Can You 3d Print Carbon Fiber? 3d Printing Carbon Fiber by Fibers Printers

We have all heard of 3D printing and the amazing feats it can accomplish. But, can you actually 3d print a carbon fiber object? The answer is yes! Carbon fiber composites are made up of a thin layer of strands of carbon that when heated to an extremely high-temperature fuse together into a strong material with very good stiffness characteristics.

It is then layered in many different directions to create the desired shape for use in products such as bikes, boats, cars, and more.

This blog post will guide you through the process step by step on how to 3d print your own carbon fiber product!

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Can you 3d print carbon fiber? Or Carbon Fiber Parts? Carbon Fiber Reinforced?

Yes, chopped carbon fiber is a material that is mixed with other materials like nylon, ABS, or PLA.

It handles some of the stress on my part. So it makes parts stronger than they would be without it.

It also makes them stiffer as well as lighter, and it increases the surface finish properties of parts.

This material is not 100% Carbon Fiber. It is a very small amount of carbon fiber mixed with other materials to make it printable in 3d printers. Unfortunately, we don’t know how much carbon fiber there really is in the finished product.

When I tried to print with this material, it would jam up in both of my printers after a few minutes of printing, so it is most likely the small amount of carbon fiber is not strong enough to keep the filament together.

I have seen some people use tape wrapped around their filament which helps them with prints sticking. If you want to use this material, wrap it with masking tape to help your filament stick together.

3D printing carbon fiber temperature, what is carbon fiber filament?

The most important thing to note about 3D printing with carbon fiber is that this material has a much higher melting point than ABS, PLA, or other common filament types. A heated bed and hot end capable of getting up to 375 celsius (700 Fahrenheit) are required for 3D printing carbon fiber filaments and blue painter’s tape is NOT an acceptable substitute for a heated bed.

Most 3D printers are shipped with hot ends capable of reaching 300 celsius, which is enough to print PLA and ABS plastics. However, it is not enough for 3D printing carbon fiber filaments, as this material has a much higher melting point than the majority of common filament types, peaking at almost 750 celsius.

For this reason, some companies have decided to manufacture their own 3D printer, capable of printing carbon fiber filament and the new hot ends are able to reach temperatures of more than 1200 Celsius degrees which is more than enough for 3D printing the strongest parts on the market.

Another solution for FDM 3D printer users is to use an industrial hot end. It is advisable that industrial 3D printers are used because all industrial FDM 3D printers have much higher temperature limits than the common household/hobbyist models.

Can You 3d Print Carbon Fiber? (cre: markforged)

3D printing carbon fiber car parts, check printed carbon fiber?

3D printing carbon fiber car parts was something that always seemed just out of reach for any average person. However recently a group from Michigan State University has been able to show how it can be done on a small scale, with the right equipment and materials.

The team is led by Yousef Haik, a graduate student in mechanical engineering at Michigan State University who has created several car parts using 3D printing with carbon fiber filament. Using a large 3 axis CNC machine Haik was able to create carbon fiber objects as large as 12″x6″x4″.

In terms of printing technology, Haik used fused deposition modeling (FDM). While this may not be the best choice for end-use applications Haik does point out that those limitations were intentional so that he could focus on creating the parts in a timely manner.

What Haik has accomplished with this technique is nothing short of amazing, but what really makes it special is his vision for where this technology can go.

Instead of using the common 3D printer which was modified to print carbon fiber, Haik could have done it much easier by printing directly onto a CNC machine like ZMorph, instead of by doing it manually he had to remove each layer (or slice) one at a time and replace them with carbon fiber mat directly before continuing the same process until complete.

This results in an extremely time-consuming process, especially when you consider how long some objects take to print even on professional-grade printers.

But Haik’s vision is to have a machine that can print the entire object at once, from start to finish. He says “We need to go beyond 3D printing and really start thinking about how we’re going to create these products”

Can You 3d Print Carbon Fiber? (cre: 3dnatives)

Printing carbon fiber on Ender – manufacturing carbon fiber

Printing carbon fiber on Ender 3 is one of the most common upgrades. A lot of people invest in good quality filament, but they end up with poor printing results. There are a few things that you can do to improve printing quality and get consistent results that I’ll go over now

If your prints don’t stick well to the bed, use hairspray (which is essentially isopropyl alcohol) or 3DLAC Spray Adhesive. You can also glue slightly larger tiles on top of each other (one by one) and mark their position with a marker. Use double-sided tape for large parts if you’re afraid they will warp too much. Carbon fiber makes it difficult to cool down parts due to its high thermal conductivity. If your prints are deformed after removing from the bed, put printed parts in cold water to speed up the cooling process (this won’t work for PLA).

Carbon fiber is not only electrically conductive but also very stable – you can expect to get the same results every time if the build plate is leveled perfectly. While building a calibration cube, make sure you turn it around all axis and don’t use any external tools like a meter stick or caliper.

It will take a few tries before you achieve an accurate result.

You may find that some areas of your print are missing carbon fiber entirely even though they should be covered fully by it – this might happen on large flat surfaces. Make sure that there’s enough glue on the nozzle, especially when it’s close to the edge of the part. If the print is still not sticking well, check if filament flow is clogged somewhere.

Finally, always use high-temperature hotend glue PVA (like this one ) or hairspray on the hotend to avoid carbon fiber spitting. You have to remove it after each print though because it also works as a thermal insulator.

Carbon fiber filament itself is not very flexible and doesn’t bend around corners well. You can address this issue by using brim or support structures, but that will require post-processing which adds more time to the total printing duration. A better solution I’ve found is these rubber bands – they provide enough grip to keep carbon fiber in place during cornering, take about 15 minutes to print, and can be removed after printing without any effort.

You may notice that carbon fiber filament is very abrasive on both the nozzle and the bearing blocks. They wear out quickly (at least on Ender 3) but there’s an easy fix for that – you just need some Teflon tubing like this one. Just cut pieces of it that are slightly larger than 8 mm in diameter and insert them into the nozzle and bearing block holders.

Conclusion

Carbon fiber is an extremely strong, lightweight material that is resistant to damage. It can be used in a variety of different industries and products including airplanes, boats, cars, sports equipment, and more. Traditional carbon-fiber manufacturing processes are expensive which makes 3D printing with this material prohibitively expensive for most companies.

We’ve seen some successful projects using the technology so it may not stay too far out of reach for long but until then you should think about alternate materials if your project doesn’t require high strength or lightweight construction.

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