I Tested PPA-CF Filament and It's INSANELY Strong!

[@dingolovethrob]

now THATs a comprehensive and thorough technical review. nice.

[@SuperfastMatt]

Sorry you didn't get to use your fire extinguisher, but excellent video nonetheless. I have a sheet of fire resistant polyiso foam that I throw on the top when I'm printing high-temp stuff. Same stuff I used to make my garden oven. I could make sheets for the front and sides as well, but that might be too insulating for the printer electronics. So far for me, it has been pretty easy to print my parts in a way that puts the big loads into the X and Y directions.

[@MrGadgetgav]

I'm here for the Clough / SuperfastMatt crossover!

[@MicahT-l7p]

Can anyone explain why Temps so signifantly higher than the boiling tempurature of water is allegedly needed or recommended to get the moisture out of this fancy pants filament? Regular nylon only calls for 187f and I only need to keep it at about 140f to print it once it is dried. Also though, I keep my nylon in metal ammo cans, wothout dessicant. I've pulled nylon filament out of the ammo can after months of sitting and into my beef Jerky capable dehydrator at 140f and it prints moisture free immediately.

[@Argosh]

​@@MicahT-l7pbecause you're not attempting to boil water (make the water molecules let go of other water molecules) but instead trying to make a hygroscopic molecule let go of water molecules.

[@MicahT-l7p]

@Argosh your answer lacks the depth I desire. My plain nylon filament doesn't require the Temps and blast furnace bambu claims is nessacary for their ppacf

[@Argosh]

@@MicahT-l7p Google it then. The Dipole interaction between water is not the same as the one between other materials.

[@robertsimmons9563]

Damn. This is an impressive review…. I can’t believe that this quality of content is freely available. Not just free but literally available at your fingertips whenever you want… seriously though this is incredible

[@gussie88bunny]

Agreed. These hectic engineering nerds and their epic 3D printing reviews are pure gold. I also find their no-nonsense STEM approach to video production values refreshing. No BS, just the numbers.

[@georgemichalopoulos5169]

Isn't it amazing that we have reached the point we can produce industrial-strength components in our workshop? Yes, at a cost, but imagine the possibilities... Thanks James, great video as always!

[@jjjjrrr678]

Exciting times 😊

[@b3owu1f]

I cant wait to see better multi material multi head machines with even better filament options in the next few years. When we can start replacing aluminum and such with printed parts that will be as durable/strong.. that will be amazing.

[@slipspectrum9253]

3D printed parts or any material still don’t come close to injection molded strength, or machined metal. They work and are great for a lot of things, but don’t kid yourself.

[@georgemichalopoulos5169]

@@slipspectrum9253 That's true and it's likely we'll never reach that point. However for us hobbyists even getting to 70-80% there would be fantastic. For me printing stuff which will not shapeshift into something else when left in my car is exciting enough 😁

[@MSdroneguy]

You are exactly what the dream of the internet once was. Superlative content! Well done sir.

[@johngriffin618]

I’ve gone through nearly 10 spools both at home and at work. I purchased the filament the day it was available and I had to do some tinkering with the flow rates to get parts dimensionally accurate, idk if they have an updated profile. I dried mine at my job which had a blast oven, but after seeing this I’ll stick to drying it in my home dryer. You have good data in this vid, thanks. Once I dialed in the flow rate to get dimensionality accurate parts, as good as fdm can do anyway, I’ve had amazing success with this filament. I’m very glad I bought a few extra spools when it was still $100.

[@peterdickinson1936]

Certified Good Enough! Thanks for your awesome work James.

[@DrLesterTheSmith]

Whew! That was a lot of work! Thank you for your incredible effort and your rigorous approach! My heart broke when the PPA-CF rig broke but I got the warm and fuzzies when you put the error bars in.

[@karenauntipode2684]

Disciplined. Methodical. Enlightening. Excellent!

[@freckhard]

Very great video again James! You are my main go to source for scientific 3D printing and machining videos, infact you are the reason I got into this hobby buying the X1C after your review. People, if you buy Bambu filaments, use the affiliate links in this videos description, I bookmarked it!

[@joeshmoe7967]

Wow, talk about thorough! I will never be using this. I don't own a 3D printer, but I do like technical stuff, and the method of presentation was excellent

[@TheOneAndOnlySatan]

Finally a comprehensive deep dive in this filament instead of a sale add review. Thank you for providing info that actually informs and helps understanding this filament.

[@Muz994]

For a filament like this, with the claimed use cases, I think it's very important to also check how much it suffers from creep. I already invested on other very strong engineering filaments (eg: PA12-CF - 100€/0.5KG) only to discover that the parts printed with those materials get loose only a few hours after being bolted down. You can design stuff keeping in mind this limitation, but it's still a very crucial characteristic of the material that isn't really measured and reported on the datasheets.

[@zachary3777]

That's why I am trying the PET-CF. It's supposed to creep a lot less than the nylons.

[@Muz994]

@@zachary3777 yup, I replaced nylon with PET-CF

[@saddlepiggy]

For plastics that have been around for a while, there are papers that cover creep. Unfortunately it varies massively with varying temperature and load.

[@smorris12]

Overall design needs to be looked at, not just material. I designed a servo and gearbox arrangement to be bolted to a piece of industrial gear this year. The mounting plate was printed in PLA but I designed the mounting holes to take press fit machined brass sleeves that I whipped up on the lathe. These stop the backplate distorting under the clamp while the plastic can happily take the other forces. I pinched the idea from injection moulded parts (engine sensors etc) and it works well here.

[@Muz994]

@@smorris12 Yes, but you need to know the material's properties in order to take them into account

[@KevinMullett]

Um, thank you! I don't know if I will ever have the need but I'm here for this level of thoroughness.

[@RotarySMP]

Excellent analysis. Thanks James.

[@GeoffTV2]

Hey, hey, hey it's Mr SMP. You follow Clough42 too? Got money to burn on a really pricey filament? 🙂 - Heather

[@darthtater]

Great video. Your printer looks very cozy in the blanket.

[@timothicus]

Awesome work, I bought a bunch of spools for my business when they ran the release sale, and have been planning some testing of my own. I really appreciate your documenting this the way you did and have subscribed to your site. Excellent attention to detail!

[@Kevster270]

Proper engineering approach - one variable change at a time, then do everything again. Love to see it!

[@proaudiorestore8926]

Thank you! That’s was 2 weeks well worth spent to educate those that either can’t or just too lazy to do it themselves! 2 things I’m impressed by. 1.) that a little P1S will be able to print that and 2.) that Bambu Labs specs were bang on!

[@CCCfeinman55]

Well, I will never use that material. It was fascinating learning about its capabilities and limitations, and the requirements for making great prints with it. As always, James, you delight. And thank you for sharing yet. Another innovation with us.

[@Neudezign]

This is some great data, appreciate you taking the time to do all this.

[@chrisw1462]

Always enjoy your videos. Straight to the point, plenty of info without going off the deep end. Thanks for yet another one, and on a very interesting topic!

[@MattManuel]

Great video. Thanks for taking the time to experiment and share the results.

[@hollo9571]

Love this video. For once it's not something I think I'm ever going to use (just can't see my personal use case, and would go to something machined if I needed that level of strength), but the application of stats to the strengths, and the description of how to fiddle with some of the lesser used 3d printer settings based on microscope images of the failed part were just great.

[@sevenliterbronco]

In the injection molding industry, it is common to rehydrate the parts after molding to increase strength with nylon. They are typically placed in a bag with water sprayed in.

[@theglowcloud2215]

So, once nylon is printed and placed outside or in a high humidity environment, should I worry about compromising its material properties?

[@sevenliterbronco]

@theglowcloud2215 No need to worry. The nylon will rehydrate in open air, and yield and tensile strength increases. However, before molding, the pellets are dried to at least 0.2%. Placing the components in a bag with water ensures the customer gets parts at optimal strength and moisture at equilibrium, around 2-3%.

[@ferrumignis]

​@@sevenliterbroncoThat's really interesting, I'd naively have expected that the expansion from moisture absorbance would create higher internal stress and weaken the parts. Is the mechanism for this strength increase understood?

[@oyuyuy]

This isn't quite like Nylon though, there's very little difference between wet and dry state

[@melgross]

That’s what I like about what you do. You are very thorough. I appreciate that. I find that every variable needs to be accounted for. I suppose it’s my scientific background as it is with yours.

[@mikenorfleet2235]

Thank you so much for doing this hard and very nerdy work that us engineers love this stuff here on youtube. I recently purchsed my own X1C for the garage and love to hear about the various things I can make with it with specialty filaments. At some point from an engineering perspective, it might be easier to spec out machining out metal and call it a day. 150 bucks a spool is hard to stomach. I guess I have put off buying a small lathe and mill for the shop, I can keep going down the 3d printing hobby....support your local makerspaces if you don't have the tools.

[@joebusfield446]

I get more and more impressed with how intelligent you are, thanks James!

[@designxtek]

One of the best in-depth reviews on filaments I have seen

[@mgene63]

This is great. Thank you for your efforts and sharing with all of us

[@KnowArt]

ohhh spicy. I don't think I'll ever need this and if I do, it's probably in 5 years when new materials even more fancy have entered the market, but.. for the off chance, it's nice to know this exists.

[@davidconner-shover51]

Having no printers with unheated chambers, I had dabbled in materials such as ABS, hi temp nylon and PC, usually with disasterous results with all but the smallest parts. I sprung for a couple spools of ABS-GF and PC-CF several months back. they sat there in pure frustration for months and months while I printed up swords and dragons for Christmas until my work parts stock ran low. Surprise surprise, I did a test run of my usual work parts that I usually print in PETG, singles, the parts came out so strong that I had no issue reengineering them to use a third of the weight with these new to me materials. no issue with not having a heated chamber either. It is now cheaper to run the pricey, high grade stuff than the usual standby material.

[@jamesolander-zs3uy]

In reply to your many “your welcomes”, I am extremely thankful! You saved a whole lot of pulling hair out.

[@247printing]

Thanks for that super interesting video and THANKS for your time on the blast oven tests (almost ordered one as well) :-) Your "No Fans" column: Was it also printed at 60C chamber with fire extinguisher next to it or was it a "regular" print on the X1C? THANKS

[@SomewhatAbnormal]

Great work. Now I just need to figure out what I’d need this filament for. I’ve found that Bambi’s PETG HF covers about 99% of my needs lately.

[@lexingram8622]

Will be using this for prototyping my robots at work. Thank you!

[@clytle374]

Thank you, subscribed. Looks like PPA-CF solves a major design challenge I have. :)

[@strangestuff1213]

Very Nice - filament test vid's can be boring - this was superbly done.

[@holgerlauer]

once again a perfect video and test ... better than some laboratories Many thanks for sharing your experiences

[@WatchWesWork]

Can you test some of the high strength resins from Loctite and Formlabs? My pockets aren't deep enough...

[@Clough42]

I spent some time a while back looking at the Form 4. It looks nice, but yeah, it's not the kind of product you buy just to see if you like it.

[@JoeMalovich]

Your sacrifice is appreciated!

[@drhender6943]

Awesome work and awesome filament! I wonder what the x/y strength would be with a properly heated chamber and all of the other little tweaks that finally brought the z axis prints to full strength. Thanks again for the rigor of your tests and for taking the time to share them with us!!

[@rogerfroud300]

Many thanks for doing this, it's sure to come in really useful. I'm using PETG for soft tooling when machining really awkward metal parts. This could take that to a whole new level.

[@conorstewart2214]

I’ve been waiting to see some reviews of this filament, it seems like a massive step up from all other consumer filaments. Based on what I could find online it has higher tensile strength than some grades of aluminium, it would be interesting if you could test those to see. The stiffness is much higher than most other filaments but still falls way short of aluminium though.

[@phil9043]

Great work. Love the stats! I think your methodology is always spot on and I appreciate your attention to detail. Great work as always!

[@oliverdrathuos3409]

Thank you for the effort you put in on this testing! I’d kinda love to see the values of you went overboard. And did the flow a little high… like you did. But with the fans off, and at half speed. To really increase that layer adhesion. That seems to be its weakness both looking at the test jaws that broke. But also every sample you showed us printed in Z axis.

[@JohanDegraeveAanscharius]

Nice, only usefull for small parts, bigger parts than an hour (or even less) to print, will heatup the printhead due to creep, and block (the gears get hot). So, print one part at a time. you can add a T on the bowden tube at the back, let the filament run through, drill a 2 mm hole there where the bowden goes in the head, add compressed air, should prevent a lot of creep heat, and keep the gears cold.

[@jksjrgfpsjgr]

maybe a hilbert curve infill pattern would be better for z strength, as it mushes the plastic back and forth? looking forward to your PPS-CF video!

[@noobling8313]

Heroic effort, thank you. Fantastic to know that if I ever need it, it's just a click away.

[@brucejohnson1264]

A simple piece of foam on the top glass really boosts the chamber temperature, which is great to combat warping of things like ASA and ABS.

[@jerrygrimes8813]

I can get my X1C chamber up to at least 52C without added insulation. I set the build plate to 110C, turn the aux fan on at 60% (trading off speed vs. noise), and then home the build plate. The fan blows across that hot build plate, heating the chamber. It takes a while, 30 minutes or more. I've had great success with ABS and ASA doing this. These exotic filaments are intriguing, but so far nothing I've made has required their impressive capabilities.

[@LabRatJason]

I really appreciate the statistics, and actually understanding statistical significance. Thanks for that!

[@djlolypop]

The only thing Superfastmatt has completed fully 😂 His videos and yours are awesome!

[@apaskiewicz]

Amazing video. Thanks for you research and experiments.

[@Dr_Kenneth_Noisewater]

Fantastic testing info. Nerd cred for sure! I bought a spool of this before they discontinue it for some reason or sell out. I have no particular reason to think they will…just saying. I have no use case for it at the moment, but now I’ll be hunting for one.

[@Tyrasify]

Excellent testing process development - it îs nothing I can comment, thanks for information. I want to share how to get a nice 60C in the print chamber - add a led ring light over the top glass and the ams over it - you can find a few mountings on MW. This led ring light turns quite hot and you get and a free room heater.

[@jjjjrrr678]

Oh man I need an Idex heated chamber printer so bad now 😂 awesome work and exciting times 😊

[@jameskiely5518]

Awesome job keeping short and simple... would have liked to see the comparison to the other engineering filaments..IE nylon CF

[@jostafew]

Holy geez that was well done, subscribed!

[@The.MrFish]

You are not the first to wrap a printer in a blanket :D it works quite well, I approve. A small fan like a 5015 (or two) blowing on the underside of the bed will significantly increase your chamber temps. It evacuates heat from under the bed and circulates air without doing any part cooling. Forces the PID controller to pump more power in to the bed. More power in, higher chamber temp :)

[@SFzip]

wow totally impressed by your presentation 👍

[@VLAD-fr9tf]

Excellent review Sir!, but why do the walls have the value of 1?

[@notsonominal]

So, just to be clear, I put my silly comments down here?

[@ferrumignis]

And if you have the time, please be sure that they rhyme.

[@dtylerb]

No more rhymes now, I mean it.

[@iancoulston6452]

Anybody got a peanut?

[@notsonominal]

@@ferrumignis haha, that was totally unintentional:D

[@DavidSmith-bj3yk]

GAAAAAAHHHHHH!

[@buzzbbird]

Excellent video/work. What about bulletproof-ness?

[@captivenut4122]

Enjoyed the video, but now I have a couple of questions: first I was wondering if scale matters in this kind of tests. Yes, measuring pressure and not absolute force should, in theory, ensure linearity in the results, but does this apply in the case of 3d printing, where the width of every single extrusion remains constant? Also it'd be very nice to know how the material compares in terms of brittleness to, let's say ABS, which is considered to be a good preforming filament in this category. Looking forward to some more testing, maybe of that other crazy stuff, the PPS-CF. Too many questions from someone who's never going to be printing any of these wild materials, I know.😊

[@CuriouslyContent]

I have no 3D printer and may never have one. But I now know more than I did before about something in the world. Thank you for being one of a dwindling number of KZbin videos not trying to make me dumber 😂

[@802Garage]

Awesome testing and a great insight into what people actually have to do to tune an advanced filament for maximum strength. I wonder if a simple change like slightly higher line width would also add strength. Good to know the annealing isn't super necessary to still get good results. A printer like the Qidi Plus4 is perfect for this stuff. I'm trying some glass fiber polypropylene right now and I suspect some of the tricks to get the best results are similar, though not as dramatic. The heat deflection temp is also in the 140C range on this stuff though which is wild. Keep up the great work!

[@kylmsn]

I pre ordered a roll when the released it at a discounted price. Didn’t go anywhere near the lengths you have and basically printed with their presets. I printed a few parts for my motorcycle with it and they all printed great. Like you mentioned, VERY rigid.

[@wileecoyoti]

Really great job on such as technical review!!

[@cowboy124aa3]

Great Video, even tho ill probably never print with it, it was some great information. One thing I would like to suggest is trying out this new filament I found at a company near my house, The place is called Filament Factory, they Only sell some PLA types and one type called DuraPET PCR, I've been printing with the DuraPET the last couple of days and I really like it, its fairly strong, has really good bed adhesion and is suppose to be a repleacement for ABS, Nylon, PC and PETG. It does string a bit at 295 print temp, which is the low end of the print temp suggestions of 310 (cuz my hotend isnt rated for over 300) Also doesnt need a heat chamber, or fans when printing. My prints have been coming out amazing, but I would be intersted in seeing some test results on this filament. Hope you will give it a try.

[@yakostudios5405]

Excellent review, would love to see something similar with paht-cf to see how they compare

[@erickalfredobosquezhuerta3056]

for insulating an X1C id do polyiso foam with a c oouple blankets, and reflective mylar blankets as well, i have hit 70C before, youd also have to preheat to get a consistent chamber temp. i do a lot of PA and ABS and ive found also just sticking a lot of them in a tiny closet helps lol

[@tylerarrigoni7700]

Great content! Nicely done!

[@NexGen-3D]

I used to print my UPAHT-CF with a heated chamber, 70C on the chamber, it makes a massive difference when printing nylon, and no fans at all.

[@rissole50]

Another great video from Bruce!(your welcome)

[@leec2106]

It is funny, I just watched the pined testing samples, I made the comment on it to make them bow tied and today I see you did just that, well done James!

[@obie224]

Amazing thorough video, well done. Damn shame this stuff is so ridiculously expensive that it's a non-starter for most of us.

[@davefilicicchia6341]

Sounds like the time for a new project: a clear path servo and gearbox to automate the jaw movement on the tensile rig!😅

[@dacharyzoo]

I really appreciate your rigor and determination! Thanks for getting the answers for us!

[@MikeKobb]

I'm a little surprised that Bambu doesn't have a filament profile for their own first-party filament that would do things like turning off the fans so that it achieves its published specs. Good on them for publishing detailed information about exactly how they printed it, though.

[@ryankim3612]

Thank you for the hard work on this!

[@charlieromeo7663]

Nice work, James. Any idea what support material is optimal for that stuff?

[@meanman6992]

I print from a toaster oven with a remote probe thermometer. I turn it on its side and with a shaft, with guards to keep the spool from wondering, it exits the back via a brass fitting to a PTFE tube to my P1S, I can go from like 35*c to 200*c

[@PeterOhlmus]

Wow, fascinating deep dive! Thankyou.

[@stevecrabb1]

Would be interesting to see the comparison deflection results for a beam in bending. It could be 20mm wide x 5 mm deep clamped in a clamping thing with a known weight hanging off it. It could also be a simple I beam. Good work and thank you.

[@JoshMurrah]

I’m mostly jealous of your cool oven hah! So seeing the jaws snap - is this material brittle??

[@raymondmcgreal2635]

Thank you. Fantastic review and information

[@JamesDStallard]

Jacket Potatoes. That's why I thought you had a blast oven in the shop.

[@LNWLF-cb3di]

For tensioning. You could use a small electric motor geared down with a belt drive to a vise with a finer thread screw. I’m sure you’ve thought about something similar but just mho

[@klausbrinck2137]

epic effort

[@capinoy123]

Thank you for this! Very professional.

[@nand4011]

Could you cnc a test specimen out of aluminum? It would be interesting to see how these engineering plastics compare.

[@Spectrum184]

His test setup isn't strong enough for that

[@creamofbotulismsoup9900]

The properties of metals like aluminum are well understood, I don't think it would be worth his time. That said this stuff has almost double the tensile strength of pure aluminum, at least in the XY direction, which is pretty crazy.

[@stefanobertelli2650]

@@creamofbotulismsoup9900 I think it really depends on which aluminum alloy you use and what heat treatment you apply to the alloy. 70xx alloys can be quite strong!

[@creamofbotulismsoup9900]

@@stefanobertelli2650 Hence the reason that I said "pure" aluminum.

[@stefanobertelli2650]

@@creamofbotulismsoup9900 Knowing James, he'd use A2 tool steel and heat treat it with a kiln controlled with a board designed by him. Another project :)

[@Steelcrafted]

For reference, have you done similar tests with CF Nylon yet? Your testing is super thorough, very impressive!

[@TradeWorks_Construction]

Thanks for sharing your hard earned experience and vast amount of knowledge. It really is such an amazing time where the free exchange of knowledge, ideas, independent verification and testing can all be shared and witnessed as fully edited videos that are actually as entertaining to watch as professionally produced content by a studio. It’s no small task to film and edit and I can totally understand why many would choose to forego the extra work doing so when there is generally not a substantial payoff for the time spent doing so. So i tip my hat in respect to you James and many other creators alike who strive to produce something engaging.

[@6884nfghfjk]

Intersting video. Is that material hard on your nozzle. I had problems using PLA-CF clogging the nozzle. Note that I am new to 3D printing.

[@FlatlineBob]

Very excellent review! Your Welcome!

[@HoffmanTactical]

Very interesting. Good work.

[@zacktaylor253]

Time to do some testing... surely monumental for Orca and FTN development!

[@HoffmanTactical]

@@zacktaylor253 I'm waiting on Bambu stock, but did just get a roll of the Siraya PPA-CF.

[@zacktaylor253]

Sweet, would love to see some comparisons. Looks like it’s in stock now and a few dollars off on bambu website.

[@HoffmanTactical]

@@zacktaylor253 Ordered some ;)

[@MinionAtTheGate]

Hi James, thanks for the info. You seem happy with Bambu Lab, have you run into any things you really don't like or problems you couldn't work around with the X1C? I'm considering the P1S to make ABS parts. I think 100 C should be enough as long as it can handle the bed always being at max temp. What do you think? Otherwise its a considerable jump in price to get an X1C.

[@Dave_the_Dave]

You should print some parts with dried filament and then let them absorb moisture for a few days. Some of the filled nylon filament printed parts get tougher after they absorb some moisture.

[@Marcus_Caius]

Thank you for another awesome informative video. Regarding the RFID, I am experiencing the same with PLA Basic since the last firmware (I run 2 AMS on the same X1 printer). I also get random error from Bambu Studio that it didn't recognize the smooth PEI plate. I say random because closing the app and trying again will work most of the time.