Filament Good and Bad.

[jasco13]

Where are you getting your filament?
Filament you've had good luck with and filament to avoid.

Just trying to organize some useful info. Post up what you know.

[dougmsbbs]

http://3dprinterstuff.com/

That's where I get mine. Had good luck with them so far.

[tom10122]

mine was the cheapest pla on ebay seems fine

[michaellatif]

http://ultimachine.com/

Have not had a single bad spool, I have run through 2 5lbs natural, 4 1kg spools of black, 2 1kg spool of red and a 1kg spool of white.
Its a bit more pricey, but I feel like its well worth the cost.

[Polygonhell]

Some colors are worse than others, but it's unusual to get a bad roll.
Judging from posts on the reprap forums, Black filament seems to have more issues than other colors.
This blew me away though http://richrap.blogspot.com/2012/06/jam ... -1518.html ballbearings in his natural PLA.

[wildideas1]

I have gotten best results from 3dprinterstuff.com they happen to be located in my home state and great service and expediting on orders.

[jasco13]

Some colors are worse than others, but it's unusual to get a bad roll.
Judging from posts on the reprap forums, Black filament seems to have more issues than other colors.
This blew me away though http://richrap.blogspot.com/2012/06/jam ... -1518.html ballbearings in his natural PLA.

Yeah, I saw that post a week or so ago and was the reason I posted this. Just trying to save others (including me) some grief if there is some known bad material.

[jasco13]

Other links.

Sources and reviews.

http://reprap.org/wiki/Filament_supplier_reviews

http://reprap.org/wiki/Printing_Material_Suppliers

[tom10122]

Found where I got my filament on ebay, http://www.ebay.com/itm/140764142266?ss ... 1439.l2649 the seller name is proto-printer, I get jams of course but its because of me, I Don't have anything to prevent them. I did manage to go a whole week with no jams though

[Polygonhell]

A 40mm fan pointed at the thermal break on the hotend and I haven't had a jam in months, prior to that printing with PLA guaranteed a jam if the print was long.

[tom10122]

I'm working on it , once I get rid of the skew I'll print something out

[Highcooley]

http://ultimachine.com/

Have not had a single bad spool, I have run through 2 5lbs natural, 4 1kg spools of black, 2 1kg spool of red and a 1kg spool of white.
Its a bit more pricey, but I feel like its well worth the cost.

Hey Mike

I am having a hard time with Ultimachine white PLA (haven't tried any other colour yet), printing with Steve's-Extruder & Hotend combination and additional cooling fan for the hotend on a Rostock Max (bowden). Could you please post a couple of setting combinations (temp, speed, retract) which work for you. Would be much appreciated.

THX

Andy

[3DPrintingpro]

Try BotFeeder Filaments (Taiwan), it works for me.
3dtrend.net

[kbob]

Try BotFeeder Filaments (Taiwan), it works for me.
3dtrend.net

3DPrintingpro, you've got a little conflict of interest here. You've only ever made one other post on this forum. The other post is an ad for your store where you sell BotFeeder filaments.

[Jimustanguitar]

I ordered my last filament from inventables.com . It's the same Toner Plastics material that SeeMeCNC sells with their kits, but there are a ton more color choices.

[Polygonhell]

Rather than things like xxx works for me, it would be really useful if people could measure the plastic they get and report on how round and how consistent the diameter is over say a 2M length, I find that to be pretty much the best indicator of filament quality and it directly impacts print quality, because even a 0.1mm diameter change on 1.75mm filament is >10% change in extruded volume.

[3DPrintingpro]

yes, I agreed how consistent the diameter is very important.
On the market, we usually only see 1.75 mm +/- 0.10 mm or 3.00 mm +/- 0.10 mm.

BotFeeder Filaments Specifications:
1.75 mm +/- 0.05 mm
3.00 mm +/- 0.05 mm

If you have any other quality concerns, please let me know.
So I will talk to the manufacturer to see if they can improve the filament quality.
After all, we are looking to supply better quality filament at a reasonable price.

[Polygonhell]

Sure and the actual measured values over say 2m at 10cm intervals?
The reason I ask this is because I've measured filament from various vendors and the actual variation has little to do with the provided spec.
I've got rolls of Ultimachine ABS here where variation over say 2m is much better than the stated spec, and rolls of PLA from SeeMeCNC where the variation is hideously bad.
I doubt anyone is asking the manufacturer for any worse than +/-0.1, but that ought to be the outside of the spec, the measured actual diameters are a much better indicator.

[kbob]

I ordered my last filament from inventables.com . It's the same Toner Plastics material that SeeMeCNC sells with their kits, but there are a ton more color choices.

How were you able to determine the manufacturer? I bought one reel from SeeMeCNC with my printer and three reels from Inventables, but my printer is not yet running yet and I've had no chance to compare the filaments.

[3DPrintingpro]

You are perfectly correct !!!

Before I partnered with this Taiwanese manufacturer with 35 years of experience in plastic.
I tired 3 China's suppliers: 1)LDO 2)Shenzhen Bio 3)China Best Tech.

The results are not as good as I expected.
I run into problems like: moisture in filament, consistency of the diameter, roughness of surface, broken spool, teared vacuum bag, ...

This is only my experience, I am sure there are good Chinese suppliers out there.
But I am tired to received low quality samples from them. Wasting my time and $$.

I can foresee that as 3D Printer matured, the nozzle size will is as small as 0.01mm or even smaller.
If the filaments did not have a filter treatment (to filter out any particles that are larger than 0.01mm), most likely you will run into problems of jamming your valuable 3D printers.