# Specific 3D Printers, Scanners, & Hardware > FlashForge Forum >  Nylon Filament

## Undrcutr

I bought my creator X for prototyping objects that require a decent amount of strength and have not found ABS or PLA to be functional.  I came across this review of the Taulman Bridge nylon filament and decided to buy some:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33jbHlmKf_U

It should arrive this week.  Anyone used it or other nylon filament?

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## American 3D Printing

Yes, we use Taulman 618, 645 and Bridge. We use them primarily for their strength and flexibility, for everything from custom orthotic inserts to automotive parts and other industrial applications. There is a significant learning curve to building with nylon!

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## Geoff

> Yes, we use Taulman 618, 645 and Bridge. We use them primarily for their strength and flexibility, for everything from custom orthotic inserts to automotive parts and other industrial applications. There is a significant learning curve to building with nylon!


I second that, I bought a sample roll to just see what the overall quality was like before I bought a big roll, and being honest I got through 50 percent of the sample roll before I got it printing well. For me, on the flashforge it needed to be raftless (supports were ok, but rafts nearly impossible to remove as they really do fuse together) and the heat was really really tricky to get right, I was printing at like 250c to get it to extrude correctly.

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## RobH2

I've had good luck printing with 618 at 240C but I'm still having a problem getting it to stick. I've ordered some G10 Garolite to see if it will solve my sticking issues. I do like the properties of the nylon as compared to ABS. It's more flexible instead of brittle and it seems more tightly bound.

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## Undrcutr

Apparently the bridge sticks to glass with glue inly.  I am hoping it sticks to kapton without glue.  Will get it soon.

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## American 3D Printing

> I've had good luck printing with 618 at 240C but I'm still having a problem getting it to stick. I've ordered some G10 Garolite to see if it will solve my sticking issues. I do like the properties of the nylon as compared to ABS. It's more flexible instead of brittle and it seems more tightly bound.


618 is the most difficult of the 3 types to stick, it is very slippery. 645 sticks a little better and Bridge sticks the best.

Print hot 245°C+ and slow: <45mm/sec, even as slow as 30mm/sec. Not hot enough and/or too fast and it will delaminate.

We've had best results with water-based PVA (polyvinyl acrylic) glue on bare acrylic, although it can also be painted onto PE tape or even bare glass. The brand we are using right now is called "Mod Podge" and is available in the arts and crafts aisle at Walmart. Tom at Taulman uses a different brand of the same stuff. It comes in a white plastic bottle and you paint it on with a small paintbrush, like 1" wide or so. It lasts for many builds. You can remove it by soaking the surface in hot soapy water and then scrubbing with a scotchbright pad.

*Do not heat the bed!* Taulman nylon sticks best at room temp. In fact, when you have a large build, heat the bed up to about 70°C when it's all done to help get it off!

You can tell how much stronger it is than ABS or PLA when you go to cut the stuff with your cutters. It takes 3-4 times as much force!

Taulman T-Glase (PET) is pretty strong too, but not as strong as their nylon.

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## basfud

I am printing with Taulmann nylons a lot, both 618 and 645. UHU stick office glue works best directly on kapton, and PVA solution seems to be OK too. 

YOU HAVE TO REMEMBER TO PRE-DRY THEM PROPERLY! Otherwise they will foam. Otherwise quite intuitive and easy I think, at least compared to other nylon brands that don't seem to print at all  :Roll Eyes (Sarcastic):  (unacceptable warping, several times higher than ABS)

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## RobH2

Jeff, that's some really good nylon sticking info. Thanks for that.

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## curious aardvark

glue stick on kapton would seem the simplest.

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## RobH2

> glue stick on kapton would seem the simplest.


You know, I'm going to try that one more time. The last time I did it with a large part (7.5" x 7.5" x 6.0") it stayed stuck to the tape but pulled the tape off of the glass. So the net result was still a part that came up. Maybe I'll wrap the tape around the edges of the glass. That might help.

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## basfud

> You know, I'm going to try that one more time. The last time I did it with a large part (7.5" x 7.5" x 6.0") it stayed stuck to the tape but pulled the tape off of the glass. So the net result was still a part that came up. Maybe I'll wrap the tape around the edges of the glass. That might help.


Whoa, that's some serious warping then. Did you try printing the nylon in a heated chamber? Improvising something quickly to close the printer, so that the build chamber heats up to 30-40 degC, to minimize model deformation?

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## RobH2

Yes, I did create a chamber and used a heated bed but I must still be getting a draft. I did read about using PVA glue on the glass so I tried that. It worked like a champ, only one problem, as the part dried, it cracked the expensive borosilicate glass. Really, here's a photo:

PVA.jpg

So what I tried next was wood. I used a piece that was 3/4 inch  thick and nice and smooth. That worked well and since I have autoleveling set up it went smoothly. That actually worked the best. I'm have enough 618 for one more print so I'm trying to use it up. I've switched to Bridge Nylon and it's much more friendly.

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## basfud

> Yes, I did create a chamber and used a heated bed but I must still be getting a draft. I did read about using PVA glue on the glass so I tried that. It worked like a champ, only one problem, as the part dried, it cracked the expensive borosilicate glass.


Whoa :O

I've never printed things that large from Nylon, but I used to un-tension ABS parts mid-print. I used a hairdryer to rapidly raise the temperature of the whole model and chamber, to make it approach the lower glass transition temperature of nylon (did it by the thumb), then let it cool in normal ambient temperature of the print chamber. This may help.

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## American 3D Printing

As I type this I am building a part that's about 250mm x 90mm - pretty big. Even with glue on an acrylic bed, 618 wants to curl at the corners. So we applied a trick we've learned when designing parts to be built with nylon. Basically you build a brim straight out from all the edges, in this case 10mm in all directions. Unlike a traditional raft that goes underneath like Makerbot wants to do when you slice it with the raft box called out on the slice, this is actually part of the model itself, added in Solidworks to the original model that was designed in Solidworks. Unlike the brim that slicing engines like Slic3r and Voxelizer add, you can make this as thick or thin as you want. Since we are slicing at 0.2mm layer thickness, we made the brim on this part 0.4mm so it would be 2 layers thick.

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## curious aardvark

ah - now that's clever. 

@robh2



> So what I tried next was wood. I used a piece that was 3/4 inch  thick  and nice and smooth. That worked well and since I have autoleveling set  up it went smoothly. That actually worked the best. I'm have enough 618  for one more print so I'm trying to use it up. I've switched to Bridge  Nylon and it's much more friendly.


wood is what I understood taulman recommend - at leats they did last time I went through the 618 specs (got a pound, haven't tried it yet). 
So are you using a flashforge - and if so how did you set the autolevelling thing up ? 
Very interested in that.

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## Roxy

> @robh2
> 
> So are you using a flashforge - and if so how did you set the autolevelling thing up ? 
> Very interested in that.


I'm curious too.   Can you take some detailed pictures?

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## RobH2

My pound of 618 was primarily used up proving that it is nearly impossible to print large items with 618. I did figure out what Jeff has learned, that if you put something around the corners they might stay down better. I used quarter sized thin (2mm tall) cylinders. That's what held so well with PVA that I cracked my glass. 

So next I tried wood. I've attached a photo of that. IT had different tabs. I called them "X-Tabs" when I labeled my 3d files. Since (with all the fantastic help from Roxy) I had autolevel working pretty well, I just put the wood on, ran autolevel and printed. It stuck. It was my first successful print. The other photo shows the warp I was fighting. 

That stain you see on the wood was another attempt to salvage a print. It started to lift so I put some superglue under the lift and held it down, hoping to reattach it. That didn't work. Nylon, as I suspected, won't stick to superglue. But wood and fingers sure do. I had to use an xacto blade to get my finger off of the wood. That was kind of hilarious as the print continued to run. I wish I had a video of that.

Nylon618Success.jpg NylonWarp.jpg

Edit:  Oh yea, 'curious aardvark', I have a Makerfarm Prusa i3 8" printer. I think it's in my signature. Once you get it going autolevel is fantastic. Right Roxy?

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## Roxy

> I'm curious too.   Can you take some detailed pictures?





> Edit:  Oh yea, 'curious aardvark', I have a Makerfarm Prusa i3 8" printer. I think it's in my signature. Once you get it going autolevel is fantastic. Right Roxy?


Yes, Auto Bed Leveling solved a world of problems for me.  And made it much easier to print things!   But I wanted to see detailed pictures of how your servo is attached and how the probe leg is shaped.

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## RobH2

> Yes, Auto Bed Leveling solved a world of problems for me.  And made it much easier to print things!   But I wanted to see detailed pictures of how your servo is attached and how the probe leg is shaped.


Oh, misunderstood. Here are a few photos. The white stuff you see is Sugru. I used it to keep the wires from flexing and breaking off. Nothing worse than losing power on that servo and getting a head crash. It's not pretty but it works well. The piece of copper wire you see sticking out helps torque the sensor over so it's more parallel with the bed. The side of my hotend carriage is a bit angled and I needed to compensate for that. I know it looks jury rigged, but, it works well. 

AL01.jpg AL02.jpg AL03.jpg AL04.jpg AL05.jpg

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## Geoff

It's amazing how much climate will affect things, I literally have no chamber, have no auto level on this thing, and yes sure ive repaired and rebuilt and recalibrated it more times than I can remember, it will print raftless on the kapton and stick there forever, nylon or ABS..  

man that sucks about the glass cracking...

I am printing off my Prusa parts, so far so good and yeah after replacing a mainboard and drivers my flashforge is ready for one more haul to make its replacement  :Smile: 
lolz.JPG

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## curious aardvark

I was throwing out the trash last night. And came across the frames the glass came in - hardboard backing, so basically a sort of wood. 

Think I'll cut a piece to size and see what the nylon thinks and maybe the laywood as well. 

Though, I think it'll have to be the weekend as I'm busy at work - you know, life really gets in the way of my 3dprinting !

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## Roxy

> I am printing off my Prusa parts, so far so good and yeah after replacing a mainboard and drivers my flashforge is ready for one more haul to make its replacement 
> Attachment 2119


Shouldn't there be two nuts on each side of the bearing so you can lock them in place and they don't move?

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## American 3D Printing

> maybe the laywood as well.


We have had success printing Laywoo-D3 directly onto the glass bed covered in PE tape on our TAZ. The bed stays at room ambient - no heat. One thing we did discover is that it prints at a fairly low temperature, like 155-175°C.

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## Geoff

> Shouldn't there be two nuts on each side of the bearing so you can lock them in place and they don't move?


Nope, not on the prusa "instructions" I got lol....  

I will have some spares, so when I start printing and see where it's falling over and probably add some. Im just glad i could get my FF working for one more round!

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## Roxy

> Nope, not on the prusa "instructions" I got lol....  
> 
> I will have some spares, so when I start printing and see where it's falling over and probably add some. Im just glad i could get my FF working for one more round!


Well...  OK, but I can tell you I would put an extra nut on each side and lock both pairs down hard.   I don't care if they don't like it!   The whole purpose they are there is to make sure the bearing (which is also the pulley???) doesn't move.   I'm going to spend the extra $.18 and lock the position down hard.   (And I can still move it later if I decide to. )  {But I also know your printers are better than mine...  So I won't lecture you!}

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## Geoff

> Well...  OK, but I can tell you I would put an extra nut on each side and lock both pairs down hard.   I don't care if they don't like it!   The whole purpose they are there is to make sure the bearing (which is also the pulley???) doesn't move.   I'm going to spend the extra $.18 and lock the position down hard.   (And I can still move it later if I decide to. )  {But I also know your printers are better than mine...  So I won't lecture you!}


The 2 nuts are counter screwed, so they cancel each other out and have a spring washer inside, so they hold extremely tight and don't budge without some serious effort, but we'll see how it goes printing, so far so good no movement. 
I ended up with a billion nuts and screws so can fix if need be, but have also seen better ones on thingiverse (printed Y idlers) and they look much better. 

I think that's what I love about this design, sooo many printable parts, so many upgrades... I'm having a blast adding stuff to it now! My aluminum frame was done, but since I cheaped out and got it done at 4mm it flexes  :Frown:  so getting a new one done at 6mm! solid! my brother in law has pneumonia too so no mig welding for a bit or cutting, so for now using the perspex clear frame that came with it (its one of those aurora z605 clones.. and not even that, a clone of a clone...) 

It came with a Melzi mini reprap board, which is crap (doesn't support LCD ) but was good for a quick component test and make sure was all ok before I cleaned up the wiring, so now the ramps will replace it with the nice cheap and nasty sainsmart LCD controller I got. 

I can't believe how cheap this stuff is now...  you can get an entire ramps kit with LCD for under $100 now... and ive seen some that come with an MK2a hotbed or mk2b for about $120 all up..

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