Looking for good suggestions for suppressor materials. Currently I’ve just been using PLA+ which has worked, just didn’t know if PA6-CF or something infused would work better.
Ditto to everything @kopsis said except the part about annealing. Yes annealing will help. But I’ve had more noticeable strength improvements from moisture treatment over annealing -particularly layer adhesion. The wet sponge in bag method for a few days works quite well.
If you have the time and equipment to do both annealing and moisture treatment, do it.
Annealing isn’t for strength, it’s for heat tolerance. PET-CF, for example, increases its HDT from 80 °C to around 180 °C after annealing. Nylons see a less dramatic but still significant improvement. For frames and receivers that may be a don’t care, but for suppressors it’s a big deal.
Any of the “engineering-grade” materials (PA6-CF, PA612-CF, PA12-CF, PPA-CF, PPS-CF, etc.) can work well for suppressors assuming:
- Your printer can handle them.
- You can properly dry the filament (drying at > 80 °C).
- You get the print settings right.
- You can properly anneal the parts (annealing dry at > 100 °C).
Technically, achieving good layer adhesion is the biggest challenge. You need a somewhat controlled environment so you don’t overcool the layers and you need a printer that can maintain extrusion temperatures of 300 °C or more with margin. Process-wise, people often try to take shortcuts on drying and annealing resulting in poor strength and lack of heat tolerance.
What you’ll get with the advanced materials is reduced baffle erosion thanks to the greatly improved heat tolerance. But it’s still fairly easy to melt one down with high-volume, high-rate fire.
I’ve had good success with ABS. Deals with heat better than PLA+ and can be printed on stock Ender 3. Edit: Meant to say PLA+ not CF.
ABS on a stock ender 3? No hotend upgrade or enclosure?
My mistake I do have an enclosure but no other mods. I print at 260C hotend temp 95C bed temp.
