Housing

3D printing is uniquely suitable for customizing parts that one needs on the fly. A custom housing, for instance. The original design by Printcontrol was made to be a housing for electronics, but you can use it as a housing in general. We chose our new PA-CF Low Warp filament to print for extra stiffness and toughness.

Original design: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:243905

And the matte finish just gives it a very cool and industrial look. We printed on the Ultimaker 2+, using the Olsson Ruby nozzle. Print temperature at 260C and a 50C bed. Layer height is 0.3mm.

As the name indicates, PA-CF Low Warp is a polyamide (nylon) with carbon fiber. An added bonus is that, unlike many other engineering grade filaments, it has very little warping when printing large objects! Low infill prints come out perfectly flat on cold bed for higher infill prints 40/50C temperature is enough to obtain flat prints. It is an engineering grade filament for a wide range of printers and users alike.

We have printed a lot with PA-CF Low Warp recently. Below are a few examples:

As said, functionality is key with this filament and it is a material that suits the needs of the professional user perfectly.

The PA-CF Low Warp is a one of a kind polyamide formulation with the ability to print nearly warp free on non heated buildplatforms. Low infill prints come out perfectly flat on cold bed for higher infill prints 40/50C temperature is enough to obtain flat prints.

PA-CF Low Warp allows continuous use at 120°C while retaining sufficient properties for the intended application. Most high heat resistant materials will be difficult to print and require heated chambers and / or heated platforms to keep parts from warping the bottom layer. PA-CF Low Warp shows a very low tendency to warp, even at ambient temperature platform.

PA-CF Low Warp is a material that has a lot of practical applications. One of them is within the automotive industry. The unique combination of high strength, good temperature resistance and good chemical stability makes this material a good choice for parts in and around the car. It’s used a lot already for brackets and covers.

In general it can be used for functional prototyping and final part manufacturing. For functional prototyping users are often looking for materials which have good toughness, strength and resistance to abrasion. Because of the excellent mechanical strength and heat resistance het material can even be considers for use in final applications. PA-CF low warp has great dimensional stability, because of extremely low warp. The material is therefor unique suited for applications such as jigs & fixtures which require parts with accurate dimensions.

Eager to get started? Click here to get the basics on how to print with PA_CF Low Warp.

PA-CF Low Warp is available now in our webshop and ships from stock.

 

The Olsson Ruby Nozzle – One nozzle for all materials

Due to the abrassive nature of the filament we recommend the use of hardened nozzles for the best performance of the material and printer. For this reason we are offering the Olsson Ruby Nozzles with the purchase of PA-CF Low Warp. You can find the combined offer here.

We have published about the use of the Olsson Ruby Nozzle before and we are very enthusiastic about the use of this filament combined with abrassive materials like PA-CF Low Warp, but also XT-CF20 and steelFill.

The ruby mounted at the tip assures that even the toughest materials will be printable. It was originally designed for printing with a composite of Boron Carbide (B4C), the third hardest known material in the world. Since most of the Olsson Ruby is made from brass, with its excellent heat conductivity, performance and throughput is first-class.

This nozzle, soon on your printer!

The Olsson Ruby is manufactured, assembled and tested in a high-quality facility in Sweden. This is why 3DVerkstan – also colorFabb’s partner in the region – guarantees the very best quality and tolerances.

As from now you can purchase the Olsson Ruby Nozzle 0.4mm in combination with PA-CF Low Warp in our webshop.

 

 

How to print with PA-CF Low Warp

How to print with PA-CF Low Warp

Below are some tips and tricks to get the best results with PA-CF Low Warp, colorFabb’s first nylon based engineering filament.

Original blog announcement: click here
Available in our webshop: click here
To get the best possible quality out of any 3D printing material it’s important to match the slicer settings with the material which is used.
On this page we’ll address the most important settings and formulate general settings to be used as a starting point for further fine tuning.
Build platform
The material shows good results when printed at ambient temperature, or cold bed. For some model geometries or high density infill parts a heated bed at 40C / 50C is advised. Using a brim will help when printing on a cold bed and heated bed. The material has been tested on buildTak and glass bed. When printing on glass bed we advise using 3DLac to obtain better adhesion to the plate.

Printing temperature

A minimum hot-end temperature of 260C is recommended. If you’re machine has 260C as the maximum temperature you’ll need to fine tune by lowering speed settings to make sure the 3D printer can keep up with the extrusion needed at certain speeds. The advised processing temperature for this material is set between 260C and 280C.

Cooling

As always, less cooling results in better layer-to-layer adhesion, more cooling gives better result on complex overhanging surfaces. We would recommend a 50% fan speed as default and use less fan speed if the print geometry allows for this.

Abrasive resistant nozzle

The addition of carbon fibers makes this filament highly abrasive for regular brass nozzle. We recommend users to use abrasive resistant nozzles, such as E3D hardened steel nozzles or Olsson Ruby nozzle.

Retraction
Users can expect a slight increase in retraction length and speed to prevent oozing from the nozzle on travel moves. If the material is saturated with moisture users can notice more oozing of the material on travel moves.
Layer height

For this material we recommend a minimum of 0.2mm layerheight. Due to the length of the fibers layers lower then 0.15mm can cause issues such as clogging or partial clogging of the nozzle.

Print speed
Most 3D printers will process this material at speeds of around 30/40 mm/s for layer height around 0.2mm with a 0.4mm nozzle. Outer perimeters can be printed slower at 30mm/s for better surface quality
This information was first published on the dedicated landing page: http://pa.colorfabb.com/how/