A question for 3DPC on filaments

#1

I’m looking at your filament, specifically PLA or preferably PLA+ and I need a recommendation as to which one is the best that you sell.

Standard PLA - I have not used this. Has good reviews

3D MAX - I have this in transparent, The colour or lack of it is great, if it wasn’t for the layer line refraction it would be close to glass. There are many complaints about 3D MAX being tangled but so far I have not had this problem, otherwise it seems good.

Sakata - I have not used this. Has good reviews

I have also used the value pla, (not a PLA+) two roles, blue and black. The black was troublesome, warped off of the bed and layer separation on larger prints. The blue was perfect. I am looking for a material that is not too brittle to print thin parts. The Matter 3d looks interesting but it is a bit more of a print challenge then I need right now. I will try it in the future instead of switching to PETG. Which of these would be best or is there a different option. I have been researching all over the web and it is a contradicting mess, reviews are mixed even for the so called best brands. So I would like your opinion if you can.

My preference is to stay with 3DPC, prices are usually better then Amazon.CA and delivery is quick.

#2

Well from my expierence, different brands can like different settings. That veing said ive become lazy and just use prusament pla stock settings as my baseline, and adjust from there.

As for picking which one is the “best” its a bit too subjective from my perspective. I find ive had pretty great results with the store brand PLA, and ive been happy with the value PLA aswell. I have 1 roll of 3d max and yeah so far no tangles, but i wouldnt be suprised if i end up with one. I have been eyeballing the Sakata filament, but havent tried it out yet.

Sorry this kinda confirmed your post. Though what were you intending on printing thatll need thin walls?

#3

It really is personal preference and how your machine is setup. Having said that. I will give you my experience. I have both an Ender 3 and Ender 3 pro.

For absolute ease of printing, looks great, great for stringing, great for steep overhangs - value pla, but not just any value pla. The SILVER. It seems to be very forgiving,. Sounds like you had a similar experience with blue. I have tried other colours of value and they are fine, but I had more troubles getting black value PLA to look good. This PLA is kind of brittle and softens and distorts at a relatively low temperature,

Matter3d - great for strength, but hard to get rid of stringing, and I had to crank the temperature (with stainless steel nozzle) to 245… But it is very strong and food safe and good for objects that will see a higher heat. I have used prints in -10c for scraping snow and they did were fine

IIIDmax - again depending on colour, I have found both the green and blue relatively easy to print and seem to be stronger than I would have expected… This might be one for you to try, but it was thicker parts that I printed that I found really strong, didn’t try really thin stuff.

Sakata - I Have only tried the black and results are more similar to Matter3d. Higher temps (220) seem necessary or nozzle clogs more likely. Seems good for strength, much more consistent finish and result than value black.

Standard PLA, I have tried grey and purple, both seem a little less brittle than the value PLA and relatively easy to print too.

#4

My experience is limited to 3DPC’s value PLA, 3D Max, and the Euro PLA and PETG, and note the following:

1 roll of black Value PLA - for the price, good for prototyping, never really tried thin walls with it and therefore never really noticed any brittleness, fair adhesion to the build plate, and slightly lower than normal extrusion temp. The filament feels rough to the touch, like it did not come out flowing smoothly during manufacturing. This said, it seems to have more friction passing thru 2mm ID PTFE tubing.

1 roll of blue 3D Max - also good for prototyping and fine prints. It prints well, good surface looking finish, typical extrusion temp, very good adhesion to build plate, a smooth filament, and generally a good filament if it weren’t for the bad spooling and variation in filament diameter on the roll I got.

1 roll of red, gray, black, and silver Euro PLA. Very predictable filament, prints well, typical PLA temp extrusion, very good bed adhesion, great roll winding, and consistent filament diameter. Filament feels smooth and overall a good filament when it is available and on sale. Color variety may be lacking? Because of the lack of inventory and color selection when I was in need of PLA, I tried eSUN PLA+ and eSUN PLA silk. I was pleasantly surprised and now have an inventory of various colors in eSUN PLA+. I would be so happy if 3DPC would start carrying this line, as I have had great ordering and service experience with them and know their pricing is generally very competitive.

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#5

Hi Filek,

I am the owner of Matter3D. I would love to discuss the stringing with you. We generally print our filament at 230 - 235 °C with a retraction in the 1 mm range. We noticed that this really helps with the stringing.
Please let me know if there is anything else we can help with.
Aman

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#6

I’m not printing a lot of thin walled items but I find that regular PLA is too brittle and if you do have a thin section and try and flex it even a little it will snap off. PLA+ is generally, in my experience, more flexible so I like to use that. I’m looking for a good “go to” PLA+ filament.

#7

Hi Guy, thanks for all your feedback, I am the lucky one here I get to try out ALOT of filament.

I will focus more on my at-home gear, At my place we all print at different times, My wife and kids along with myself. 100% my go-to is our house brand labelled 3DPC PLA or PETG. If I am going to check for Fit or “test” I am PLA, prints pretty friendly and has very good adhesion. It can be “brittle” but again this is a VERY subjective word.

I generally use PLA for looking at stuff, and PETG if I need some real Function. Nylon or PETG-CF if I need it super strong, Don’t generally use a lot of ABS mostly because of the off-gas and I have small children in the house.

VERY generally speaking, Once I am printing within the filament I am looking for my light and pastel colours I will print at the low end of the range. Blues, blacks or greens I will up it by 5 to 10 deg because of the additional colourant. I find this is a pretty good matrix for printing. All of the machines in my prototype lab are all direct drive so my retractions are between 1.5 and 2mm.

I have printed thin wall items with both PLA and PETG, the interesting property between them is how much they flex before they break. I find PLA has a low level of bend before breaking whereas PETG will bend and most of the time will develop a permanent bend or deflection before it will break altogether. Bearing in mind the thickness of the item has a huge effect on this as well. I am speaking very generally on thin items. Nylon will happily bend way more than you think it should before it will deform but again you have to take into account that it is a more difficult filament to print with.

From my experience on my farm weakness or bonding, issues are almost always a machine issue or slicer setting. layer lines are just a fact of FDM printing, you can make them much less noticeable with Matt or silk filaments or doing some post-processing although this is my least favourite part of all of this.

Hope this helps
J

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#8

Thanks Jason.

The house brand is that the Value brand or the Standard brand or something else.

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#9

Thank you Aman_Bains, I think that part of it was a low quality stainless steel nozzle I was using, but experimenting with retraction settings did eliminate the stringing, except there for some fine “fuzz” that seems to collect on the corners mostly It is very fine, the colour of the pla and easily gets sucked into the fans.

I will re-iterate that the materr3d pla+ is very strong. I printed a 2.5 mm think rectangular attachment to a broom handle to clear snow off of our solar panels and have used it to chip ice off the ground at -10 and it did not break

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#10

@Filek I have found that nozzle effects stringing a fair bit. It also IMO effects general pring quality. For the cost of the filament, power and TIME. a high grade nozzle isn’t expensive. I switched to an x nozzle for my Prusa and that turned out to be very good for me. In any case I often change the nozzle if I start to get excessive stringing and retraction changes make small differences.

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#11

HI @Loosenut

Value brand, Standard Line are 2 different manufactures.

Our standard line is the same manufacture as we have had since chris started the business. Always been the same, never changed.