goes.

you can see todays prints, (24 hours of drying) are much better than yesterdays prints, (0 hours drying) using the same settings.

I'll see tomorrow what 48 hours of like.

the material properties of the printed objects have also improves.

yesterdays parts were full of little bubbles and as such were weak and brittle.
today's parts were pretty uniformly consistent, and much much stronger. whilst also being flexible.

I'm hoping that a further 24 hours in the dryer will leave the filament dry enough to print successfully.

then it's just going to be a case of getting it to stick to the bed.

I'm not sure where to go with this, some rep-rappers are suggesting cardboard. I'm assuming they mean non-heated card board.
when nylon is molten it's a fairly sticky substance, I'm guessing it's the roughness of the cardboard that allows to to stick.
Ideally I want to find the settings for getting it to stick to a kapton bed, - though this might be impossible.


so far as what I want to make:
anything and everything.
I guess the first thing I plan to make is a new runner for a the electric window assembly in my dads old Landy. - which should save having to buy or salvage a whole new unit.

after that a few bits and pieces, one thing that I'm planning to make is a 3d printer, nylon makes a better bearing material than ABS, and so should allow for smoother running.

it's also more flexible.

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Re: Nylon

so the hydrogen cyanide fumes didn't get the better of me, I've just been too busy to come back and post the results.

to compare extrusion settings,
my slic3r ABS profile says that the filament diameter is 1.7 and the multiplier is 0.69

I printer the same calibration cube in nylon. filament diameter is 1.5, extrusion multiplier is 1 temperature of 180 degrees

i.e, despite nylon being very stringy at high temps, it actually behaves very well for printing at lower temperatures.

what you can see in this picture is that nylon warps, a lot.
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t166/daniel_rainbow/solidoodle/Nylon/IMG_2004.jpg
printing a brim helps a bit, but it's pretty ridiculous how much it warps.

the warping is (as far as I can tell) two fold. firstly it's the hot layer cold layer shrink problem, the heated bed should solve this, I've not got it set high enough.

the second issue is that the nylon will not sick reliably to the kapton tape.
however, the nylon will stick to a rougher surface,

http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t166/daniel_rainbow/solidoodle/Nylon/IMG_2005.jpg

Here I've printed on a sheet of paper, the nylon sticks really well to paper, (and paper can be removed using regular soap and water afterwards), but the paper needs to be held to the bed really well, (better than using hair grips as I had done at the start of this print.)


So lessons so far.

the nylon filament needs to be dried first before it will be of any use.
I dried mine in a food dehydrator, four days, (96 hours) as 55 degrees centigrade.

the nylon stiffens up a lot then it's dried, but is still flexible enough to print with.

1.6mm weed whacker line is a reasonable print medium. (after drying), and poses no problems to the solidoodle machine.

in fact I'm go as far as to say that the solidoodle can print with nylon out of the box.

but getting the prints to stick is an issue. a small object will probably not give enough time to warp the print, but if you try printing anything larger, it will warp.

there is still some more fiddling to do, but so far so good.

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Re: Nylon

Awesome info!  Is the printed parts flexible at all or how does the nylon weed whacker line take to being extruded?

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Re: Nylon

the thin single walled box (calibration cube) is very flexible, you can bend it, squeeze it or roll it into a ball and it springs right back.

The second picture shows a loop, it's anout 20mm wide and 50mm long, it should be square in to's profil 4x4mm.
this piece is not a good print, the paper was pulled off the bed, one side is only about 2mm thick, but very solid and flexible.
the distortion of the print bed, (by which I mean the paper curling up) caused the sides to bot bond properly, and they are weak/brittle and snap...

I think that a solid bed, where the material has grip.
(either glueing the paper to the bed or using hair spray) would see a better print.
but again I've not had the time to do more experimentation just yet.

The nylon line is just fine being extruded. I think I hit a fairly sweet spot temperature wise between 175 and 180 where the material is not melted so much that it runs and produces loads of strings, but also extrudes really well.

there is no need to adjust the tension on the extruder to account for the 1.6 material rather than the 1.5

interestingly, I was running about 200mm of ABS through afterwards to clear the nylon from the print head after each test. ABS any nylon actually mix rather well, producing a slightly stiffer than nylon, but slightly stronger than ABS hybrid string of material coming out the extruder.

(I might practice mid print filament changing and see if I can print with short runs of ABS and short runs of nylon so that they mix in the heater tube and make that strange plastic mix.)

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Re: Nylon

there might be a way to make a mix for a filament can you show us the final prints or a final print of the nylon?

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Re: Nylon

If it will stick to paper what about using card sock or some thin cardboard?  That might be easier to attach to the bed

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Re: Nylon

Manx wrote:

there might be a way to make a mix for a filament can you show us the final prints or a final print of the nylon?

I tested the parts to destruction to see how strong they were before taking photos.

the single walled cube is now several section of cube as I was seeing how strong the layer bonds were

The thicker loop is now a de-laminated bent snapped in half mess.

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Re: Nylon

Taulman618 filament is now offering in 1.75 variety so I went ahead and ordered two pounds.  The preorder just opened up so I made sure to get some!

It's a pound per spool, each spool costing a little under 20 bucks.  Soon as I get it, I'll make sure to print something for everyone to see!

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Re: Nylon

Thought i would update. Ive gotten my taulman in and Ive tried it out. Ill answer more questions later but im on my phone now.

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Re: Nylon

Great work, just bought a spool.  Love to hear any other tweaks you've made to improve the quality once you've finalized your settings.

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Re: Nylon

Quote from their website:

Will 618 foul my nozzle if I leave the heater on?

    No! ...We've left our heaters on for over 8 hours after a print with no issues at all.  We also commonly move back and forth from ABS to 618 with no issues at all.  We just purge about 50mm's and start printing.

This is pretty cool if it's true.  That could prevent many unclogging issues.

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Re: Nylon

Very nice.  I got 3 lbs in but I was gonna wait to use it on my rep2x when it arrives.

Did you do anything special to purge the ABS out of your nozzle or did you just switch out to the 618?

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Re: Nylon

The recommended temperature for printing the Taulman nylon is quite high, high enough that I was not sure whether the PEEK would be a problem.  What temperatures are you using for printing?

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Re: Nylon

Sorry for the late response,

I haven't had any trouble at all with this clogging the nozzle.  In fact I have more trouble keeping it in the nozzle, as it's really oozing out.  To combat this, I've just been using a pair of tweezers to pull it away shortly before I print, and I've kept my fan on the entire time to keep it from getting too crazy and stringy.

To purge the ABS I just pulled it out, and purged a good 50-60mm of the new filament in after it.  I felt like that got the job done, but couldn't exactly tell(both filaments were natural colored).

And for the recommended temperature, I researched what most Reprap printers have for their ABS filaments and went from there.  I saw a lot of 220-240, and I figured since we print at about 195 for ABS increasing it slightly would be about where I want to be.  I printed at 195, 200, 205, and 210.  Still trying to decided whether I like the 205 or the 210 better though.

I based my quality of print off of the strands not coming apart in the delamination test that Taulman posted on thingiverse.  I highly recommend it to get you started.

Any other questions lemme know! As well as suggestions as to what I should print in this new filament!

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Re: Nylon

aFoote,

I'd love to see something from the Thingiverse flexible collection or a spring.