PLA natural Wood Filament - Some settings and experiences

[Agisis]

I posted a thread about an egyptian style city I printed in PLA wood and someone made the recommendation that I share some of my settings. Below is some of the experiences I had with Alchament PLA Natural Wood. Brand is important because as we know, manufacturing processes differ and so do the settings. I think some of this information would likely cross brands though because wood filament is unlike anything I've seen.

Main Notes:
1) It's thick. It's clumpy. It is temperature cranky.
2) I had the best luck using a 0.7mm nozzle, but did a solid number of good prints with my 0.5mm before it started to clog a lot.
3) Prime prime prime. The wood in there cooks very quickly and changes the consistency, so between prints you want to prime a lot of filament to get it going.
4) Running it a little hot for PLA resulted in the best results. Three is certainly some clumping/stringing you will have to deal with, but if you run it too cool the stuff won't come out of the nozzle.
5) If you run the retraction length too high or too fast, the motor gets hot and the PLA/Wood combo will get doughy in the extruder and snap. That happened over and over again. I have a heat sink on my NEMA and it still happened. That said, it did not happen always and there were times I could run it much faster. It's just a really weird material. It may work great for a while and then a part of it changes consistency and then it rips.

MATERIAL SETTINGS:
filament_diameter = 1.71
extrusion_multiplier = 1.05
temperature = 207
bed_temperature = 60
min_fan_speed = 60
max_fan_speed = 100
bridge_fan_speed = 100
disable_fan_first_layers = 2
slowdown_below_layer_time = 10
min_print_speed = 5
wipe = 0
retract_restart_extra = 0.1


QUALITY SETTINGS:
layer_height = 0.15
first_layer_height = 0.3
perimeters = 2
avoid_crossing_perimeters = 1
extra_perimeters = 1
start_perimeters_at_non_overhang = 1
top_solid_layers = 9
bottom_solid_layers = 3
fill_density = 0.35
infill_type = TRIANGLES
only_retract_when_crossing_perimeters = 1
infill_speed = 30
perimeter_speed = 30
external_perimeter_speed = 20
support_material_speed = 20
bridge_speed = 70
min_print_speed = 5
travel_speed = 350
first_layer_speed = 11
fill_angle = 0
infill_overlap_perimeter = 0.06
bottom_clip_amount = 0
skirts = 2
skirt_distance = 3
min_skirt_length = 2
center_part_on_bed = 1
first_layer_extrusion_width = 0.4
support_material_extruder = 1
bed_size = 150,150
print_center = 0,0
z_offset = 0
bed_shape = circular
gcode_output_type = REPRAP
z_can_be_negative = 0
start_gcode = M104 S{temperature}\nM190 S{bed_temperature}\nM109 S{temperature}\nG28
end_gcode = M104 S0 ; turn off temperature\nM140 S0\nG91\nG1 Z10 E-5.0 F12000\nG90\nG28 \nM84 ; disable motors
pause_gcode = G91\nG1 Z10 E-10 F12000\nG90
resume_gcode = G91\nG1 Z-10 E10.8 F12000\nG90
cancel_gcode = M104 S0\nM140 S0\nG28\nM4
nozzle_diameter = 0.7
retract_length = 11
retract_lift = 0.3
retract_speed = 7
retract_before_travel = 5
min_extrusion_before_retract = 1



All that said, printing it wood was FUN. It created some of the most novel pieces I have printed with a very unique feel to them. It works great for stuff that is supposed to look ancient and stoney.

[ZakRabbit]

Beautiful writeup! Thank you for sharing your experience!