What is best for 3d print pulley? PETG, Nylon, Polycarbonate, ABS?

I just saw someone do this… sound about perfect. Think i might try the same for some Electric Flywheels…

Great. I think i will do that. Thanks for the help

tbh, thats plenty expensive. i get ABS, PETG and PLA for 20€/kg

I use Nylon Carbon Fiber filament from Eumakers and feel so light and strong.

I can get Nylon sticking to bed thanks to the glass and 3D Lac

IMO carbon nylon is the best material ever!

~500 miles on a PETG pulley so far. It’s soft enough to deform slightly when rocks get between the belt and pulley (vs cracking), but strong enough to keep the belt from slipping on 12s.

It’s a fairly easy material to print, I would say as easy as PLA. Doesn’t need a heated enclosure, and it’s better to print it without a cooling fan to get good layer adhesion. Warp isn’t an issue with this material so it’s very dimensionally stable.

PLA is strong and easy to print, but deforms when it gets hot outside and not a great choice for this application.

ABS is probably a little stronger than PETG, but it’s harder to print, and even harder to print strong without warp that separates layers.

Nylon and PC are superior materials in pretty much all respects, but they are the most difficult to print. Heated enclosures, tons of warp, expensive spools of material, less experience/support online, etc.

When factoring ease of printing, reliability on the skateboard, and price, PETG is the winner, with ABS a close second.

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Hello, I used PLA for prototyping, then PETG and Nylon for final parts. The best result based on my experience is with Nylon Alloy 910 from Taulman. I print in black and the result is very beautiful at 0.200 microns, it’s very easy to print with PVA on the heat bed at 60C, and nozzle at 260C (no wrapping issues and I have printed large enclosures, large wheel pulleys for mountain boards and quadcopter frames…). Nylon is more resistant to friction that PETG and it’s also soft enough and resistant to never crack on shocks or small rocks. I never broke any piece in Nylon, while I broke same exact same piece in PETG during soft comparison testing. The price is higher yes, but I think it worth it for pulleys.

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Bumping this one up! We have more options now and more people are using 3d printing for some parts. So let’s update- what works, what doesn’t, what are you trying next? I’ve had some success with pulleys printed with alloy 910, it warped a bit but was still usable. Has anyone else. What material works best for pulleys? I’m thinking I’ll try using alloy 910 for motor mounts for an MTB with space for idlers next, see if I can size them smaller than if I were using abs.

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I’ve had two nylon printed pulleys.

One was warped and started delaminating after very little use. Got a replacement pulley, same material, that has worked for several months without issues.

I guess it comes down a lot to how it’s printed as well.

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I have had great luck with 3D Solutech PETG for wheel pulleys, pneumatic hubs pulleys specifically. I haven’t tried printed pulleys on my flywheels yet. Nylon from microcenter has worked great for gears for me. Even nylon motor gears held up much better than I thought they would. I love nylon! If you can print 250C+, have a heated bed that can reach 105C+ and an enclosure, nylon is probably the best for everything we print for our boards imo… PETG is just too brittle sometimes ime.

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U can print pulleys with every material… also PLA has a very good layer adhesion and can be super strong. The only problem is that It melt quickly on extrem hot days or at least destabilize… I recommend a good ABS print. Low layer height, 80% infill (no, not 100%… think about an pipe… what is more stable? A steel pipe or a steel rod?), 10 degrees more Temperatur, a little bit too much flow AND closed printing enclosure! Then u ll have a 3D printed pulley who ll last a very long time :wink:

im using the fillamentum nylon-cf15-carbon filament for my pulleys Its a nylon carbon mixture. Im printing it with 50% infill and the wheel pulleys hold very well. For the motors im staying with metal ones. The wheels pulleys i have to say that i also tried polycarbonate (polymaker pc-max) which also is very reliable but im preferring the cf15 cause it has a bit of flex in it and wont crack tht easy Im printing it with 50% and a large raft to avoid warping which works fine An enclosure also helps to print this kind of stuff easier.IMG_5652 Gonna send a better pic of pulley soon

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@StefanMe that’s a good point about the infill. I was doing something similar, though more for the weight savings. @sharky are you using a steel nozzle to deal with the carbon? How does it compare to regular nylon filament? My biggest problem is always poor supports but I think that’s down to my slicer software (slic3r). I’m going to try cura, and a guy at a makerfair recently told me that simplify3d is absolutely worth the money- his words. What do you guys think? Does anyone have stl. files for 60, 66, 70, or 72 tooth pulleys? Finding accurate files for these is proving difficult.

Yepp im using a steel nozzle to avoid the wear down Cant tell anything about normal nylon cause i never printed it Did you searched on thingiverse for the pulleys? Ive seen 72t htt5m there

Yeah, I found those too, but no other sizes. In case anyone else is looking here’s what I found:

I just want to point out, the main contributor to strength is the wall thickness/wall count. I usually do anywhere between 30-50% infill (100% for small nylon parts though), but 2+mm thick bottom/top layers, and 6-7 walls.

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FWIW I’m using Amazon Basics PETG for my pulleys. Been good for about a week now. Settings below.

90% infill 4 vertical walls 10/10 horizontal layers .2mm layer height

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Thts how mine are lookingIMG_5809 Yepp exactly i also have 4 outlines/ walls

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that looks really clean sir!

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Hey man! I have a gear generator where you can type in Teeth number modul type width and so on if you tell me which rims youre using i try to draw something for you which tooth number is the most important for you? KR

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Thanks man! 60 at the moment. I tried doing a 70t nylon one from a sldw file I found, but I couldn’t fix the spacing between the teeth, so the belt didn’t fit comfortably. IMG_20181030_172142

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