Please share your Nylon (PA) wisdom!

I have a couple of X1 Carbons. I usually don’t have any problems with Nylon as long as the things being printed aren’t too big. It seems around 1.5 to 2 inches (38-50 mm) in height and above the print tends to shrink while the the print below remains the same. I think it has something to do with the bed keeping the lower parts warm enough to cool slowly while the upper parts are cooling faster without that added heat. When I have the same parts printed on my son’s H2D printer, which has a heated chamber, the prints come out just fine. In both cases, the standard Bambu PEI textured build plate that came with the printers was used. Obviously, Nylon prints better in a heated chamber.

Yeah, I was responding to the poster in his terms. I think we got the point across.

All my filament is stored in airtight boxes, and I ran it at 155 for 12 hours then another 12 in the AMS which admittedly is still a little low for what nylon wants. I was hoping the extended dry time would make up for that list 15°. Maybe not.

Thanks! I’ll integrate that knowledge into my next steps!

Air tight boxes are only good for maybe a week or two with PA then they have to go back in the dryer. 68°C is too low for nylon and will not properly dry it. My advice would be to invest in a filament dryer that can reach 85°.

Garolite for the build surface and purple Glue stick always works for me. And if your part is large and flat and you’re printing with a lot of infill it’s going to be tough. For that I use liquid purple gule watered down a bit and let it dry before printing. It will be difficult to get it off the build plate but let it cool then stick the whole build plate with part in the freezer for an hour or so and it will pop off. Been printing nylons for 10+ years.

Great guidance! Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I’ll add that knowledge to my ongoing testing process.

I tried Spectrum Nylon PA6 Low Warp 1,75 mm Black on my H2D but the first attempt was fail. Adhesion was OK (thanks to Magigoo PA) but even the first layer didn’t finish - the filament extrusion from the nozzle stopped (like the nozzle got clogged). I used Generic PA setup. It seems the pure PA6 is too much slippery for extruder feeder. Maybe I made a mistake - I hadn’t dried the filament enough (but I used freshly opened spool!). Any advices or suggestions are welcome.

Except PLA, I expect every freshly opened spool of filament to contain moisture. I weigh each spool and dry it until weight loss is less than one gram/hour.