Learn how to print Nylon!
I’m Tom and today i’m going to show you how to print Nylon!
Now, i know many of you are perfectly happy with printing PLA or ABS, and i’m not saying that those two are bad plastics to use, what i’ll try to show you in this video is what you’re missing out on if you’ve never printed nylon. Because there really is nothing out there that has has similar properties to Taulman’s nylons. First and foremost, nylon is # tough. In a couple of different ways: It’s got an excellent layer bonding strength. It doesn’t break when you bend or stretch it. / Because it’s a material that you # can bend and stretch. It doesn’t snap or break, but instead tears off like a piece of cloth, which i’ve demonstrated in the “plastic destruction” video, here. It’s also pretty wear-resistant in things like bushings or gears, though i’d say It’s still a bit too tacky to directly use it as a bushing. Also, it # rarely has sharp or spiky edged that might tear up your fingers when cleaning up a print, like those sharp corners on PLA. And it doesn’t smell nearly as bad as ABS. Though it does have a slight smell of wet sand to it. Kinda.
But you know, basically, nylon is that sweet, cuddly plastic that / just wants to be your friend.
So, how do you print it? Well, before you print it, you’ll have to deal with the issue of moisture. Because while Taulman have improved the water absorption of their Bridge nylon compared to the classic 618 and 645 nylons, that issue still isn’t completely gone. You will have to dry the filament if you’ve left it sitting around for a few days, and to do that, you can either throw it in a silicia-gel-filled container and let it sit there for a very long while, which is also a great way to store it, or throw it in the oven and bake it at 60 to 70 / -ish degrees. / Celsius. I’ve found that two hours of baking takes out most moisture. If the filament is still moist, you’ll hear the tiny bubbles of steam cracking while printing and your prints will look ugly, they won’t stick to the build platform and come out in an opaque white color instead of a milky clear white-ish tone. In fact, if you print your parts hollow, with only one or two perimeters, they will come out pretty translucent overall.
Next up, how do you get it to stick to the build plate? Which is something that is usually replied to with “use a sheet of tufnol or garolite”. And that works, especially for 618 and 645 nylons, but bridge works really nicely with glue stick as well. In fact, that is what I’m using for basically everything i print now. For nylon, a heated bed temperature of roughly 90°C helps adhesion, but is not strictly neccessary. The prints stick much better to # cold glue stick than ABS, which is completely loose after the bed has cooled down. You might need to experiment with the amount of glue stick you smear on top of your bed’s surface, but i’ve found that less is more here and a thin, barely visible layer is usually perfect for getting things to stick to it.
Because nylon requires a fairly hot printing temperature of around 245°C, depending on your exact configuration maybe a bit more, you are best off with using a PTFE and PEEK free hotend. Also called all-metal hotends. Taulman’s nylon only starts to degrade way past 300°C, so have you plenty of wiggle room if, for example, you’re not getting the layer adhesion you want.
As far as printing speeds go, it will entirely depend on how fast your extruder can go. As nylon is somewhat flexible, you’re going to get best results if you treat it like a flexible filament, so if you have the option, add a teflon liner to your extruder and make sure you get enough grip from your hobbed bolt or drive gear. Taulman recommend speeds around 25mm/s, but faster or slower speeds will also work. Again, keep your filament dry for best results, as every bit of moisture in it will degrade your results at any speed.
And that is basically it! Nylon is relatively easy to print, but you might need to experiment with layer thicknesses, temperatures and speeds to get you the best results. Personally, i simply used my ABS profile, slowed it down a bit and was pretty happy with it. Just remember to keep your nylon dry, that is key to getting reliable prints.
If you want to try out printing Nylon, make sure you get the genuine Taulman stuff, there is a lot of research that went into these filament and many other vendors simply don’t have the expertise to make nylon filament that prints well. I got mine from E3D, they sent me a roll to try out, a link to them is in the video’s description.
So one more thing, i started a giveaway two weeks ago, I should have probably made it just one week, but anyways, I’m giving away two AluHotends. The newer one, the V5C which I used for the review, is going to John Cutburth II (i hope i pronounced that right), and the V5B is going to Victor Elizondo. Have fun with your new hotends, and please check your Youtube spam folder for the message I sent you.
So that’s it for today, thank you for watching, please do click those like, subscribe and share button, and I’ll see you next week.
Get Taulman’s filaments from E3D [UK]
Music by UltraCat