Cracked the code on this filament!

After days of frustration, after frustration, and compounding errors… it seems I nailed the right settings for this CarbonX filament. To the point that this print is one of the highest quality prints I’ve ever done in any material. It’s truly hard to even see layers in the print (the matte finish of this filament masks that a bit) It looks like it was molded!

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I am very happy with how this printed, so much I turned around and started printing the second one without delay. With these done I can start the process of building the X Gantry.

It’s a small update, but a significant one as stuff worked perfectly. It does take 7 hours to print one of these, the longest print of anything on the printer.

Notable settings in Simplify3D to get here:

• Print Speed: 50mm/sec, Movement speed 120mm/sec
• Temperature: 260C
• Layer Height: .2
• Nozzle: .4 printing at an extrusion width of .42
• Extrusion multiplier 95%
• Print order: Outside-In
• Retraction: .5mm
• Infill – 25% (In retrospect, I should have done it at 40 or 50% given the stresses this part will be under, but it should work fine, if needed I will print another set on the new printer, or if I end up with extra time on my current one)

This is all printing with a genuine e3d Titan Aero (w/ precision heat cartridge, Hardened Hob, titanium heat break, and with a NozzleX. The models were sliced with Simplify3D.

I did set s3d to tell me the accurate cost of the filament I am printing. These Y Carriers ring in at $6 in filament per print. Also the most expensive items on the printer for print material.

Update:
I did experience another jammed nozzle last night after printing a bunch. (4 big parts in printing with the above settings, almost half a role of filament used without issue.) The jam started small it seems, but was a bugger to clear. I am now printing with 0 retraction, faster movement speeds (130mm/sec), an additional coasting buffer added in (.75mm), and have S3D setup to not move outside of the outline if it can help it to avoid any blobs on most of the body. For a lot of some of these parts it will still generate some blobs, but they should be easy to clean.

Retraction sounds like the achilles heal of carbon fiber or fiber loaded filament. Moving it to .5mm helped a lot, but I want to not waste any more filament if I can help it so I just turned retraction off. Alternatively you could just reduce the number of retractions in settings in your slicer.

Overall with the retractions turned off the print quality looks to be the same as it was before for the most part.