R QIDI TECHNOLOGY PA12-CF Nylon Filament 1.75 Black, Carbon Fiber Nylon Filament 1.75mm 1Kg Spool 3D Printer Filament, High Strength, High Precision, No Warpage, Low Moisture Sensitivity

I have a QIDI brand X-CF Pro printer which is designed for printing carbon fiber reinforced nylons and polycarbonate. This filament works excellent with this printer, and probably with others. It adheres to the board well. It prints very accurate, but small round parts (6mm OD or smaller) are real hard to get to print right especially if they are more than 5mm tall. I love this filament. This and Xpolyer CF reinforced polycarbonate are the two best filaments I have found (out of many). They're both super strong. Xpolyer is more accurate for small parts. Both are extremely strong. I highly recommend this stuff if you're looking for nylon. Layer adhesion is great. This stuff is so strong that I broke the tip off of a Gerber knife trying to clean a print up. The only cons about it are price (it's on average $40 more than comparable types), slow print speed (50-70mms works best for me), and like I said before, small prints, especially tall and round, don't print right.This stuff is awesome though. It is WAY STRONGER than PLA and ABS. You can make tools, and jigs, and all sorts of amazing stuff with it. I usually don't have problems with it stringing. I don't think I have ever had problems with it warping or shrinking. With the appropriate layer height, line width, and speed settings, the look can be really nice. It almost looks like metal. If you print fast, it still is real strong but less accurate and does not look as pretty. This stuff is so strong I was able to 3d print a temporary fix for my ex gfs leaking transmission line. Her car was gushing fluid. Halfway to the shop it began driving weird. I measure the diameter of the line and made a clamp of sorts. I wrapped the leaky spot with rescue tape and then clamped my two pieces together. Not a single drop leaked out after that. It's the best nylon I have ever used.

Very versatile filament, perfect for mechanical prototypes, gears, parts that involve friction (since Nylon is self lubricating), load-bearing and tensile stress (to a degree ok? it's still printed plastic). My print farm is in a dedicated office, so the very little smell doesn't affect me anyway (ABS has a much more pungent smell). Supports come off easily and don't leave a mess (use tree support). I've been using this filament for months mainly in prototypes that involve levers, tensile stress, friction and need for dimensional accuracy, and this filament delivers time and again. Only drawback is that it is expensive compared to other PA-12 CF.

PLA may have a reputation for ease of printing, but this Carbon-filled Nylon filament has provided superb results by just using the preset settings in the QIDI slicer program on my QIDI X-Plus printer with the high temperature extruder installed. As other reviewers have noted, printed objects come out precisely dimensioned, with a very attractive finish, which, because of the carbon fibers, I believe, feels almost like some rare, fine-grained wood. As I write this review, this filament is not available on Amazon, but I hope that will change in the near future.The filament came vacuum-sealed in what appears to be plastic-coated foil. This is a 15% Carbon fiber reinforced PA12 (a type of Nylon with a longer polymer chain than the more common PA6). Being PA12 makes it less bothered by moisture, but I would still dehumidify the filament for a day or so at 70 deg. C before printing. I also keep the filament in the heated dryer box for the entire print run. The filament unwinds smoothly and has had no tangles or jams. As soon as there is more here on Amazon, I will be grabbing myself a few more rolls. An easy 5 stars for QIDI Technology.

Qidi PA12-CF is superbly suited for making gears. Not only it is tough as nails, has some self-lubricating properties and is more heat-resistant than most other printable materials, it is also very precise. I mean that, after calibration, it can be printed to exact dimensions with no warping, localized over- or under- extrusion or other irregularities common with most filaments. I guess this has something to do with the quality of manufacturing, so the high price Qidi put on their product is _somewhat_ justified.Unfortunately, as most other carbon fiber containing materials, this one cannot be printed with a small diameter nozzle because of the risk of clogging, so a >=0.4mm hardened nozzle must be used. To increase printing resolution, I use 0.35mm extrusion line width for outer walls (which is actually smaller than 0.4mm nozzle diameter) together with Arachne wall generator. These settings worked well so far and allowed me to print gears with smaller teeth than I otherwise would be able to, without compromising their geometry too much. Seams are set at "random" to avoid any localized bumps which would negatively affect the smoothness of the gear train. On my Bamboo Lab P1S I set the nozzle temperature at 300 degrees Celsius and the bed temperature at 60 degrees Celsius with applied nanoglue, with all fans turned off. These settings seem to work best for me, but your mileage may vary.Concerning the color which some people criticize - yes it is not black, not even the darkest shade of gray, but IMHO this material is not designed for show pieces but for functional parts, which are usually never seen after they are installed. With that in mind, I couldn't care less about the color. As for the performance, this material mostly matches my (high) expectations.For almost all applications other than making gears (where friction and temperature resistance are not as critically important), I would use other much less expensive materials, such as PETG-CF.All in all, this is an excellent filament, no questions about it. I subtracted one star from my rating because of the price, which is, frankly, a bit higher than I would like to spend on any type of filament, no matter how good it is.