Awful Filament (Many issues)

[Brian]

When I bought my Rostock Max V2 I ordered ABS filament in a variety of colors I would typically use for the parts I intend to make. I ended up getting a roll of navy blue filament from Sainsmart on Amazon as part of my order. I had a roll of black Sainsmart ABS in the past and it was good quality, so I was not hesitant to get the navy blue from them.

The first issue I had with the roll is that after printing about 1/8 of the roll, there was a spot on the roll where the previous windings on the roll crossed the later windings. I am not sure how the heck it could be wound like this, but the filament coming off the roll reached this point and snagged, which caused the filament to stop feeding and starved the print. I had to remove the roll from the printer and manually untangle the windings on the roll.

After that is worked fine.

Recently, I have been playing with different polishing methods (sanding, hand buffing, acetone vapor, etc.) and I noticed that on my navy blue prints that there are fluctuations in the color over layers that become obvious when polished. Think of it like a random gradient going from the bottom to top laters of the print. It ruins the look of my polished prints.

It got worse.

I printed a large item yesterday and when it was finished, I noticed that I could see filament starvation on certain layers and not others on the print. There would be a small band of starvation in the print in a few layers. I could also see that the starved areas did not have the same color as the rest of the layers. They starved layers were very light in color. Almost a "baby blue" color. It looks like the color the blue ABS takes when I stress it (Bending the filament to the breaking point causes the filament color to get very light)

My assumption was that maybe the roll had snagged again from winding errors so I began looking at the roll for problems and I noticed that there are fluctuations in the color of the filament along the length that are very noticeable on the roll now. I can see this where before it looked uniform.

I pulled off several meters of the discolored filament and the windings below looked uniform again, so I did another print last night, but this morning I see more of the light colored starved layers in the print.

Is it possible that there is something wrong with this filament OTHER than the pigment variations that is causing the starvation?

I will probably not be using Sainsmart any longer in any case.

The only thing good I have to star about it is the filament diameter is very consistent. But that's about the only thing I liked.

[Eaglezsoar]

I tend to agree with you on the quality of the Sainsmart filament.
My roll was a red ABS and printed fine until it reached a point on the roll where the filament
was cut. They apparently did not have enough to fill the roll so they just wrapped some more
on it without even trying to weld the ends together. I discarded the remaining filament and
swore to never use that brand again.

[Brian]

I tend to agree with you on the quality of the Sainsmart filament.
My roll was a red ABS and printed fine until it reached a point on the roll where the filament
was cut. They apparently did not have enough to fill the roll so they just wrapped some more
on it without even trying to weld the ends together. I discarded the remaining filament and
swore to never use that brand again.

Did you have any issues with the color being non uniform? I think that the changes in pigment are causing the starvation issues I am seeing. Perhaps the lighter blue sections of my filament need a higher temperature and get starved.

Good to know I am not the only one who won't use them.

[Eaglezsoar]

No problems with the color being non-uniform but that is probably color dependent.

[Generic Default]

Are you sure the color was from the roll itself, or could it have possibly been temperature changes during printing?

I have a roll of green Sainsmart ABS that I bought last year. Just yesterday I noticed there was a small air bubble in the middle of the filament where I cut it. Which means there must be a ton of them throughout the roll that I haven't seen.

The filament starvation may be your extruder rather than the filament itself. It takes a big difference in diameter to do that.

I just bought 2 rolls of dirt cheap ABS a few days ago. Cheaper than Sainsmart. Mostly to test for how bad filament must be to jam my hotend, but hopefully it will be useable!

[Brian]

I swapped the blue ABS out for some Black ABS and the problems all went away, so it is definitely this filament and particularly this portion of this roll that is bad, because I had printed 2/3 of the blue roll nicely until this problem showed up.

Looking at some of my older prints, I can see the fluctuations in the color over many layers. I had thought it had something to do with variations in wall thickness or areas where it shrinks more when cooling, but I can definitely see in this one spot on the roll where the raw filament is visibly lighter in color than the rest.

I think something bad happened in the filament extruding process, like a few chunks of some other plastic got mixed in by mistake, and it makes the blue lighter and makes it hard to extrude, causing starvation.

I will try and get come images uploaded so you can see it.

Also.... I searched this forum and found some people recommending some filament brands strongly, so I purchased a roll off Prototype Supply filament and a roll of IC3D filament. I could not find Ultimichine brand (also highly recommended here) on Amazon Prime, so they will lose a sale.

[nitewatchman]

IC3D ABS has been good to me.

[Polygonhell]

Some poorer quality filament can vary a lot in quality through the roll, I've had some cheap Chinese filaments where parts of the roll required 20C more than other parts of the same roll to print reliably. My assumption has always been it's a function of the color that's added or just inconsistent plastic formulation.
Cheap filament can be quite good and is often adequate, I bought 10 rolls of PLA for ~$22 a roll including shipping at one point, I ended up throwing two of them away, perhaps not as consistent, but still way cheaper than buying from say Ultimachine if your time and frustration are worth nothing.
But to me personally it's a false economy, I don't want to have to deal with bad filament, and I'll pay extra for the privilege, so I buy exclusively from places I trust, that's mostly Ultimachine, though I will use different suppliers if I want something esoteric.

[gestalt73]

+1 for the PrototypeSupply filament.

I've been gradually switching over to it from Octave filament. They're both really good, consistent. I've been printing with Octave for about a year now, and am ready to try something a bit different.

The PrototypeSupply filament is a bit more opaque, and maybe the colors are a little bit brighter?
Octave filament is a bit more translucent. They're both good.

And I think we have a PrototypeSupply guy on the boards here as well.

Not sure if it helps or not, but after one really bad roll of filament from MatterHackers, I've been throwing every roll I order into the oven for 8 hours at 170f.

[Brian]

I think my IC3D and the PrototypeSupply positive reviews I was looking at as I was shopping for filament were based on past posts on the forum here from yourself and nitewatchman. Some of the filament on Amazon has 100% 5-star reviews but when only 2 people ever reviewed it, I don't tend to trust them. For all I know it's the guy who owns the filament company and his wife that reviewed it so far. That's why I rely on forums like this for feedback when there's not enough reviews posted on amazon.

Anyhow. One question. What defects will moist filament cause? What will the results be if I don't dry my filament, and how often should I dry it?

[Polygonhell]

Inconsistent extrusion and random jamming are the most common issues. Some dolma pent has air bubbles in it. You can get filament with random bubbles in it which won't pass down the Bowden tube, and if you are really unlucky you can get foreign material embedded in the filament, which if just the wrong size will block you Hotend in a way that's extremely difficult to diagnose.

Here's the worst example I've seen documented

http://richrap.blogspot.com/2012/06/jam ... -1518.html

[Brian]

Will water in the filament cause it to pop and sputter and make snapping noises as it comes out the extruder? I have seen that with some filament. It pops and a little splatter or gap will show up in the print where it happened.

[Polygonhell]

Will water in the filament cause it to pop and sputter and make snapping noises as it comes out the extruder? I have seen that with some filament. It pops and a little splatter or gap will show up in the print where it happened.

Water or more likely air bubbles can do this. When the filament is extruded, it can sometimes end up with bubbles in it, I've seen filament with short lengths that look like tubing rather than solid filament.
Unfortunately on a lot of filament, you can't tell by inspection if this is the case, you have to split the filament in half to see it.
Nylons tend to sputter and pop, but it's usually accompanied by what looks like smoke, but is more likely steam, that is water vapor absorbed by the filament.

[gestalt73]

Hey Brian,

Generally speaking, ABS filament doesn't absorb moisture quickly, which is great.

But left in open air, over time, it does. That's also the reason why the spools of filament you buy are vacuum packed, with desiccant included.

I had one particularly awful roll, and since then I've been drying all my ABS filament before using them.

Does every roll need to be dried before use? beats me, but I'd rather just do it, then get into a print to discover that I should have dried the roll first.

The classic symptoms are:
- steam puffs coming out from the hot end nozzle as you print
- small gaps in external perimeters (caused by the escaping steam)
- irregular external perimeters

Because I don't know much about how the filament and pellets were handled before the roll was sealed, I've just been throwing them all in the oven at 170f for 4-8 hours.

The temperature is very important. Most likely your spool will start to melt at any temp above that. If you go above 170f, you will return to a scene quite similar to Salvador Dali's Persistence of time, with a droopy spool.

Also, do your best to keep your rolls sealed and dry when you're not using them. I've been using zip lock bags with the dessicant packets. I think other members have been using plastic totes with dessicant or even rice.

[Brian]

Here's some samples of the Sainsmart Blue ABS I have been having issues with:

You can see a color gradient in this print very subtle but I can see it.

Here I see starved areas that have a really light color in the bad spots.

I noticed these odd light areas on my roll of filament.

I tired to get a better view of the bad spot. You can see it appears suddenly in this section on only one side of the filament.

[willbe]

yea, very clearly, you can ask them change a new one for you.

[Nylocke]

IC3D has some very nice material. If you do order some of their stuff but it direct from their site. The surface finish is smooth (raw material) and it prints very well. My best Ultimaker prints were from a roll of it.

Ultimachine also has nice material. Probably the best, and they have more than just PLA and ABS.

I've gotten Sainsmart ABS before, it's very brittle. I could flex the IC3D a bunch before it would snap. If I moved my Ultimaker (or even once while printing) the Sainsmart material would snap. I got okay results with the red and black stuff I had, but it wasn't the best.