10 Nylon Filaments That Are Worth 3D Printing With, From Budget to Pro

If you’re shopping around for nylon filament, every product description will end up sounding about the same. All brands say that their nylon has low warping and great layer adhesion; that it exhibits good resistance to oils, fuels, and lubricants; that it has a high impact strength and good mechanical properties; and parts 3D printed are strong, durable, and shows good resistance to wear and abrasion. These are the standard attributes for all nylons.

What sets them apart may just be the quality of the manufacturing and the type of polymer blend, which results in consistency spool after spool. Your nylon isn’t just pure nylon, there are additives (typically a proprietary formula) to boost performance, thermal behavior, moisture resistance, and other attributes.

Nylon Basics

• Strongest/Stiffest: CoPA6/66
• Most Tough/Flexible: PA11
• Most Dimensionally Stable: PA12
• Most Affected by Moisture: PA6

Carbon fibers in nylon boost strength and stiffness, but lower flexibility.
Glass fibers in nylon boost strength, stiffness, and impact resistance.
Kevlar fibers in nylon boost impact resistance and resistance to wear over time.

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Our 10 Favorite Nylons

*Prices vary by reseller and if the materials is only offered is 1 kg or 0.75 kg spools, we’ve calculated the price as if it were 0.5 kg.

The eSun ePA Nylon filaments come in a light, natural color and a clear version. The light is ideal for painting, while the clear is for those times when you need something more temperature resistant and wear resistant than PETG or PA. It’s also flame retardant, with a level of UL94-V2. For first layer adhesion, a first-layer print speed of 10 mm/s works well with a PVA glue stick on the bed surface. For larger models, it’s recommended that you use a thicker brim as well as increase the flow rate since this filament tends to warp more than others.

It’s another nylon 6/66 copolymer with an elongation at break of up to 175%, which can print strong and durable parts with high fracture resistance. eSun also makes nylon in black, high temp, and carbon fiber.

eSun ePA Nylon

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Sunlu Easy PA (or ePA) filament is a versatile material based on a nylon 6/66 copolymer, which means that it’s easier to print than pure PA66 and more robust than PA6.

This copolymer delivers good strength and impact resistance. Its durable, shock-resistant properties make it ideal for parts that need to endure drops. It has a low shrinkage rate during the printing process.

Sunlu Easy PA (ePA)

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PolyMide CoPA is a copolymer of Nylon 6 and Nylon 6.6 combining high tensile strength properties from Nylon 6 with heat resistance properties from Nylon 6.6. Warp- Free technology provides ease of printing by slowing down the crystallization allowing CoPA to be easily printed on open bed printers. Displaying outstanding mechanical and thermal properties, CoPA is suited for parts in demanding environments.

Polymaker PolyMide CoPA

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MatterHackers Pro Series Nylon is a nicely priced, high-quality filament with a wide range of uses. We have to admit, one of the reasons we like it — apart from the print quality — is the range of colors. Nylon takes to dyes and paint well, but if you don’t want the extra step, MatterHackers Pro Series Nylon is one of your only choices for blue, red, yellow and other useful colors. Bambu Lab also offer eight colors of its PA6-GF.

What we don’t really like about this nylon is that MatterHackers won’t say which type of nylon it is. The company provide loads of information on its technical specs and the mechanical properties of parts printed with it, plus comprehensive printing parameters, but if you’re committed to sustainable materials you’ll be in the dark here (although we highly suspect it’s a PA12).

Matterhackers Pro Series Nylon

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Styx PA6 is an easier to 3D print nylon filament compared to many PA6 filaments. It’s a monofilament (not a blend) manufactured in the EU. We’ve found that it offers a good balance of strength, durability, and printability, for the price, making it suitable for any type of functional part.

It possesses good electrical insulating properties, which makes it good for electrically insulating parts, such as housing for any type of electronic.

FormFutura makes two other types of Styx nylon, a PA6-GF30 and a PA6-CF15.

FormFutura Styx PA6

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Among the Prusament filaments, Prusament PA11 Nylon Carbon Fiber has by far the best temperature and chemical resistance. Printed parts withstand up to 190°C (depending on stress) and have increased resistance to many solvents. We recommend using our PA Nylon steel sheet for printing polyamides, including Prusament PA11 Carbon Fiber.

This PA11 is a material made from castor oil, the carbon fibers used for this material are recycled, so it’s our sustainable top pick.

Prusament PA11 Carbon Fiber

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Bambu PAHT-CF is a composite material of PA12 with embedded carbon fibers and the HT stands for high temperature. With a 50% lower water absorption rate compared to normal PA-CF, your prints can avoid the moisture problems inherent with nylon, but that doesn’t mean you can leave it out or that it won’t ever need drying. This PAHT-CF comes with a high-temperature resistant spool, which is not prone to deformation in the drying process. Continuing our concept of reducing plastic waste, the spool can also be reused with other Bambu refills.

BambuLab doesn’t say how much carbon fiber is in the nylon. Maybe it’s 15%, maybe less. Bambu Lab offers three other nylons: a PA6-GF (in eight colors), a PA6 CF, and a PPA-CF.

Bambu Lab PAHT-​CF Black

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This Nylon PA12 is reinforced with 15% glass fibers to boost its rigidity and durability compared to standard nylon filaments. It’s designed for high impact resistance and parts subjected to variable loads and shocks. The filament’s low shrinkage ensures high dimensional accuracy, allowing for precise printing without a heated chamber (although we’ve always recommended a heated one).

Four hours of drying at 80°C is recommended before each use.

Here’s another HT nylon, which is designed for parts that will be used in high-temperature environments. This PAHT CF15 from Forward AM, a Stratasys company, has 15% carbon fiber reinforcement for enhanced mechanical strength and dimensional stability. Parts made with this material can withstand continuous operating temperatures up to 150 °C.

It’s also suitable for applications requiring electrostatic discharge (ESD) safety. It prints well with BVOH and HIPS as support materials in a dual-extruder 3D printer so you can achieve more complex geometries. It’s another nylon that doesn’t disclose which type of nylon, but again, we suspect it’s a PA12.

This is a new nylon composite filament just launched by UltiMaker this year. It’s a unique nylon copolymer PA6/12 with carbon fiber offering wear resistance and temperature resistance of up to 180°C. It’s called “slide” because of its low friction and high wear resistance formula, ideal for parts involving sliding contact with other materials, such as stainless steel. After annealing, the filament can withstand temperatures up to 180°C, suitable for high-temperature applications.

Of course, UltiMaker filaments only come in 2.85 mm diameter, which limits their applicability.

Nylon filament made from recycled nylon retains much, if not all, of the properties you buy nylon for. The added bonus is that you’re not adding new nylon to the plastic waste problem. Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of options for recycled nylon, but the ones we particularly like include:

• Fillamentum Fishy Filaments: 100% recycled nylon PA6 that comes from used fishing nets
• Fiberlogy R Nylon: Sourced from various certified materials

While your recycled nylon can be recycled again, nylon with carbon, glass, or Kevlar fibers is hard to shred and recycle like regular nylon. Right now, a lot of carbon fiber nylon waste ends up in landfills or gets incinerated. Because of that, some manufacturers are going back to using metals like aluminum since they’re easier to recycle when a product reaches the end of its life. This is one of the challenges the additive manufacturing world is working to solve, with ongoing research into how to reclaim carbon fiber printed parts. If you want to make your use of carbon fiber more sustainable, consider starting with materials made from recycled carbon fiber and polymers.

Nylon used to be quite a challenging material to print with, but manufacturers have made it much more approachable in recent years. While you shouldn’t expect it to print as easily as PLA or PETG, printability shouldn’t be a deal-breaker for entry.

• Nozzle temperature: varies by brand
• Bed temperature: varies by brand
• Recommended print beds: Garolite, textured PEI sheets (may require adhesives), glass with glue stick or adhesive, magnetic flexible plates with nylon-compatible coatings like Magigoo PA
• Not recommended print beds: bare glass, Smooth PEI without adhesives, tape, unheaded beds
• Avg. Print speed: 25-50 mm/s
• Fan speed: 0-50%
• Enclosure: Recommended

Nylon filament can be a little bit challenging to print due to its tendency to warp. The best surfaces that you can use are Garolite sheets and glass sheets. PEI usually doesn’t stick well to PA. To obtain the best results, you should use a PVA glue stick on the build plate to avoid warping, especially on small features and corners.

You should also remember that bed temperature is crucial for good adhesion with this material. Try setting it to 70 °C and work your way up to 90 °C if the filament refuses to stick to the plate.

While these general settings should serve you well, materials vary by manufacturer. Before printing anything, it’s always a good idea to check the recommended settings.

Fragile: Keep Dry

How to Dry Filament: PLA, ABS, Nylon & More

Dry Storage

Proper storage for nylon is critical. The variants used in 3D printing are extremely hygroscopic, meaning they absorb moisture. This moisture degrades the material and yields poor print quality and strength.

To avoid wet filament problems, store your filament in a dry environment. We recommend a few options in our filament storage guide. Since nylon can go bad in even a few hours, we also recommend printing directly from a humidity-controlled container. This could be a dry box with a filament feed hole or a humidity-controlled spool holder.

Should your nylon pick up some moisture, you’ll want to dry your filament.

Characteristics of Different Types of Nylon