What are your use cases for PLA-CF? On paper it’s no better than Tough PLA but a bit more expensive, is it just for looks/texture?
Just about all CF infused filaments should be a little stiffer, but ultimately weaker. When you add a contaminate to the filament you are making it weaker in some measurements. The structure of a filament is about how well the plastic bond to itself. PLA on PLA is a stronger bond than the CF infused PLA, so there is a gain and a loss at the same time in most case (if not always).
Also CF infusion helps to create a more stable geometry as well, so its less likely to warp, but obviously not un-warpable.
Aha, right, I missed the YM parts on the datasheets when comparing. Thx
There is no one answer to this. CF does a lot of different things to different base materials.
CF additions sometimes improve overall strength (depends a lot on the filament and how much CF is in there).
The fibers in some filaments sometimes improve layer bonding because the fibers stick out in all direction s and can therefore stick out in z direction and then sticks into the layer above or below - similar to what the textured pei plates do.
However this can also be the exact opposite, when the fibers orient themselves in x/y direction - this highly depends on the base material.
Generally the material becomes stiffer and can hold up more gradual stress. But when something becomes stiffer, it usually gets more brittle, which means lower impact resistance. GF instead of CF does the opposite in most cases - material becomes less stiff and more impact resistant.
Oftentimes heat resistance is raised a little bit - sometimes even by a lot.
In PLA-CF this usually is just a few degrees. But the already stiff and brittle PLA becomes even stiffer.
One use case that I see is when you 3d print frame pieces for a CNC router for example (but not for motor mounts). Or some bracket that is supposed to hold weight. This will only work well for an area that is not exposed outside conditions (water, sun, wind) or heat, when PLA-CF is used.
One benefit is the printability, bridging and overhangs. You can print parts with large bridges or big overhangs with less support than what you would do with normal PLA.
And the surface finish usually looks very nice for most CF filaments.
You might want to look at the filament guide from Bambu Lab. There they actually have a table that compares those different stats. Also the TDS pdfs might be of interest (TDS = technical data sheet).
Looking at the datasheets and not spotting the differences in YM is what led me to write this post 
Next time will look more carefully
Alright, I see. Here is the link to the filament guide: Choose the right filament - 3D Filaments Guide for Bambu Lab Printers
Just tick the boxes and you can compare up to four filaments against each other.
Here’s a 40x pic of Bambu PLA-CF I just took, in case anyone is curious. Those are 0.2mm layers, pic from the side.
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Looks.
You can’t see layer lines even with larger nozzles.
I just love the way it looks when it prints. I’m building my dog a 3d printed house and CFpla just looks good.
I doubt my dog cares, I mean, he’s getting windows (,clear PEtG) CFpla walls, and I’m tossing in lighting and a speaker for his favorite music. He likes to sit next to the speakers when I’m listening to Starstreams… So I thought maybe a small BT speaker mounted in his house would be cool.
Anyway, just need that stuff to come back in stock
Awesome!
If it was a cat, it would definitely care though.
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