I have up to around $2000 to buy a 3D printer. My senior design project next year is going to require me to be able to print using Nylon. My understanding is that Nylon requires a very hot extrusion temperature in order to print nicely. I would like to avoid the NDSU library’s ridiculously expensive fees for 3D printing, so I’m in the market to buy my own printer.
Has anybody had experience printing with Nylon?
Does anybody have any recommendations for a 3D printer within or below my budget?
We used an Ultimaker 3 ($3500 - out of your budget) for printing Nylon this year and used it to print one of 95’s ninja tensioners. Worked great. I think the Ultimaker 2 can also print it, but that’s $2500.
In case you’re wondering, I believe we used a 2mm wall with a 65% infill, and the tensioner was used for our climber, so there was quite a bit of load on it.
Though I don’t personally have any experience with it, my Robo3D R1+ (~$700) is capable of printing nylon and works quite well generally. The hot end can go all the way up to 290c which is enough for basically any material short of some high-temp variants of polycarbonate, most other printers max out below 250c which is just under the requirements for Nylon.
Though I haven’t printed with nylon, I have used variations of Ninjaflex materials which have similar printing characteristics. All worked find except for the most flexible which had issues feeding (though this wouldn’t be a problem with Nylon which is less flexible).
The Prusa i3 Mk2 is honestly a pretty incredible printer for the price, and easily one of the best printers below $1000. If you want something a bit less DIY and easier to use, the Lulzbot Mini at $1250 is a great choice.
Nylon is one of my favorite materials to print!!! It is indestructible!!!
The main key to printing nylon is the hotend… no matter what printer you are using. I know through first hand experience that the e3d (http://e3d-online.com/) is well suited for the task. I usually run mine at 245 degrees Celsius, but it can easily approach 300, which is more than enough to print nylon. You can probably build an excellent printer and slap an e3d on it for much less than $1000.
The other key to nylon is the bed, as nylon loves to warp like this:
It can easily end up worse than that picture and come off the bed if you aren’t careful. There are 3 ways to combat this:
An enclosed printer should help too but I have no experience with this. You can make an enclosure for cheap with polycarb or something.
Good luck!!!
I recommend the Prusa i3 line, like many many others do. I have the original one, and I print alot of the stuff for our team, and its great. I got the kit ($599), and after its built, theres near to no issues. With the MKII, out thats the best option from their products, its got an amazing heated bed, E3D extruder, solid frame, and lots of online support if you ever have any issues. Just keep in mind that shipping from Czech Republic will be about 80$, and import duties were around $100 aswell. Still way under your limit, and a great printer!
I know my team used this this year to make some very nice strong printed parts I don’t know the price range of the printers but a very nice printer hope this helps.
According to that page, it’s just a tad out of his price range. $13,499
We just bought a Prusa i3 MK2 as a kit, and it is excellent. Fit and finish is remarkable for the price, and even more so considering it has so many 3D printed parts. Same goes for print quality. Components are generally of highest quality as opposed to “alternative i3 sources.” I was much more interested in having something that worked out of the box instead of piece-mealing together a ‘complete kit’, and I’m very satisfied with the extra $$ spent on the original Prusa.
It took about 7 hours to fully assemble and get tweaked so that everything started out square. It takes less than 30s to head the hotend up to 250C, and there are options to take it hotter and upgrades to handle more abrasive materials (currently waiting for carbon infused filament and a steel nozzle). If I purchase another, which I might, I would probably kick in another $200 for them to assemble it. As someone mentioned previously, shipping is ~$80 and import duty may be required, as well.
As a side note, I bought the multi-material kit, which hasn’t shipped, yet, but I’m pretty excited to get this working!
-Justin
I have used the MakerGear M2 to print Nylon and CF-Nylon before. As mentioned before a lot it comes down to a good hotend and bed. The MakerGear M2 can be bought as a kit for $1,550 here: https://www.makergear.com/products/m2-kit
The Markforge Onyx One (only prints nylon, doesn’t do a fiber inlay) is 3499. I’d highly recommend it if you can expand your budget a little. Otherwise the Prusa research Prusa i3 MK2 (I’d strongly recommend against buying any other prusa i3 variant besides this one)