Printing in Nylon with Prusa i3

So after reading about how difficult it is to print in Nylon, I got intrigued enough to try out printing Nylon with Prusa i3. It needs a lot of patience and perseverance to make it work.

First order of the day is to procure a roll of Nylon filament. Apparently Nylon- or more formally called Polyamide– is only available in black. I got mine from retailer 3D Aura.

The first time you handle Nylon, you would immediately feel that it is softer/ more flexible than PLA. I decided to print something small as a start.

First Try

Started printing with Prusa i3. The Nylon just will not stick. However, I did not put glue or any sort of adhesives.

Printed with Prusa i3. It just would not stick.

So I tried with Ender 3 and surprisingly, it managed to complete the print. The Nylon manage to stick throughout the print time. Admittedly, it is just a small print- but it fares a lot better than i3.

Stepping up

Next is to print something that’s a lot bigger and complicated for real-life use: a replacement gear.

Ender 3 won’t cut it as the print cannot stay on the bed long enough for the task to complete. So I have finally decided to apply glue on print bed and to first try on Prusa i3 as the print bed is easily detachable and cleaned.

Applying Glue on Prusa i3 Print Bed

Surprisingly, it succeeded at the first try after applying glue on the print bed. In fact, the model sticks too well and I had great difficulties taking out the prints from the print bed. So much so it left behind a gigantic ‘scar’ on the print bed. All in all, the experience printing Nylon with Prusa i3 is a better experience than printing TPU with Prusa i3.

I used Cura to slice and the important settings to take note:

Printing temperature: depend on your particular filament- but will be higher than PLA. In my case, i use 250 deg C.
Print bed temperature: to be set higher to ensure adhesion (even after applying glue). In this case, after a few trial and error, I settled on 105 deg.
Cooling: to be disabled
Print Speed: Same as PLA.

After a few trial and errors, here are the settings that I use to successfully print the rest of gear parts in Nylon with Prusa i3.