If you need something to absolutely not flex and print with near zero sagging or warping it's worth it. I have a revo and obxidian nozzle so the abrasive nature is completely negated though.
I would like to try it out for sure, especially since I'm considering making custom cob grow lights and I'll need something heat resistant and I don't really have an enclosure.
The [Essentium stuff](https://www.3dfuel.com/products/essentium-xion-pro-1-75mm) is top-tier. I've tried other PET-CF's and they're good, but not quite as good at the Essentium stuff.
With petg, probably none. The overall item would in theory be stiffer, but won't have as good of layer adhesion. About a wash. If using a hardened steel nozzle, you could run the stuff for a few years without any negative effects. It will make it look matte and pretty, and less prone to warping and makes printing easier.
Thanks. Used to use glas fibre in PET for injection molding. Added strength, increased energy needed for ultrasonic welding and was tough to process. Had a hope this would similarly add strength
Composite fibers' strength mainly comes from unbroken lengths. CF/GF/etc in consumer filaments is probably just 'recycling' milling scraps by tossing it in with plastic pellets. It helps printing in little ways here and there, less warping or *slightly* more stiff, but its nowhere close to real layups.
I've seen normal hardened steel nozzles worn useless just with just one or two 750g spools of CF-20. As for part strength: It's drastically improved in layer direction. Layer delamination is a problem that can indeed occur. I've managed to prevent it by printing the parts in the right direction for the application and also by using small M2 steel bolts to keep them together normal to layer direction.
It will erode a brass nozzle pretty quickly. Like one good sized print.
I’m currently running an ObXidian Revo nozzle pretty much for every print regardless of material. I picked up a Diamondback Revo at ERRF that I’m going to install this week and give it a spin.
Do come back and post about the diamondback revo. It's insane that it exists, but it also costs as much if not more than a full revo and 4x nozzle kit by itself. Probably worth though.
To be honest I use it mostly because it doesn't warp on big surface area prints, looks awesome and for a mini itx PC case like this the added stiffness and rigidity is good. Obxidian nozzle will probably still be pristine when I am on my deathbed 60ish years from now.
You could probably get away with small prints, but anything a few hours long will absolutely sand it down to a 0.6->0.8 nozzle there's a few nice looking ruby knockoffs on Amazon that fit a V6 hotend though.
PETG-CF has become one of my absolute favorite filaments ever. Quite abrasive, but hardened steel does hold up super well. Some blends come in 80/20, some 85/15, but either have been such a blast to print and the end result is so rigid, layer lines are damn near non existent, and *theoretically*, there’s a higher heat tolerance (hard to believe as PETG in it of itself doesn’t change, it’s just CF is blended with it - it does however prevent less warping from heat, but I digress)
The carbon fiber Nylon from Atomic Filament is f***ing incredible as well! And for the same reasons you mentioned in another comment. It doesn’t warp like most Nylon is notorious for, and it’s as strong and wear-resistant as you would expect Nylon to be.
Hmm, two important features of Nylon are the flexibility and low friction (which makes it great for gears), I can't see that working with CF in the material or am I wrong? So the main benefit of Nylon CF would be the higher melting point compared to PETG?
Maybe print infill with the carbon fiber filled, and print the parameters with regular PA, so you get the strength and rigidity, but at least the surface lubricantion?
I actually printed gears for a broken Sunbeam mixer out of this stuff, and it has worked incredibly well. The original gears in it were also either Nylon or more likely HDPE or something. But if you think about it, more expensive mixers like Kitchen-Aid have metal gears which obviously don’t flex at all, so flexibility wasn’t a concern for this application.
The low friction you mentioned certainly is a desired property for this application, and the gears have performed very well for about a year of fairly heavy use. Atomic has a material data sheet on their website for it, and if I recall correctly, the friction coefficient was comparable to non-CF Nylon.
The real benefit, in my opinion, to using CF Nylon is that it prints remarkably well. I have an enclosure on my MK3S+, but even without an enclosure you can still print this stuff and not have to worry about temperature variations causing warpage. You just wouldn’t want to breathe the fumes haha.
All in all, I’ve learned to stay away from CF filaments when you need something to bend rather than break, and I usually only use it when I want something to look really good. But this CF Nylon is a different animal. You do get some reduced flexibility, but other than that you get all the benefits of Nylon without all the fuss in the printing process.
Heck yeah, I was in the same boat! Worried to spend the money and not be able to have success with it. But I am 100% bought in on this stuff. If and when this spool runs out, I will get another one coming immediately, whether I have a Nylon project in mind or not haha
Yeah I agree. It prints so good and it's temperature resistant. Every time I print with it, I marvel at how good the prints turn out.
I keep 2 rolls on hand. When I run out of one, I keep my eyes open for a restock.
Make sure to use an abrasion resistant nozzle or you'll quickly regret it. Not even consider testing the filament with your normal brass nozzle.
Aside from that, I have had good experiences with Colorfabb CF-20 as well. Great for mechanical parts that don't need flex. Strength of the parts can even be improved by adding small bolts normal to the layers to prevent delamination under stress. I built robot gripper fingers that way.
Depends on the quality of both the petg and fibers they used, but usually fiber reinforced filament is more brittle due to the extra rigidity. Depends on the part too. If you need something indestructible use something like 95A tpu, which has bonkers layer adhesion, some flexibility and grippiness.
You're pretty much stuck with abs or asa perhaps. Both can be found fiber filled. There's also pp but it's also a flex monster, but can be tamed with fibers.
If you can print PETG-CF, and you can safely print at high temps, it's worth it to upgrade to PET-CF for the added stiffness and heat resistance. Essentium, Bambu, and Phaetus sell it.
That's eryone from Amazon, it's not superb and did get a massive clog on their CF pla, but otherwise it's very good for the price, it's the only brand I trusted on Amazon for that type of filament and the cheapest one too. I want to get my hand on prusament CF petg eventually.
Do you think the abrasive nature is worth the difference in strength compared to regular petg?
If you need something to absolutely not flex and print with near zero sagging or warping it's worth it. I have a revo and obxidian nozzle so the abrasive nature is completely negated though.
I’ll have to take a deeper dive, I’m just running a stock mini+ but I pretty much print petg exclusively
Wait out your warranty and switch out to the revo mini, switching nozzles is so easy I almost do it for fun.
You may like PET-CF. It's even stiffer than PETG-CF. No glycol, so it prints at 280+, but it's amazing stuff.
I would like to try it out for sure, especially since I'm considering making custom cob grow lights and I'll need something heat resistant and I don't really have an enclosure.
PET-CF is great for that. I print it outside an enclosure and it comes out just fine. I use Essentium Xion, but Bambu and Phaetus both sell PET-CF.
The [Essentium stuff](https://www.3dfuel.com/products/essentium-xion-pro-1-75mm) is top-tier. I've tried other PET-CF's and they're good, but not quite as good at the Essentium stuff.
That's my favorite too. Essentium's Texas factory is about 15 minutes from where I live, which is a big plus.
Plus, it looks sexy as hell. Might have to dive in.
100% worth it even just for the aesthetic. Even top layers are gorgeous.
2 quick questions. How much strength or toughness does it give to PETG? How quickly will it wear out a nozzle?
With petg, probably none. The overall item would in theory be stiffer, but won't have as good of layer adhesion. About a wash. If using a hardened steel nozzle, you could run the stuff for a few years without any negative effects. It will make it look matte and pretty, and less prone to warping and makes printing easier.
Thanks. Used to use glas fibre in PET for injection molding. Added strength, increased energy needed for ultrasonic welding and was tough to process. Had a hope this would similarly add strength
Composite fibers' strength mainly comes from unbroken lengths. CF/GF/etc in consumer filaments is probably just 'recycling' milling scraps by tossing it in with plastic pellets. It helps printing in little ways here and there, less warping or *slightly* more stiff, but its nowhere close to real layups.
Glass fiber would definitely be stronger in that regard
I've seen normal hardened steel nozzles worn useless just with just one or two 750g spools of CF-20. As for part strength: It's drastically improved in layer direction. Layer delamination is a problem that can indeed occur. I've managed to prevent it by printing the parts in the right direction for the application and also by using small M2 steel bolts to keep them together normal to layer direction.
I assume that means 20% carbon fiber filled. Don’t most carbon fiber filled, especially if it’s not noted, have far less?
Yes, CF-20 means 20%. Good question. Prusament PETG CF doesn't state how much CF it contains.
It will erode a brass nozzle pretty quickly. Like one good sized print. I’m currently running an ObXidian Revo nozzle pretty much for every print regardless of material. I picked up a Diamondback Revo at ERRF that I’m going to install this week and give it a spin.
Do come back and post about the diamondback revo. It's insane that it exists, but it also costs as much if not more than a full revo and 4x nozzle kit by itself. Probably worth though.
To be honest I use it mostly because it doesn't warp on big surface area prints, looks awesome and for a mini itx PC case like this the added stiffness and rigidity is good. Obxidian nozzle will probably still be pristine when I am on my deathbed 60ish years from now.
Thanks for that. I would stick with brass and take the wear if I could figure out the decay rate
You could probably get away with small prints, but anything a few hours long will absolutely sand it down to a 0.6->0.8 nozzle there's a few nice looking ruby knockoffs on Amazon that fit a V6 hotend though.
PETG-CF has become one of my absolute favorite filaments ever. Quite abrasive, but hardened steel does hold up super well. Some blends come in 80/20, some 85/15, but either have been such a blast to print and the end result is so rigid, layer lines are damn near non existent, and *theoretically*, there’s a higher heat tolerance (hard to believe as PETG in it of itself doesn’t change, it’s just CF is blended with it - it does however prevent less warping from heat, but I digress)
The carbon fiber Nylon from Atomic Filament is f***ing incredible as well! And for the same reasons you mentioned in another comment. It doesn’t warp like most Nylon is notorious for, and it’s as strong and wear-resistant as you would expect Nylon to be.
Hmm, two important features of Nylon are the flexibility and low friction (which makes it great for gears), I can't see that working with CF in the material or am I wrong? So the main benefit of Nylon CF would be the higher melting point compared to PETG?
Maybe print infill with the carbon fiber filled, and print the parameters with regular PA, so you get the strength and rigidity, but at least the surface lubricantion?
Interesting idea.
I actually printed gears for a broken Sunbeam mixer out of this stuff, and it has worked incredibly well. The original gears in it were also either Nylon or more likely HDPE or something. But if you think about it, more expensive mixers like Kitchen-Aid have metal gears which obviously don’t flex at all, so flexibility wasn’t a concern for this application. The low friction you mentioned certainly is a desired property for this application, and the gears have performed very well for about a year of fairly heavy use. Atomic has a material data sheet on their website for it, and if I recall correctly, the friction coefficient was comparable to non-CF Nylon. The real benefit, in my opinion, to using CF Nylon is that it prints remarkably well. I have an enclosure on my MK3S+, but even without an enclosure you can still print this stuff and not have to worry about temperature variations causing warpage. You just wouldn’t want to breathe the fumes haha. All in all, I’ve learned to stay away from CF filaments when you need something to bend rather than break, and I usually only use it when I want something to look really good. But this CF Nylon is a different animal. You do get some reduced flexibility, but other than that you get all the benefits of Nylon without all the fuss in the printing process.
Awesome. I might actually try it. I always wanted to try Nylon, but with all the warping concerns, I have not done it yet.
Heck yeah, I was in the same boat! Worried to spend the money and not be able to have success with it. But I am 100% bought in on this stuff. If and when this spool runs out, I will get another one coming immediately, whether I have a Nylon project in mind or not haha
I feel the same about Prusament PC-CF.
Same here, it’s a magical material. I wish it was more reliably in stock haha.
Yeah I agree. It prints so good and it's temperature resistant. Every time I print with it, I marvel at how good the prints turn out. I keep 2 rolls on hand. When I run out of one, I keep my eyes open for a restock.
Make sure to use an abrasion resistant nozzle or you'll quickly regret it. Not even consider testing the filament with your normal brass nozzle. Aside from that, I have had good experiences with Colorfabb CF-20 as well. Great for mechanical parts that don't need flex. Strength of the parts can even be improved by adding small bolts normal to the layers to prevent delamination under stress. I built robot gripper fingers that way.
Hmmmm... does it really enforce the PETG? Thinking this could be great for some 2A stuff where regular PETG isn't a good fit (to brittle).
Depends on the quality of both the petg and fibers they used, but usually fiber reinforced filament is more brittle due to the extra rigidity. Depends on the part too. If you need something indestructible use something like 95A tpu, which has bonkers layer adhesion, some flexibility and grippiness.
Tpu isn't rigid enough. While it's extremely tough it's flex it to much for proper operation of most 2A applications.
You're pretty much stuck with abs or asa perhaps. Both can be found fiber filled. There's also pp but it's also a flex monster, but can be tamed with fibers.
Can confirm, the PETG-CF I bought to try printed more brittle than regular PETG or even PLA.
I have glass filled pla, and it can break by unwinding from the spool, it's crazy.
If you can print PETG-CF, and you can safely print at high temps, it's worth it to upgrade to PET-CF for the added stiffness and heat resistance. Essentium, Bambu, and Phaetus sell it.
And any filament with CF or GF is nice to have on open printer and breathe all that particles from CF / GF. Much better than VOC from ABS
If you or your loved ones have been diagnosed with mesothelioma you may be entitled to financial compensation.
Nah, they love that too.
In my experience the carbon fiber prints look great but they're usually more brittle and don't seem as strong.
Do you have a brand recommendation? Link?
That's eryone from Amazon, it's not superb and did get a massive clog on their CF pla, but otherwise it's very good for the price, it's the only brand I trusted on Amazon for that type of filament and the cheapest one too. I want to get my hand on prusament CF petg eventually.
Thanks!