Fiber Printing

How to use Fiber slice options

C6 is uniquely designed to work with Fiber 3D printing. Currently it supports, and is mainly tested with, Fabheads' FabMachines F3 Fiber 3D printers.

Fiber 3D printing - How and Why is it tricky

If you want to know how Fiber 3D printing is different from plastic 3D printing, check out the details in Fiber 3D Printing

Fiber 3D printing with C6

To slice a part with fibers, you need to understand Fiber print settings first.

Assuming you have a good understanding of Fiber print settings in C6, you can proceed to slice a part with fibers by enabling Print Fiber option in Advanced Settings.

Start with default settings for fiber.

C6 Fiber Print settings

Use a Fiber compatible part

A fiber compatible part is where required portions can be printed with Fiber, without a length based restriction (as explained in Fiber 3D Printing nuances)

E.g. If you're planning to print fiber walls, a part where each of the perimeter has a length more than the Fiber Cut Distance will work nicely. Also, because of minimum turn radius for fiber, it is recommended to avoid sharp corners.

A brake lever can be a compatible part for Fiber print

Post processing

A quick glance on the g-code preview tells us that the fiber slicing was successful, and we can see fiber walls on the outer perimeter of the part. Since we chose only 1 fiber wall, total 3 walls are printed (1 outer plastic wall + 1 fiber wall + 1 inner plastic wall)

Fiber laid after the cut action is visible in lighter gray.

A brake lever part sliced with fiber walls using C6

Effect of Alternate Fiber Layers

When you choose Alternate Fiber Layers, the result looks like following.

Alternate fiber layers with C6

Effect of Fiber Cut Offset

You can observe that inner holes in the brake lever did not get a fiber wall. This is because the Fiber Cut Offset was given as 90mm. This distance is more than the single perimeter of the inner holes. Hence no fiber in the inner holes. (More details in Fiber 3D Printing nuances)

(Fiber laid after the cut command is visible in lighter gray. This gives you a clear idea of how long is the Fiber Cut Offset. )

Walls without fiber

Those walls which couldn't accommodate fiber due to perimeter length, an equal count of walls is printed with plastic walls.

Non-fiber walls are printed with plastic with equal count

Fiber Legend and Info

You can also see there are extra legend options when Fiber Slicing is used. The darker color is for Fiber Walls, the lighter gray is for the fiber that is laid after cut.

Nozzle 2 material length gives info about how much fiber will be required for this print.