So, I have been using and enjoying the Fiberon line from Polymaker recently. Usually sticking with the PA6-CF15, but I played around with the ASA last year. Issue was that it was almost constantly sold out.
Good luck for me, at a recent trip to Microcenter, I saw that they are now selling Fiberon products under the Inland name. Only change was the box, the spool inside was the exact same.
And they had it on sale for $15 dollars for 500g, down from its normal $20. I ended up buying 6 spools of it.
It may be a little weaker than the PA6, but it prints easier while still being more than strong enough for my use case. More importantly, it seems to hold onto the fiber much better so it does not come off on your hands while using it.
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Nice! I have a product I make out of the Bambu Lab ASA-CF, but hasn’t been in stock for months and am getting low. I am currently looking for an alternative source and the Fiberon is at the top of the list.
I have not tried any other brands other than BL and I like the way it sticks to the PEI textured plate without glue and don’t want to sacrifice that.
Have you had any issues running it through the AMS or any other issues that I could be aware of before I pull the trigger on the Fiberon?
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It runs great through the AMS. Although keep in mind that it is more abrasive than the Bambu ASA-CF.
They say not to use CF in the AMS, but the only difference is the amount of maintenance you are going to be doing. And I really dont mind replacing PTFE tubes more often.
Fiberon has always been great. They make some high quality products. (Plus they produce it in 3kg spools). The biggest issue is the stock. Not as bad as Bambu, but there is a 50 percent chance that they do not have it when I am looking for it. Thats why I was excited when I saw that Microcenter was selling it now.
I have run 3 spools of it since I made that post and my only complaint is how much residue it is leaving in the extruder and nozzle. Switching back over to PLA and PETG, I had to do 5 cold pulls to get it all out.
Thanks for the input! Yeah, I have had to replace some ptfe tubes after running the cf materials and don’t have a problem doing that.
I use a .6 Tungsten Carbide nozzle when printing cf materials and switch back to .4 for all the other stuff.
I haven’t had to do any cleaning on the extruder yet, but will keep an eye on that, Thanks!
Yeah. I am probably exaggerating that part of it a little too much. I did a print with orange PLA basic afterwards and it was speckled throughout the entire thing.
It seems to hold the fibers better once it is printed, but sheds more of them as it is just filament. Which is weird because thats pretty much the opposite from what I have seen with the pa6-cf
I did do an ASA-CF once with a .4 hardened steel nozzle. I was too lazy to change to a .6 tungsten and when I printed something else with the .4, it got destroyed. I probably could have done a pull or cleaning, but the .4 hardened are cheap enough and I keep plenty in stock, so I just trashed it and moved on.
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I ordered a spool of it from Amazon for $20 last month to make some light-duty structural parts. (Brackets to mount cargo boxes to my kids’ bike racks.) I’m super pleased with it. Not only are the parts strong, but this is the charcoal gray color I’ve been looking for. Gorgeous.
I did find the filament very brittle and prone to breaking, though more aggressive drying helped a lot. I hung it on an external spool holder and fed it into the rear PTFS inlet tube on my P1S. No problems printing and it didn’t seem to leave debris behind in extruder. I only printed ~200g overall so maybe it’s more of an issue if you use a lot of it?
Thanks for the Microcenter tip, I’ll definitely grab some of their store brand version next time I’m nearby!
I found that once it was loaded and dried the brittleness was not too bad in comparison to others. I dont mind a little bit of brittleness as long as it works in the AMS.
I found that a lot of it was in the PTFE tubes.
I over exaggerated that issue. I was more annoyed at the time.
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