Does anyone know if the prusa i3 is equipped with a metal extruded tip capable of ~260-280 degrees for nylon or ‘bridge’ nylon? Does it also have a heated glass bed? Does anyone know if nylon is particularly high fumes (it doesn’t seems to say that anywhere…)?
My project requires light weight high strength / tensile material, so I’m trying to figure out my options. Any other ideas would be swell!
It has a Hexagon all-metal hotend and should be able to do 260 degrees with no issues, but I haven’t tried it at that temp before.
It does have a heated bed.
Nylon is no where near as bad as ABS. But worse then PLA.
If you use Nylon in a printer you have to clean out the head when your done or it screws up printing with PLA.
Seacan is one of the companies I’d heard more complaints about then any other. Its banned from being used on the Ditto Pro…Its the cheapest around for a reason. Had a bunch of UBC machines come back all jammed up with the stuff. Back when I was working at Tinkerine.
Taulman brand nylons (645, Bridge (645 revB), 618, Alloy 910) can all be printed at 240-245 degrees which is just at the upper limits of a non all-metal hotend (e.g. J-Head). I see no reason to use nylon from any other vendor if it requires higher than 250 (unless you are looking at a filament based on nylon 12 - most are variants of nylon 6). All plastics emit ultra-fine particles but Taulman nylon has next to no smell when printing and is considered a pretty inert plastic. I can’t speak for other brands regarding smell.
Nylon doesn’t screw up printing any more than any other filament, meaning you always need to properly purge before you change material or cross contamination will impact layer bonding for the first few layers. In fact, nylon 618 is the best material for cleaning your hotend with a cold pull.
Nylon is pretty ‘oozy’ and does take some practice to print well with. Taulman’s website has recommended print settings to get you started.
I have a stock of Alloy 910 (highest tensile strength of the Taulman nylon line) in 3mm if you need just one roll and don’t want to pay shipping. Sorry, no 1.75mm.
Thanks everyone! I’m now convinced to not buy from seacans and will be getting Taulman brand. I’m thinking I’ll get the 618 version as it claims to be just as strong as injected nylon if printed 100% fill. It also prints at 220degrees without a heated bed.
@ashley thanks! I may take you up on the alloy filament you have… I’m going to need to wait till my next pay check and see if I have some cash left after buying the resin I need for my other project.
I wouldn’t print any nylon at 220 without a heated bed. The layer bonding will not be strong and you’ll probably get curling off the build plate. I print at 240 and Alloy 910 at 245. Bookmark this test for finding the optimal temperature: Nylon Delamination and Pliability Test Object by Taulman - Thingiverse. For the bed, diluted white glue or glue stick on glass works well for all of them. Garolite is not necessary (and good luck finding a flat sheet of the stuff). Temp 40-50, and 70 for Alloy 910. The rule of bed temp is to set it just below or at the glass transition temperature of the plastic so the lower layers don’t cool and contract before the part is done.
618, 645 and Bridge are all very similar. 618 is opaque white and 645 / Bridge is somewhat transparent when printed. Alloy 910 is more rigid and has a higher tensile strength but is less elastic.
