Taulman "Bridge"

I have some Bridge and it is good stuff.  Sicks like ABS with all the other qualities of nylon.  Unfortunately that means very slow print speeds.

When I did a lot of nylon 618 and 645 I used elmers glue all on glass. Worked excellent.

http://www.soliforum.com/topic/5250/tau … mers-glue/

I have not tried dye yet but I hear it works great.

I got mine this weekend and I'm just finishing up my first day playing with it.  I'm very impressed so far.

The first object i printed was my standard 1 perimeter calibration cube, wall width 0.48 mm.  I started at 245 C on an E3D V6 hotend and 95 C heated bed, coated in purple glue stick.  The walls came out very close to the desired width so I was pleased to see all my filament widths and extrusion multipliers I had set in slic3r for ABS seemed to work well here too.

My calibration cube is 20 mm and even with just a single wall, I could not pull it apart across the layers with my bare hands.  I believe I probably could if it was bigger and I could get a better grip on it, but I was impressed with the strength.  Next up was the 5 mm calibration steps.  I accidentally left the support material on but this gave me a chance to see how easy it is to remove.  The steps came out nicely and I was impressed with how even and smooth the surface is.  Supports came off easy and the entire object feels very solid.

I also made a vase, 3 perimeters, that turned out nice as well.  I had no lifting on all objects.  I'll try some larger, flatter objects later but I don't anticipate any corner lifting issues at all.

That's about all I'm really interested in printing until I get dying figures out.  I bought every color of rit dye they had at the craft store since they were on sale.  The first attempt was just warming the filament in boiling water then dropping it in a baggie full of dye diluted with water.  Richrap's blog post on dying nylon said he did not use vinegar.  This method did not work well for me, after a couple hours I pulled it out and 95% of the dye did not stick, leaving only a slight tinge of blue.  I blame the baggie, which might not have allowed it to make enough contact.

Second attempt at dying is still water based, but used a glass jar.  Third attempt is 50% vinegar, 50% water diluting in a glass jar.  I'll pull these out later tonight and see how well the dye has stuck.

I'm a big fan of bridge nylon so far.  I think its actually easier to get a good stick and layer adhesion than with ABS.  If I can get dying figured out, it may become my go to print material for almost everything.  It is only marginally more expensive than ABS.  Go get some Bridge filament!

Nice to see some success. What print speed's are you folks using and what Multiplier. I'm having a heck of a time getting this to feed properly through an entire print...

thanks in advance

Maybe I just got lucky but I have not reduced my speeds from ABS, but I was running pretty much the stock speeds (about 30 mm/s perimeters).  I always run my small perimeters at 10 mm/s and external perimeters at 70%.  30% first layer speed.  Infill at 60 does not seem to give me problems.  I haven't done a print with large supports yet, but when I do I will consider turning that down from 60 to 45. 

Later today I will try to get my retraction a little better since I've heard people generally increase that distance.  Again, I only have about 8 hours of print time on Taulman Bridge but I have not seen a need to reduce me speeds so far.  I'm getting very nice, smooth finishes on the top and sides. 

Also, some more info on dying bridge:  Use a glass jar and entirely submerge the filament, the ziploc baggie full of dye does not seem to allow it to make enough contact.  I tried one with hot water mixed in the dye and one with 50% vinegar and 50% hot water.  The vinegar mix seemed to make it take the color faster but I got good results with both.  When I get home from work today I will dry it in the oven and try a print.  I might run by the thrift store and pick up some old pots that I can sacrifice and try boiling the dye mix.  Gotta try this one the separate burner that I set up in the garage for ABS smoothing so my wife doesn't come home to a big dye mess in the kitchen and kill me.

Pictures:

1) Vase

2) Single wall calibration cube

Wow, those came in really big.  Does anyone know how I can reduce the size that it shows up at?  Is there a way to do this in the forum or do I have to go into my image and resize and reupload?

Anyway, I should clarify on my speeds statement.  While I have not reduced my main speeds from ABS, I do run my ABS cooling thresholds differently than stock.  I set it to slow down print speed if layer time is less than 30 seconds and a minimum speed of 5 mm/s.  So the cube above did print pretty slow.

Also note that the slight peeling is not actually the bottom layer peeling up, but the perimeter separating from the bottom layer, which is stuck very firmly.  I haven't had this issue when using more than 1 perimeter.

I should maybe clarify my speed statement.  I tend to print almost everything solid as in 100% infill.  When I say a small print I probably should say any print less than about an hour.  Those I can pretty much print at my regular speed of 80mm/s.  Anything past that and the Bulldog must warm up just enough that the filament becomes slightly more flexible.  My work around has been to just reduce speeds and that has been a rather effective solution for now.

Has anyone tried dying and entire spool of filament?  I want a whole spool of black bridge but It would really suck to understand and re spool the whole thing.  I'm just not sure if the dye will get far enough to the bottom layers on the spool.  Also, any issue drying it with the spool in place.  I have no idea what temp the spool itself melts at.  Thanks.

Thanks.  It shouldn't be too hard to rig something like that to work with all the empty octave spools I've got around here.

I don't know how many people are still reading this thread.  I've got several good bridge prints that I can add pictures of.  I will probably just go ahead and try a whole spool of bridge dyed black.  Heck, I've got plenty of money thrown in at modding my printer already.  What's another $30 at this point, right?  Worst case, I get some unevenly colored parts.  Unfortunately, I probably won't know how well it worked until I get to the end of the spool.

I am still reading this thread and would be happy to see pictures of your prints!

I just started using this but my settings are obviously way off. I need to dry it first I think as its popping like mad which makes a rough print. I'm getting lots of micro stringy artifacts on the first few layers that seem to go away after that.  I'm using an Airwolf 3D2S with abs on head one and bridge on head 2.  I made a simple phone cover for my galaxy s4 but it took a lot of dremel to clean it up. I found a couple sites with recommended settings for temp/speed/retraction.  I'll have to experiment I guess. Any recommendations?

I've dyed various nylon prints that were SLS (laser on powder) printed by Sculpteo, using black dye for polyester and it worked great. Deep, rich black. I think that's also what they (Sculpteo) use when you specify a colored part. Air brush artists use the same dye and 50% airbrush acrylic paint to paint on polyester shirts and such.

Doesn't wash or rub off. I don't know how deeply it penetrates but if you cut or scuff it hard, you can reveal the white nylon underneath.

The takeaway, use polyester dye. I forget the brand but JoAnn's and other craft stores sell it.