Anyone had any luck printing with PLA?

[thingevery]

...or should I return these 2 rolls I ordered?

[v8tony]

Haven't tried yet... shouldn't be a problem, right?

[Polygonhell]

You'll probaly need a fan, but otherwise it shouldn't be an issue.

[thingevery]

Ok cool. I'll just concentrate on building the thing first.

[Polygonhell]

I actually thing PLA will be better to print with than ABS, though I haven't tried it yet. I can get very good ABS prints (the best I've gotten out of any printer), but I have issues when enabling retract, the plastic is "soft" enough that a fast resume sometimes causes the filament to buckled at the entrance to the Bowden tube ruining the print. PLA is much harder and I think this will end up being a none issue in this case.

For PLA I'm going to try mounting a 120mm fan and blow air across the bed instead of mounting a fan on the extruder, I have plenty of PLA around, but I'm still waiting on the Fan to be shipped. I tried a desk fan, but it was moving so much air that the bed and hot end couldn't maintain temperature.

If I get a chance today, I'm going to pull the extruder off and figure out if there is an easy way to reduce the gap between the pinch rollers and Bowden tube entry.

[johnoly99]

Yep, just make sure to put a small (40mm) fan blowing across the PEEK section of the hotend. Make sure not too much air is blowing on the aluminum lower section, or it will cause false temp readings.

[Highcooley]

No luck so far. I just get inconstant feeding and PLA oozing out between heating block and nozzle.
Got to solve the hen & egg problem for printing a proper fan mount without a properly cooled hot-end first
Stickralon is a bad idea for PLA, as it sticks too much and doesn't pop off during cooling. Going to purchase a custom cut borosilicate glass, as soon as I get my hands on an Onyx bed.

Andy

[Polygonhell]

No luck so far. I just get inconstant feeding and PLA oozing out between heating block and nozzle.
Got to solve the hen & egg problem for printing a proper fan mount without a properly cooled hot-end first
Stickralon is a bad idea for PLA, as it sticks too much and doesn't pop off during cooling. Going to purchase a custom cut borosilicate glass, as soon as I get my hands on an Onyx bed.

Andy

Skip the borosilic glass and just go get some plain window glass cut at the local hardware store, it'll save you $ and actually works better.
I have 2 pieces of borosilic glass I used on my H1.1, you can't buy it in thin widths, so the heated bed takes much longer to get up to temperature, it's not as flat as window glass which becomes an issue with low layer heights, and it costs >10x as much.
I've never broken a piece of window glass with the heat from the heated bed, but even if you did the tape would hold it together and it's dirt cheap to replace.
In fact the primary cost AFAICS is putting up with the guy at the hardware store moaning as he tries to cut it.

[airdamien]

I'm printing in Ultimachine purple PLA. it REQUIRES a fan blowing on the top of the extruder. I've got a 40mm hardwired into the power to be on all the time. If you heat the nozzle up at all without the fan blowing, it'll jam, I promise.

[Highcooley]

No luck so far. I just get inconstant feeding and PLA oozing out between heating block and nozzle.
Got to solve the hen & egg problem for printing a proper fan mount without a properly cooled hot-end first
Stickralon is a bad idea for PLA, as it sticks too much and doesn't pop off during cooling. Going to purchase a custom cut borosilicate glass, as soon as I get my hands on an Onyx bed.

Andy

Skip the borosilic glass and just go get some plain window glass cut at the local hardware store, it'll save you $ and actually works better.
I have 2 pieces of borosilic glass I used on my H1.1, you can't buy it in thin widths, so the heated bed takes much longer to get up to temperature, it's not as flat as window glass which becomes an issue with low layer heights, and it costs >10x as much.
I've never broken a piece of window glass with the heat from the heated bed, but even if you did the tape would hold it together and it's dirt cheap to replace.
In fact the primary cost AFAICS is putting up with the guy at the hardware store moaning as he tries to cut it.

Cut some window glass myself at my workshop. So far, no glass shrapnel flying through the workshop due to temperature variability of the heated bed. Thumbs up for the encouragement to try it out

[lazerusrm]

The only time i've broken a peice of glass is by driving the print head into it.

other than that, plain window glass has never failed on me.