Know Your Materials: Nylon 12CF

By TriMech on

FDM Nylon 12CF is a chopped carbon fiber-filled polyamide 12 material that is available for 3D printing on compatible Stratasys Fortus production systems. The material is 35% carbon-fiber by weight and has a high strength-to-weight ratio with a tensile strength on par with high-performance FDM material.
 

 

Due to the unique directional orientation of carbon fibers, Nylon 12CF exhibits physical properties that can be adapted closely to a composite laminate, enabling parts to have a higher in-elasticity than injection molded parts of the same material. It allows for distinct freedom of design that is not present in traditional thermoplastics or additive manufacturing.

 

Printing Technology: FDM

Stratasys 3D printers Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) Technology use production-grade thermoplastics to create parts that are designed to be accurate, easily replicated, and stable over time. FDM Thermoplastics offers many familiar materials included ABS, PC and high-performance ULTEM 1010 and ULTEM 9085 to use for 3D printing concept models, prototypes, tools, and end-use parts.

FDM technology works with engineering-grade thermoplastics to build strong, long-lasting and dimensionally stable parts with the best accuracy and repeatability of any 3D printing technology. FDM machines make parts with the most commonly used thermoplastics, such as ABS, polycarbonate, a variety of blends, as well as engineered thermoplastics for aerospace, medical, automotive, electronic and other specialty applications.

Helpful Tips and Tricks To Remember

As with any 3D printing material, there are some important things to note when printing with Nylon 12CF that will help you get the most out of the material:

  • Pre-Processing: Proper configuration of the modeler and modification of build parameters can dramatically impact the mechanical properties and build quality, in addition to standard STL processing procedures.
  • Machine Preparation and Printing: The correct placement and orientation of the part on the build platen and machine maintenance considerations are critical to success when packing parts for a job using Control Center software.
  • Post-Processing: To improve user experience and quality of the resulting parts, it is important to correctly remove a part from the build chamber and follow the proper support removal technique.

>> Read the complete Material Guide from Stratasys 

Learn more about Nylon 12CF

This article is just meant as an introduction to this material. For additional details and specifics about all that it can do, take a look at some of our related content:

Want to learn more about which Stratasys 3D printing material is right for your application? Download our 3D Printer Material Guide below.

Thermoplastics: The Strongest Choice for 3D Printing