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High-Modulus Carbon Fiber PETG 3D Printing Filament

Discussion in 'Printing Filament' started by mark tomlinson, May 27, 2015.

  1. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    #1 mark tomlinson, May 27, 2015
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  2. Stephen Capistron

    Stephen Capistron Active Member

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    I'd really wait on test data for anything like this. Until then it is a novelty.
     
    #2 Stephen Capistron, May 27, 2015
  3. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    The CF PLA is quite good.
    No clue on this, yet. :)
     
    #3 mark tomlinson, May 27, 2015
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  4. Island Bill

    Island Bill Active Member

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    After months of admiring CF PLA's print qualities I have come to the conclusion that for structural parts, it just doesn't cut it. I've been through something like 10 rolls (not sure exactly, but that number if anything is conservative) prototyping our new drone. My experience with the CF is that it breaks. It looks good, and once you get the feed issues worked out it prints beautifully, but my latest prototype octocopter uses all PHA-PLA and I haven't suffered a breakage in any of these parts.

    Why is this important? Because the implied advantage of CF reinforcement is strength. I'm here to tell you folks, if you plan on printing a structural part CF is not your best bet. But it is lovely stuff to work with when it comes to extruding and behaving nicely ;) .
     
    #4 Island Bill, Jun 3, 2015
  5. Stephen Capistron

    Stephen Capistron Active Member

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    #5 Stephen Capistron, Jun 3, 2015
  6. Printed Solid

    Printed Solid Volunteer Admin
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    CF PET has been around for a bit now. https://www.printedsolid.com/shop/175-3/colorfabb-xt-cf20-carbon-fiber-xt/
    For those of you that haven't had a chance to try it: Similar to CFPLA, you get a boost in stiffness over the normally fairly flexible PET material. The reduction in toughness is lower than CFPLA. This is handy for a lot of applications and we definitely have some customers that swear by it. It definitely does wear the nozzle though. 3D Xtech and colorfabb both load quite a high amount of CF where protopasta (with the CFPLA) doesn't load quite as much so the wear isn't quite as high. We stock stainless nozzles that are compatible with the hexagon and e3d, but even those will eventually wear. I imagine that the PET 3DXTech uses will be slightly different than XT so it will have slightly different properties.

    Some points responding to some of your comments. There's a lot of misinformation out there.

    1) protopasta was the first company to launch a chopped PLA filled filament. they were also one of the first I'm aware of to provide nice testing results along with this. The statements in their kickstarter, on their website, and in the testing data are very straightforward. The point of the addition of the CF was to increase stiffness. It does NOT increase strength. It decreases static strength a tiny bit and significantly reduces impact strength. here's the data sheet for CFPLA http://www.printedsolid.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Carbon-Fiber-PLA.pdf People see carbon fiber and tend to think stronger. Sometimes they also think conductive (nope, this filament is not conductive), but I feel like the manufacturer has gone to pretty reasonable lengths to communicate the real properties.
    I agree, the clean printing and pretty surface is a nice side benefit.

    2) following along with the datasheet above. PLA is absolutely not the weakest of filaments. It's stronger than most, and a heck of a lot stronger than ABS. However, impact resistance is not as good as other materials, and that low heat deflection temp can be a killer for many applications which perhaps is where some of that impression of weakness comes from. Some PLA is better than others in this respect. The PLA-PHA has improved ductility and elongation to break, which is probably why Bill is having good success in his application.
     
    #6 Printed Solid, Jun 3, 2015
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  7. Island Bill

    Island Bill Active Member

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    Well, I appreciate the link but the idea with these frames is that they don't break in the first place. PHA-PLA is very definitely stronger than CF PLA -- I've got a boxful of sheared and snapped carbon fiber parts to prove it.
     
    #7 Island Bill, Jun 3, 2015
  8. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    For quads we have had better luck with Nylon (or alloy 910 recently--that stuff is sturdy).
    The CF derivatives can be made sturdier by careful CAD work and printing, but you are correct it will never quite be real formed CF strength. Given the cost difference it was more effective to use other materials (the CF variants are not cheap).

    The CF PETG I have not tried yet...
     
    #8 mark tomlinson, Jun 3, 2015
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  9. Island Bill

    Island Bill Active Member

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    Very very 'yes' lol.

    Again, yup. When a drone lands, it lands with a sudden shock more often than not. With the design I have evolved to this point, the PHA-PLA I'm using (two brands - MatterHackers and ColorFabb) is able to withstand sudden drops from 15 feet impacting at any point on the frame with no significant damage. It must be due to the material's ability to flex a little without giving.
     
    #9 Island Bill, Jun 3, 2015
  10. Island Bill

    Island Bill Active Member

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    For a quad I'd use just about anything, they're so light. The drones I'm building however are commercial grade platforms with the heavy LIFT series of Avroto motors and at least 10 AMP battery packs. The whole thing (minus payload but including battery pack) weighs around 14lbs, so the impact is significantly more violent if they fall.

    EDIT: I forgot to mention these are octos
     
    #10 Island Bill, Jun 3, 2015
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  11. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    No, the biggest quad we have (roughly 3x4) is less than 10 pounds :)
    Also was printed mostly with nylon, the CF is really not a good fit for that application (although it is lighter than some of the other options).
     
    #11 mark tomlinson, Jun 3, 2015
  12. Island Bill

    Island Bill Active Member

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    You may be surprised at how well the PHA-PLA would work. Added bonus: lots of colors to choose from so you can really make it look bad ass! ;)
     

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    #12 Island Bill, Jun 3, 2015
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  13. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Thanks, I may give that a try on something smaller first and see.
     
    #13 mark tomlinson, Jun 4, 2015
  14. David Sparrow

    David Sparrow Member

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    Island Bill have you seen much of a strength difference in the PLA/PHA between the different colors? After reading your comments I ordered some to try in Silver and also ordered a sample pack for comparison.

    I have some XT-CF I can compare it to but really real world use is the best experience. After reading your post I wasn't clear if you had tried the PETG+CF combo like XT-CF?
     
    #14 David Sparrow, Jun 23, 2015
  15. Island Bill

    Island Bill Active Member

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    1) Nope.
    2) Nope.
     
    #15 Island Bill, Jun 23, 2015
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  16. Printed Solid

    Printed Solid Volunteer Admin
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    I like a direct answer!
     
    #16 Printed Solid, Jun 25, 2015
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  17. David Sparrow

    David Sparrow Member

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    Yes the answer was very helpful. Thanks Bill!!!
     
    #17 David Sparrow, Jun 29, 2015

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