OrcaSlicer Nylon (PA / PA-CF) Settings & Drying Tips (2026 Guide)

My first serious nylon print failed in the most embarrassing way possible. The nozzle hissed like a tea kettle, the part looked like burnt popcorn, and I sat there staring at a 200 gram brick of stringy PA6 wondering what I had done wrong. I hadn’t touched the slicer. I’d just opened a fresh spool and hit print. Twelve hours in a SUNLU E2 at 80°C later, the same model, the same OrcaSlicer profile, came off the plate clean. The settings hadn’t changed. The water did.

That’s the punchline of this entire article, and I want to put it at the top so nobody scrolls past it. Nylon doesn’t have a settings problem. It has a water problem. Every number I’m about to give you assumes a dry spool, and if your spool isn’t dry, no profile on Earth will save the print. I’ve burned enough filament learning that lesson that I’ll keep saying it until the captions stop being German.

Table of contents

• What nylon actually is (and why the variant matters)
• OrcaSlicer’s bundled PA profiles
• Drying: the real article
• OrcaSlicer settings, the actual numbers
• Bed adhesion (PA does not stick to PEI)
• PA-CF and PAHT-CF: hardware is not optional
• Failure modes and what they really mean
• Calibration order in Orca
• Buying guide, two honest paragraphs
• Wrap

What nylon actually is (and why the variant matters)

Nylon is the consumer name for polyamide, abbreviated PA. It isn’t one material, it’s a family, and the family members behave differently enough that you can’t share a single profile across them. I learned this the hard way when I tried to print Polymaker CoPA with my eSun ePA settings and watched the bed lose adhesion at layer 30. Same word on the spool, completely different chemistry.

Here’s the cheat sheet I keep taped to the side of my dry box. It covers everything you’ll actually see on a filament shelf in 2026, with the headline mechanical numbers that matter when you’re deciding which variant to buy.

A few traits are shared across the whole family, and they’re the reason nylon is both rewarding and punishing. Nylon is hygroscopic. PA6 picks up moisture out of the air within hours, and Bambu’s own PAHT-CF product page says the selling point is that it absorbs about half as much as PA-CF. Nylon is also self-lubricating, which is why it’s the default filament for gears, bushings, hinges, and any sliding part. And when it’s printed dry, interlayer bonding (the polymer’s “reptation” behavior, if you want to sound clever in a forum) is excellent. Wet PA6 tells a different story, Sovol’s 2025 internal data showed wet samples losing up to 83% of stiffness and 42% of strength compared to dried equivalents.

The honest framing: unfilled PA12 and CoPA are the easiest entry points. PA66-CF is the hardest. PA-CF and PAHT-CF sit in the middle, hard because of the hardware they demand, not because the slicer settings are exotic. If you’re choosing between filament chemistries for an engineering project, you might also want to compare against my OrcaSlicer PC settings guide and the broader OrcaSlicer carbon fiber filaments overview, since the use cases overlap.

OrcaSlicer’s bundled PA profiles

OrcaSlicer 2.x ships with a stack of nylon profiles that cover most of what you’ll buy. I’ve verified the dropdown on the current build, here’s what you’ll see when you scroll the filament list.

Generic profiles include Generic PA, Generic PA-CF, and Generic PA6-CF. These are intentionally conservative on volumetric flow and bed temperature so they boot up on any printer, including open-frame Bowden machines. I treat them as starting points, not finals.

Bambu profiles include Bambu PA, Bambu PA-CF, Bambu PAHT-CF, and the newer Bambu PA6-GF. These are tuned for the X1C / P1S running the engineering plate. The defaults are noticeably more aggressive than the generic profiles, especially on MVS. If you’re on a Bambu printer, see my dedicated OrcaSlicer profile guide for the X1C and P1S for printer-side gotchas that interact with these filaments.

Polymaker profiles include PolyMide PA612-CF (Fiberon), PolyMide CoPA, and PolyMide PA6-CF (Fiberon PA6-CF20). Polymaker’s defaults are the closest to “use this as published” of any vendor I’ve tried, especially the PA612-CF profile.

Other vendors bundled include Fiberlogy Nylon PA12, PA12-GF15, and PA12-CF15, plus eSun ePA and ePA-CF, and Overture Easy Nylon. If you’re on a less common engineering printer like the QIDI X-Max 3 or Plus4, my OrcaSlicer guide for the QIDI X series covers the chamber-temperature overrides that make a real difference for nylon on those machines.

What Orca exposes that the stock Bambu slicer hides is the part that actually matters for PA. You get a fixed pressure advance value per filament (which moves a lot when nylon picks up water), a per-filament max volumetric speed override, per-filament min and max layer time, and a per-filament fan curve. For nylon, the PA-value tunability alone is worth switching slicers, because the right value at 0.3% moisture and the right value at 0.8% moisture are not the same number.

Drying: the real article

If you only read one section, read this one. I want to be honest about how much of my own nylon trouble traces back to ignoring this exact paragraph.

Drywise’s published measurements show that PA6 1.75 mm filament going from 1.0% moisture down to 0.5% moisture takes at least 24 hours at 80°C. The same paper says over 55% of neat nylon spools they tested arrived from the factory above the 0.75% threshold where visible defects start. Factory sealed. Vacuum bagged. Above the threshold. That’s the reality, and it’s why I treat every new spool of PA as wet until proven otherwise.

The practical moisture threshold is 0.5% by weight. Above that, you’ll see hissing or popping at the nozzle (water flashing to steam), visible bubbles or vapor at the extrusion, stringing despite well-tuned retraction, rough or fuzzy dimpled surfaces, layer delamination where parts snap clean on the Z axis, filament so brittle it breaks in the spool path, and brown discoloration when you bump the nozzle temperature to compensate. If you’re seeing more than two of those at the same time, stop, dry, restart.

Drying temperatures and times

The vendor recommendations have converged pretty tightly. Here’s what I cross-checked across Bambu Lab’s wiki, Polymaker’s product pages, Fiberlogy’s spec sheets, ColorFabb, and Drywise.

Honest answer: if you bought it on Amazon, dry it. If it sat in a closet for two weeks unsealed, dry it for 24 hours. There’s no such thing as over-drying nylon at 70 to 80°C. The plastic spool will deform above 80°C on cheaper brands, but the polymer itself is fine.

Equipment that actually works

I sort the dryer market into three tiers by whether the unit can hit real nylon temperature and whether it can dry while feeding.

Tier 1, dry and feed simultaneously: Bambu AMS HT (85°C with active vent, reads RFID, runs during the print), QIDI Box, iDryer 3, and Drywise’s inline dryer. Inline dryers are expensive and the right answer for production. The AMS HT is the right answer for Bambu users printing PA regularly.

Tier 2, dry then print fast (within 30 minutes): SUNLU E2 hits 35 to 110°C with a 500 W PTC heater, the only sub-100 dollar dryer I trust at true nylon temps. SUNLU S4, FilaDryer S4, SOVOL SH02 cap at 70 to 75°C, OK for top-ups, marginal for soaked spools. A kitchen food dehydrator usually caps at 70°C, barely viable.

Tier 3, the household oven: Works at 80°C if your oven actually holds the low end (most overshoot). Use a thermocouple, run convection, leave the door cracked. Cheap spools soften above 80°C.

Hardest truth: a SUNLU S1 maxing at 50°C labeled “good for nylon” is marketing. It’s not enough. You need an E2-class dryer, an oven you can trust at 80°C, or an AMS HT that prints from the heater. I went through a 70°C dehydrator phase that ended the day I bought the E2.

Reabsorption window

Drywise’s data shows nylon climbing back above the defect threshold within 2 to 8 hours of open-air exposure at normal household humidity. If you can’t print directly from a sealed heated dryer, the only workable approach is dry-then-print-immediately. Vacuum bags with desiccant buy you a day or two of safe storage, not a week. I treat any spool as wet again after open exposure longer than my morning coffee.

OrcaSlicer settings, the actual numbers

Now we can talk about slicer values. Remember the premise: every number below assumes a dry spool. If yours isn’t dry, scroll back up.

Nozzle temperature

Sanity-check ranges, calibrate per spool with a temp tower from the OrcaSlicer temperature tower calibration if you’re unsure.

• Unfilled PA6 / Easy Nylon / Overture: 240 to 260°C
• PA12 (Fiberlogy, Polymaker): 250 to 270°C (Fiberlogy publishes 255 to 270°C)
• CoPA / PolyMide blends: 250 to 270°C
• PA-CF generic: 260 to 280°C
• Bambu PA-CF: 280°C nozzle, first layer 280°C
• Bambu PAHT-CF: 280 to 290°C
• PA612-CF (Polymaker): 250 to 300°C
• PA66-CF / hardened blends: 290 to 310°C

The OrcaSlicer wiki publishes slightly more conservative ranges for the generic profiles (Nylon 6: nozzle 230 to 260°C, bed 90 to 110°C; Nylon 12: nozzle 225 to 260°C). I start in the middle and tower from there.

Bed temperature

• Unfilled PA: 70 to 90°C
• PA-CF / PAHT-CF: 80 to 100°C (Bambu’s published spec is 90°C)
• PA612-CF (Polymaker): 25 to 50°C, surprisingly low because the blend warps less than PA6-CF

Chamber temperature

Open printer? PA-CF is basically off the table without an enclosure mod. PA12 and CoPA are possible with a brim and Magigoo PA. Enclosed printer with passive heat (X1C, P1S, Prusa MK4S in an enclosure) handles PA12, CoPA, and PAHT-CF without drama. Active heated chamber (QIDI Plus4, X-Max 3) hitting 50 to 70°C is the sweet spot, and at that point you can run PA66-CF if you want to. For context on chamber-sensitive filaments in general, see my OrcaSlicer ABS and ASA settings guide, the chamber argument is identical there.

Cooling fan

Almost always off, and this is the biggest difference from PLA. Unfilled PA wants 0 to 10% part fan. PA-CF and PAHT-CF want 0 to 20%, some brands like the auxiliary fan at 30 to 40% for bridges only. Bambu’s PA-CF default is 0% part fan with the aux fan off. Polymaker PA612-CF is fan off. Compare with my OrcaSlicer PLA settings guide, where the fan runs at 100% most of the time, and you can see why a borrowed PLA profile destroys nylon prints in the first layer.

Retraction (direct drive)

• Generic PA: 0.5 to 1 mm at 35 to 45 mm/s
• PA-CF: 0.4 to 0.8 mm at 30 to 40 mm/s (carbon fiber stiffens the filament, less retraction needed)
• Polymaker PA612-CF: 3 mm at 40 mm/s (their published default, the longest in the family)
• Fiberlogy PA12 direct: 2 to 3 mm at 20 to 45 mm/s
• Bowden: roughly double everything, 4 to 6 mm

Max volumetric speed (MVS)

This is the value Orca exposes that you should actually calibrate, not just leave at the profile default. Starting points:

• Unfilled PA: 6 to 10 mm³/s
• PA-CF / PAHT-CF: 8 to 12 mm³/s
• PA66-CF: 8 to 10 mm³/s

Always run Orca’s Volumetric Speed Calibration test, the published numbers are starting points. Counterintuitively, carbon fiber helps MVS because it improves heat transfer through the melt. My PA-CF profile on the X1C runs at 11 mm³/s with a 0.6 mm hardened nozzle, well above the unfilled PA value on the same machine.

Pressure advance

The reason Orca beats stock Bambu Studio for nylon. PA values drift with humidity, so being able to set a per-spool value is a real advantage. Run the OrcaSlicer pressure advance test once per spool, especially if the spool has been open for more than a week. I see swings of 0.005 to 0.010 between fresh-dried and one-week-open spools on the same PA6-CF brand.

Layer height, walls, infill

0.2 mm is the safe layer height for PA-CF on a 0.4 mm hardened nozzle. 0.4 mm layer with a 0.6 mm hardened nozzle is the production-grade combo, better layer adhesion, fewer fiber clogs, faster prints. Three to five walls for structural parts, nylon’s strength is in the walls, not the infill. Keep infill in the 15 to 40% range, above 50% the shrinkage stacks and parts warp.

First layer settings

• First layer temp: +5 to +10°C over print temp
• First layer speed: 20 to 30 mm/s
• First layer height: 0.24 to 0.28 mm (slightly thicker than default)
• Brim: 5 to 8 mm mouse-ear style
• Z offset: slightly tighter than for PLA (squish helps adhesion at the cost of mild elephant foot)
• Disable part fan for the first 5 layers, full stop

Bed adhesion (PA does not stick to PEI)

This is the second hardest truth of the article, and I want to put it plainly: PA does not stick reliably to bare PEI, textured or smooth. The Bambu textured PEI plate is generally rated by users at zero to poor adhesion for unfilled nylon. I learned this when my first PA6 print picked up the entire textured plate corner off the base and pulled it into the gantry. Don’t be me.

The four approaches that work, ranked by reliability for the home shop.

What does not work in practice: bare textured PEI, bare smooth PEI, hairspray (fine for PLA, fails for nylon), painters tape, and Kapton tape alone. Don’t waste your time. If you’re committed to nylon and you don’t want to buy Garolite, get a bottle of Magigoo PA. That’s the cheapest reliable path.

The OrcaSlicer first-layer settings I listed above (slow, hot, thick, brimmed, fan off) work hand-in-hand with whichever surface you pick. Surface chemistry alone isn’t enough, but neither is squish alone. You need both. If you want a deeper dive into first-layer tuning across filaments, my OrcaSlicer flow rate calibration guide covers the extrusion side of the equation.

PA-CF and PAHT-CF: hardware is not optional

Chopped carbon fiber filaments contain 10 to 20% CF by weight. The fibers are roughly the same hardness as the bore of a brass nozzle. They wear that bore through in 200 to 500 grams of printing. I’ve personally killed two brass nozzles to PA-CF before I accepted that this isn’t a setting, it’s a hardware change.

Hardware non-negotiables

• Hardened steel nozzle, mandatory. Tungsten carbide or ruby preferred for production. CHT (Bondtech) and Volcano-style high-flow hardened nozzles also help MVS for CF blends.
• All-metal hotend. PTFE-lined hotends melt at PA-CF temperatures above 260°C. Bambu’s hotend is already all-metal, this matters mostly for older Creality or Ender variants.
• 0.4 mm nozzle minimum, 0.6 mm preferred. The fibers clump and clog small orifices, especially after a retraction.
• Hardened extruder gear. Pulley bearings and feeders also wear from CF dust over time, even if the nozzle is hard.

Why the wider nozzle matters

Less stagnation in the melt zone means less fiber bundling. Better fiber alignment along the extrusion path improves mechanical properties. Higher MVS means faster prints. The combo I run for any PA-CF production part is 0.6 mm hardened nozzle, 0.4 mm layer height, 4 walls. It prints faster, looks better, and clogs less.

Temperature compensation

A hardened steel nozzle has worse heat transfer than brass. Bump nozzle temperature 5 to 15°C over the published brass-nozzle value for any CF filament. CHT-style high-flow nozzles get closer to brass thermal performance but still want a small bump.

The Z-axis strength caveat

Here’s something marketing pages don’t mention. PA-CF prints stiffer and stronger in tension along the print plane, but the carbon fibers do not cross layer boundaries. Z-axis strength is often slightly worse than unfilled PA in real tests. If your part is loaded along Z (think a hook, a bracket pulled vertically), choose unfilled CoPA or PA12 over PA-CF, and orient the part so the load runs in X or Y if possible.

Where PA-CF is the right answer

• Fixtures, jigs, and mounts that need stiffness and dimensional stability
• Drone frames and RC parts where every gram counts
• Tooling that runs warm (PAHT-CF can take 100°C+ continuous service)
• Anything that needs to look professional, the matte finish of CF prints is hard to beat

Where unfilled PA is the right answer

• Living hinges (CF fibers crack at the fold, unfilled PA flexes)
• Snap fits and clips
• Gears, especially wet-running gears (PA is self-lubricating)
• Bushings and bearings
• Impact-loaded parts (CNC Kitchen’s testing showed PA6 impact strength tripled in wet conditions, the dry-CF version is brittle by comparison)

Failure modes and what they really mean

I keep this table on the same dry-box sticker as the variant cheat sheet. When a print fails on PA, ninety percent of the time the symptom maps to one of these rows, and the fix maps to “dry it” or “fix bed prep”. Cross-reference with my OrcaSlicer troubleshooting master guide for symptoms that aren’t filament-specific.

If you read down that table, the same three causes keep showing up: moisture, chamber temperature, and the wrong nozzle. Fix those three and you’ve fixed the majority of nylon failures you’ll ever see.

Calibration order in Orca

I get asked a lot what order to run the calibration tests in for a new PA spool. Here’s the sequence I use, and it’s saved me a lot of wasted filament.

1. Dry the spool. 80°C, 12 hours minimum, 24 hours if the spool has been open or you’re not sure. This is non-negotiable, nothing else you do matters if you skip this.
2. Volumetric Speed Calibration (Calibration menu in Orca, or run it manually). Pick the MVS that gives clean extrusion at your target speed. Cross-reference my flow rate calibration walkthrough.
3. Temperature tower if you’re unsure of the melt range. Useful for an unknown vendor spool, optional for Bambu or Polymaker where the published number is reliable. See my temperature tower guide.
4. Pressure advance test. Critical for nylon because the right value moves with moisture. My PA guide covers the test and how to read the result.
5. One small test print before committing to a 24-hour job. A 30-minute calibration cube is cheaper than a failed overnight print.

If you’re contrasting with easier filaments while learning the workflow, my OrcaSlicer PETG settings guide uses the same calibration order with much more forgiving filament, and the OrcaSlicer TPU settings guide covers another moisture-sensitive (but flexible) material where these tests behave differently. For the broader filament pillar overview, the OrcaSlicer filament settings hub links everything together.

Buying guide, two honest paragraphs

First spool? Get Polymaker PolyMide CoPA or Fiberlogy PA12. Both are warp-resistant, easy to print, live under 50 USD a kilo, and teach you the basics of drying without punishing every mistake the way PA6 does. CoPA in particular is forgiving enough that I recommend it as the training-wheels nylon for anyone who’s only printed PLA and PETG.

For production, Bambu PAHT-CF on the AMS HT is the path of least resistance. The dryer runs during the print, the engineering plate plus glue stick recipe is well-documented, and the hotend doesn’t need any modification. Polymaker Fiberon PA612-CF is the runner-up on non-Bambu printers with active chamber heat. Avoid cheap eBay or AliExpress generic PA. Out-of-box moisture is unmanageable and nozzle wear is often worse than name brands.

Wrap

If I had to compress this entire article into a single line, it would be the one at the top: nylon doesn’t have a settings problem, it has a water problem. Every published number in this guide assumes a dry spool. Every clever calibration is downstream of drying. And every hardware purchase (the AMS HT, the SUNLU E2, the hardened nozzle, the Garolite plate or the Magigoo bottle) is part of the same package. You don’t get to skip parts and still print PA-CF reliably.

For the slicer side, OrcaSlicer’s per-filament pressure advance and per-filament max volumetric speed are the two reasons I switched from Bambu Studio for engineering filaments specifically. PA values drift with humidity. MVS values change between brands. Orca lets you pin both per spool, and that alone justifies the workflow change. If you want to dig into the broader filament pillar, the OrcaSlicer filament settings hub is the entry point, and my siblings on PC settings, ABS and ASA, and carbon fiber filaments cover adjacent territory.

Dry it, print it, store it. There is no fourth step.

Related OrcaSlicer guides

• Best OrcaSlicer Filament Settings: All Materials Cheatsheet
• How to Use Bambu Lab AMS Filaments with OrcaSlicer (2026 Guide)
• OrcaSlicer Filament Drying Guide: When and How to Dry It
• OrcaSlicer Silk PLA Settings for That Glossy, Satin Finish
• OrcaSlicer VFA Test: Diagnose Vertical Fine Artifacts (2026 Guide)