Carbon Fiber Filament
Hello,
I am looking at getting into the carbon fiber world. I have some collection valves I would like to make and I thought this filament would be much stronger than just regular PLA and print faster since in my mind I would not need to fill it as much as PLA. Does anyone have any good suggestions I should consider in doing this and do you think this is a good direction to go? The valves I would be making are around 6" in diameter and with normal PLA they would print in about 14-18 hours. Some of the valve I would fill 100% but most of it would be in the 34-40% range thus I was hoping fiber would decrease this time if possible? Am I missing something?
RE: Carbon Fiber Filament
So, this is my experience with carbon fiber. We use it on certain parts that will see certain service on our prosthetics. Understand that this is nothing like continuous strand carbon fiber which I've worked with in the marine field. It has up sides and down sides.
We found that there are different qualities from different companies first off. Cheap is definitely cheap and not much good. The parts are noticeably stiffer. They have higher abrasion resistance. They have a little higher heat tolerance. They are, however, more brittle if they are subjected to flexing in service. The parts are slightly lighter. They have been printing great quality cosmetically.
Now the fun part. Any filament with carbon fiber inhales moisture. You need a dryer. You usually need to run a full drying cycle before printing. On longer prints (for me anything over 6 hours) I feed directly from a dryer running while printing. Even if stored well I dry it again before use. I am in the tropics and a humid environment but this stuff takes up a lot of moisture. It will print while wet but you degrade layer bonds and that just defeats any of the benefits you were trying to gain. You will still need good infill and good shell thickness, remember you have a more brittle material so we try to limit flexing.
For best results we run at or near the top of the manufacturers temps. We use PETG CF and PC CF. Good luck!!!