3D Printing with Nylon Trimmer Line

Trimmer line is less than half the price of ABS or PLA, and it is more flexible and strong. It can be printed with an unmodified printrbot fairly easily. However, some people have commented that Nylon emits small amounts of toxic fumes when melted. These fumes cause symptoms like headaches, feeling lightheaded, and a sore throat. Please make sure you have a fan going and a window open near the machine, and you will be fine. The steps for printing with trimmer line are:

1. Get 0.105 in trimmer line. Make sure it is Nylon. I got mine on amazon here:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001BKZT1/ref=pe_175190_21431760_M2T1_SC_dp_1

2. Dry the filament by putting it in an oven at 300 F for 3-4 hours. Don't dry all of it at once especially if you live in a humid climate. I dry enough to last a week. If you do not dry it, the extruded material will get all foamy and make your parts very bad looking. This is due to the evaporating steam.

3. Put the dried filament in a ziplock bag, and put some dessicant with it to keep it dry. I used some "closet dessicant" I got from Walmart, with the ziplocks that have a slide thing.

4. Feed the filament out of the bag and into your extruder.

5. As seen in the video, make a bunch of little clamps to go around the outside of your bed. I just used some pieces of wood with holes in them and some small bolts that go through the table. You could also print something that would probably work better.

6. Cut a piece of cardboard to size, so that it fits under all of the clamps. Slide the cardboard in and screw the clamps down.

7. Go to http://forums.reprap.org/read.php?1,70471,page=3 for the slic3r settings. You will need to get your heated bed up to 120 C and your nozzle up to 245 C.

8. Calibrate the height you want to print at. The closer to the cardboard you are printing, the more adhesion, but the more cardboard you will need to get off of the bottom when the print is done. On the other hand, if you don't care what the parts look like, it doesn't matter.

9. Start printing
10. Optional: Use a dremel tool with a fine wire brush attachment to take off the cardboard stuck to the bottom. The wire brush should take off the cardboard quite easily, but not damage the Nylon.

More information can be found at: http://reprap.org/wiki/Polyamide

and at: http://forums.reprap.org/read.php?1,70471

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http://www.printrbottalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=74&t=1339

Re: Sucessfully printing with weed trimmer line

Post Number:#8 Postby galaxyman7 » 27 Aug 2012 10:10
@marmil
yeah the steam that comes out of the nozzle from the moisture in the filament must carry some of the dye with it and it makes my extruder pink...

@eddiema
well I print on cardboard because it is stiff, so it can't warp with the nylon parts, and because the nylon sticks like glue to it. I printed on blue tape before, but that kept peeling due to the high bed temp requirements, and making the parts warp. The nylon did stick very well to it though. Printing small gears shouldn't have a problem printing on blue tape since there is much less warp.

@mooselake
haha that is actually my post.

@CL1
not sure what specific type it is. All I know is i bought some other weed trimmer line that was translucent from ACE hardware, and that printed the same.

Anyways, on another note, I have just recently had a problem with my extruder temperature readings. When not connected to anything my board thinks that the hotend is at 157 C. Using a multimeter, I measured the resistance across R9 and R10, which are the pull-up resistors for the two thermistors. They each give different readings, and I am pretty sure they are supposed to be the same. I did write a post in the troubleshooting section, but it keeps removing the post for some reason. I am going to try taking the resistors off and measuring them to make sure they are not burnt.