Carbon Fiber Filled

The carbon fibers in these filaments can be extremely abrasive. In many cases, the carbon fibers are actually harder than the brass nozzles used on most 3D printers, so trying to print these materials with a stock nozzle could damage the printer. Instead, plan on upgrading to a hardened steel hotend. These hotends can resist the added wear from the fibers, however, they also tend to be less thermally conductive than their brass counterparts. You may need to set the extruder temperature as much as 40° hotter than usual, which also helps with reducing the chance of a clog. Reducing the fan speed can also be useful to prevent thermal issues with the steel nozzles.

Since the filament is full of small fibers that won’t melt, the chances of a nozzle clog are greatly increased over the base material. We recommend reducing your retraction distance or disabling retractions all together, as the retractions can increase the change of a buildup of fibers inside the extruder assembly. If you want to minimize the number of retractions that are performed, Simplify3D includes a very useful setting that will actually adjust the travel path of the extruder to stay within the interior of the part so that no retraction is needed. You can enable this setting by turning on the “avoid crossing outline for travel movements” option on the Advanced tab of your process settings.

Using a slower print speed can be a big benefit for carbon fiber filled materials, as the extruder will be under less stress, and has a higher chance of pushing small clogs through the nozzle if they start to form. Try reducing your print speed by 25-50% to see what value works best for your specific brand of plastic. If you still experience clogs after making these changes, we have an entire section on our Print Quality Guide dedicated to this issue that includes several other tips to help troubleshoot this issue: How to Fix a Clogged Extruder.