Alternate filaments to use?

I’ve read that PLA is recommended, but has anyone used any other type of filament to print the parts? I have a lot of pure nylon filament I’d like to use for this rather than buy PLA… of course, I’d also like to not waste tons of time printing parts that I’ll need to reprint later though :stuck_out_tongue:

Any help would be appreciated.

Some of us have use PETG. Not sure if anyone has used nylon yet. Might be too flexible, not sure.

I think you’ll find Nylon too flexible for this application - although if I’d used it for my corner pieces, I likely wouldn’t have cracked my first set by over tightening.
See attached pics for a comparison - the blue test cube is nylon (https://www.amazon.com/Maxpower-333665-Residential-065-Inch-1800-Foot/dp/B003VPAEL6#Ask), and the natural color cube is flexible TPU. Although nylon might work w/100% infill, it’s a challenging material to print well - worthy of it’s own thread on the MP3DP forum.

  • Al

Hmm, didn’t think it’d be quite so flexible. I wonder if slightly higher infill or more shells would help with that.

Does petg work well? My other concern with pla is that the mpcnc is going to be kept in the garage. If it gets hot enough, it might start warping just from getting too hot in the room

My petg is 3 or 4 shells, can’t remember off the top of my head at 50% infill. I’ve not had any issues with it so far. One of the guys on the other 3d printer forum I hang out at uses nylon trimmer line to make electric longboard motor to wheel gears. Seems to work really well, at the time of his post a year or so ago, he’d printed about 20 pounds of the stuff. Not sure what the infill was though, but I’ve read several places any more than 60% is a waste of filament and time.

Yeah, Nylon’s a great choice for gears - very tough and has a natural lubricity. I haven’t used them, but I’m pretty sure the nylon Wade’s gears I printed as a test would work fine. I can bend the large gear but, in it’s intended application, no force is applied in that direction and it’s very stiff in the engagement direction. Don’t recall the infill, but I’m sure it wasn’t more than 75%. Suitability really depends on part geometry and application. Nylon is a PITA to get/keep dry, warping is an issue, it prints at temps (240-250C) that are problematic for PTFE lined extruders, and it’s way more difficult to get dialed in than PLA. That being said, it cracks me up that I can print with inexpensive weed whacker line and get all the benefits of a material like nylon. However, for this application, I’d be reluctant to commit 100+ print hours to a fiddly-to-print material when PLA is so easy to print and proven to work well for our MPCNCs. Just one man’s opinion.

  • Al

You could probably do the motor mounts in nylon, since you have to print at higher temps, you don’t have to worry about motor heat as much. I have an E3d hot end, so I actually have issues printing in pla sometimes. 99.9% of the time I print in petg.

I printed most of my parts in PETG and a few in PLA/ABS. Here is my experience with all 3

ABS: works great at first but I saw layer separation over time. This might not have happened if I printed hotter and/or acetone bathed the parts. you also have to scale it up a little bit but be careful here since not all scaling up happens in the same way.

PLA works good for parts that need to be rigid but not clamped down. Not good for parts like the pineapple couple or corners which need to be clamped down. They can easily crack.

PETG: most of my machine is in PETG. PETG has been the most durable over time. It is not as rigid as PLA or ABS though. I am not sure if that really makes a difference for this design but it is something to keep in mind.

I think that Vicious would be the best one to ask about whether the slight loss in rigidity with PETG makes a difference.

PLA+. it performs more like ABS for strength and flexibility but prints dimensionally accurate like PLA. Has to be printed a little hotter than normal PLA.

how does PLA + compare to PETG? I have done a lot of PETG printing but never touched PLA +.

Never tried PETG so not sure how it compares to PLA+. It doesn’t crack the way PLA does. I can crank down the leg grips and the plastic flexes but does not break and grips the legs really well. When doing this with normal PLA it usually just cracks.

A negative about PLA+ is its really stringy, at least on my 3D printer.