Having some issues with the gray pla+ from 3D printing Canada brand i have never had a clog on my printer i tried twice to start a back plate for a helmet to try out this filament and both times i came back an found it clogged and printing in mid air i restarted the same print this morning with my normal brand and its printing fine now same print file under closer inspection i noticed that the 3D Canada brand of pla+ is much softer then the pla+ ive been using and was squishing inside the roller causing it to clog and get stuck in the bowden tube the second time i ended up having replace the bowden tube i was really hoping the pla+ was comparable to what ive been using i find the pla+ i use to provide very good print results but the company has horrible customer relations and 0 customer service support or contact i have had no response for months so i would like to find another brand to use
Hey Clarke,
Sorry to hear about the problems you have been having with the PLA+, what temperature have you been printing it at? I have never run into this issue before, most of the time I print it at 200c, just make sure that you don’t have the tension set too tight on the extruder.
As for the customer service, are you referring to bad customer service through the other PLA company or through our company. If you have had some problems with our company I would love to know some more details in order to track down what happened! Please send me a PM with some more info.
Thanks,
Matthew
I am impatient. I want to be able to just switch from one PLA to another and not do anything to the printer. However, I have found that this dream world is not real.
I have some Light Blue PLA that just will not print at the same settings that other brands do. I can get it to work, but I have to tune for that PLA. But then if I switch to my Black PLA, with the same settings it strings like cob webs.
While it sucks to do, for the best prints you may have to tune for each filament you use.
Now, if you use all the same brand, they are usually fine if it is just a different color. But if you change brands, plan to do some tests and adjust to fine tune for that filament.
Someday I am going to just pick a brand and buy nothing but that brand so I can fine tune for that brand and then maybe only need to make very minor adjustments from color to color. Though, that may also be a dream world. One can dream.
BTW, here is a great place to start. Follow his calibrations and I bet you can get anything to work. https://teachingtechyt.github.io/calibration.html
In my personal experience have very predictable printers to produce a very specific part, one of my customers ordered it in Black instead of the normal White, I Loaded the new filament and boom, My prints did not look good at all. This is where I found out that even different colour bands in the same filament can have an effect on the outcome. I have to print black 5 Deg hotter with lower fan % then while of the same manufacture and type. PLA seem to be the most sensitive to it, PETG, and ABS less so but I can still see the effect.
The largest problem I generally have is going from differeent types of filament, PLA+, PLA, PETG ABS. All have their temps they like to print at. If I change from ABS to PLA and my print quality is not good I will do a cold pull on the hot end to clean out any left over ABS. generally helps the issue as ABS may melt at 250, you are printing PLA at 200, the ABS left over in the head will never melt and will just appear as a partial clog.
Just a couple of my observations.
Hey thanks for your response i was referring to the other company who’s filament I’ve been using there customer service is non existing and im definitely looking for a new brand with better customer service i have my temperature set to 220 as indicated on the roll with all my PLA+ filaments im not sure it was the temperature because i can squish the PLA+ with plyers right on the roll i cant do this as easy with other PLA+ filaments i have my printer quite well dialed in and haven’t had any issues with my rollers i included a photo of the print i was attempting with your filament this part is printed with my other grey PLA+ same Gcode file and no adjustments other then changing the bowden tube back to stock because i had no Capricorn left and swapping filament so i really don’t think its a printer error I’ve also swapped between PLA+ and normal PLA without any roller squishing thats why i was thinking that the batch could just be a little soft on that run
batch no#202310670
Thanks for your reply i appreciated the tips for my props and most of what i print and my current printer i only use PLA+ i tried a few normal PLA but it didn’t prep and sand as well as PLA+ for the last few months ive only been using one brand of PLA+ because it works but im looking for better pricing i really dont think it was my machine i dont necessarily want to adjust the roller just to print this 1 roll and I had some normal PLA left over i had swapped out not that long ago for a small print and i didn’t have any issues thats why i kinda feel likes its a bit odd the PLA+ seems softer than a normal PLA
Thanks i definitely understand your point and do not like re adjusting everything all the time most of the time i only use one brand and one color for this reason but the prices are not great and they have zero customer service or support and haven’t replied on any outlet for months so id like to find something else I really feel as though this specific roll at least is exceptionally soft i just tried this morning running other brands of PLA+ and normal PLA through the rollers to see and none of them squished like that did
Hey Clarke,
I have never personally had any issues with our PLA+, was this just the one roll which was acting up or are all of them the same?
On thing you may want to check is your extruder tension, if it is too tight then you could have some problems like what you are experiencing here.
Matt