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Nylon for 3D printing has come a long way in terms of affordability and ease of 3D printing. It stands out as the best material for 3D printing parts that you want to last (i.e.. not prototypes) due to its exceptional balance of mechanical strength, durability, flexibility, and real-world usability. While no single filament is perfect for every application, nylon comes closest to being the ideal all-purpose material for functional parts and end-use products.
Things made from tough and durable nylon (also called polyamide or PA) are all around you. It’s what makes the vents and intake manifolds in your car durable and lightweight, it makes kitchen spatulas and cutting boards durable, it houses most of our electronic devices, and it’s used to make everything from skateboard wheels to factory gears.
Because manufacturers have been making products out of nylon for nearly 100 years, it’s a familiar material to 3D print with. All of nylon’s well-known characteristics are available when you 3D print with it — in filament form and powder — making it the most common print material in additive manufacturing, if you look at it in terms of kilograms of material sold.
Although nylon does have some downsides, namely its moisture sensitivity and slightly higher printing temperature requirements, and cost (to some degree), it outperforms almost every other filament when it comes to producing strong, functional, and reliable parts. For makers, engineers, and manufacturers needing performance and versatility, nylon is the best overall choice for 3D printing.
Nylon offers outstanding mechanical properties. It’s stronger than PLA and ABS while being more impact-resistant and less brittle than most rigid filaments. Its high tensile strength makes it perfect for parts that endure stress or need long-term durability, such as gears, hinges, and functional prototypes.
Nylon is naturally highly wear-resistant, making it an excellent material for printing moving or contacting parts like bushings, gears, and snap-fit components. Unlike PLA, which degrades under friction, nylon holds up under continuous motion and strain.
Nylon offers a level of flexibility that makes it less likely to crack under sudden impacts, unlike more rigid filaments. This toughness is critical in industrial or mechanical applications where parts are exposed to real-world handling, vibration, or repeated bending.
Nylon is highly resistant to a wide range of chemicals, including oils, fuels, and many solvents. This makes it suitable for automotive, aerospace, and industrial environments where other plastics like PLA filament and PETG would degrade or fail. Nylon can be biocompatible, but only certain grades are, and only if manufactured under proper conditions.
Nylon parts can be machined, drilled, tapped, or even heat-welded, offering far more post-processing options than most consumer-grade filament. This makes nylon uniquely suited to integrating into workflows that require modification after printing. Also, because nylon is mildly moisture absorbent, it takes to dyes very well.
Nylon (especially nylon 6 and nylon 12) is recyclable in industrial settings. Many manufacturers collect and process post-industrial nylon waste—like failed prints, support material, or trimmings—by grinding it into pellets and re-extruding it into new filament or molded parts. In fact, some filament brands (e.g. Reflow, Filamentive) sell recycled nylon filament made from recovered nylon waste. The aptly named Fishy Filaments offers a 100% fishing net nylon (PA6) filament, which it admits may be “a bit salty and have a few bits of seaweed attached.” French filament maker Naovia launched its recycled fishing net filament in 2021. The recycled PA6 nylon filament is created from nets collected off of the French coasts.
Nylon isn’t just one material. There are numerous categories of nylon and within those categories, there are different formulas, blends, and brands – and we’re just talking about the nylons available for 3D printing.
Nylons for 3D printing come in filament and powder (sorry, no resins), and more types enter the market every year. There are “filled” nylons also called composites, which are infused with carbon fibers, glass, kevlar, or other materials; recycled nylons; and a new group of so-called “sustainable nylons” synthesized with renewable resources.
When it comes to the sustainability profile of nylon, note that some nylons (PA) are derived from fossil fuels while others are bio-based engineering plastics. You can’t always tell by the type of PA, although PA12 is usually from fossil fuels and PA11 is usually from a sustainable source, such as castor beans.
Fused deposition modeling, or FDM for short, is a material extrusion method of additive manufacturing where materials in filament form are extruded through a nozzle and joined together to create 3D objects.
Generally accepted as the simplest way to 3D print stuff, FDM is accessible, reasonably efficient, and widely popular. FDM printers dominate the 3D printing market, being remarkably more straightforward than resin 3D printing and massively cheaper than powder-based methods.
FDM is less popular for nylon than SLS, but this is quickly changing. With the new breed of lower cost FDM machines, such as from Bambu Lab and UltiMaker, that can offer nozzles hot enough to handle nylon, especially carbon-fiber-filled nylon, this material is more accessible than ever.
Not all FDM printers can handle nylon filament with ease. It’s important to have a quality (all-metal) hot end that can handle temperatures above 250°C. Apart from that, nylon is also prone to warping, so bed adhesion is an issue of its own and an enclosed heated chamber also helps.
If you’re looking to get all of the characteristics nylon offers into your professional or industrial parts, you’ll want to use an SLS 3D printer.
SLS 3D printing uses high-powered lasers to fuse powdered plastic material, most commonly nylon, together into 3D shapes. It can create parts that are finely detailed, strong, durable, heat resistant, and flexible (when needed) all at once. In fact, SLS is the most popular 3D printing technology for durable jigs and fixtures, lightweight components, and fast and functional spare parts.
The resulting SLS parts are comparable to injected molded nylon but 3D printing makes it a far more economical solution for unique parts and tools, small batches, and functional prototypes. 3D printing also enables you to consolidate several parts into one continuous shape and print complex geometries that aren’t possible with injection molding or CNC machining.
The most common nylon used with SLS 3D printing is PA 11 and PA 12, but there are many more. PA 11 powders are used for parts that require UV and impact resistance, while PA 12 is preferred for enhanced part strength and stiffness. There are also reinforced PA powders, also known as nylon composite powders, which usually contain either glass, aluminum, or carbon fiber particles in addition to nylon.
Certain printers have lasers that aren’t powerful enough for all nylon materials. Always check with your printer manufacturer about which materials are approved for use, because although some materials may generally work, your print may not display the promised strength or flexibility unless it’s printed on an approved machine.
An SLS printer with an open material system can produce quality parts from a wide range of materials supplied by an equally wide range of makers, so you have some choice when shopping around. A closed-system SLS machine is approved only for use by one manufacturer’s recommended materials (usually the printer maker’s).
By the time printing is complete, the parts are entirely encased in unsintered powder, which also acts as a support for the sintered parts. Luckily, with SLS it’s possible to re-use up to 50% to 70% of that unsintered powder for future prints. From a sustainability perspective, this is an advantage over traditional manufacturing.
SLS printing is messy and you’ll need equipment to “depowder” your parts and recycle the powder. There’s only a little post-processing required with SLS parts, which typically, have a matte, rough surface that can be smoothed and is especially suited for dying.
If using a FDM printer, keep in mind that nylon filament can be quite challenging to print with. Don’t expect it to print as easily as PLA or PETG. However, with the correct settings and surfaces, printing should be manageable.
There are a wide range of nylon filaments and the most popular and carbon-fiber-infused, which adds another degree of printing challenge. When selecting a nylon filament, start with the one recommended by your printer maker, which is some cases will be that brand’s own filament. 3D printer maker from UltiMaker to Bambu Lab to Stratasys, companies that offer their own nylon material have formulated it specifically for their machines and provide you with the settings (temperature, speed, etc.) that will result in the best prints.
If you go outside of the material recommendation, you’ll likely go through several failed prints figuring out the best print settings, but once you do, the process should be reliably repeatable.
Nylon filament has a tendency to warp. To reduce this, use the bed surface your filament maker recommends, which may be a garolite or glass sheet or build plate, and glue if recommended especially on small features and corners. PEI usually doesn’t stick well to nylon.
Also remember that bed temperature is crucial for good adhesion with this material. Your filament should come with ideal print settings, but below are the basics for printing with nylon filament:
As we’ve alluded to, proper storage for nylon is critical. The variants used in 3D printing are hygroscopic, meaning they absorb moisture. You could have issues after leaving your nylon out in the open for just a few hours. If you’re experiencing printing problems with your nylon, it most likely is attributable to moisture.
Different filaments absorb moisture at different rates, but there are a few common signs that you’ve got a wet spool:
If you’re noticing any of the above, it’s probably a good idea to dry your filament or buy a filament dryer.
To avoid wet filament problems, store your filament in a dry environment. We recommend a few options in our filament storage guide, as well as printing directly from a humidity-controlled container. This could be a dry box with a filament feed hole or a humidity-controlled spool holder.
