Printing small gears with nylon
Hi All,
I’m designing a gearbox with small gears. The motor is running around 30K RPM, everything works well but PLA is very noisy. I’m reading good thing about nylon and hopefully with nylon I’ll be able to reduce friction. So far I only printed with PLA and PETG, I have no experience with nylon.
Which nylon filament would you guys recommend which is suitable to print tiny parts with a .25mm nozzle?
I’m considering purchasing a spool of Taulman’s brigde-nylon but I’m curious what more experienced users think about printing small mechanical parts with nylon.
I’m also building a case, I’m not sure I’ll need it for nylon but I wanted some kind of cover against dust anyways.
Thanks,
James
RE: Printing small gears with nylon
I've printed a fair bit with Kodak (yes, the camera folks) branded Nylon 6. It's not that much harder to print that PLA or PETG. You will need an absolutely clean print surface, or some sort of adhesive/release agent. I used Magigoo and found to to work well. The biggest thing to know about Nylon is that it absorbs water like a sponge. You will have to dry your filament if you don't want the extruder jaming up on you continuously. I'm in Texas during humid periods, I could get about a day's worth of printing before having to re-dry the spool. That was in open air, I've since enclosed my filament. It will print fine with a 0.25mm nozzle, though it will be more sensitive to problems, just like any other filament in a smaller nozzle.
I don't have a recommendation for manufacturer though.