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Filament Good and Bad.
Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 5:18 pm
by 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.
Re: Filament Good and Bad.
Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 6:31 pm
by dougmsbbs
http://3dprinterstuff.com/
That's where I get mine. Had good luck with them so far.

Re: Filament Good and Bad.
Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 9:30 pm
by tom10122
mine was the cheapest pla on ebay seems fine
Re: Filament Good and Bad.
Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2012 9:18 pm
by 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.
Re: Filament Good and Bad.
Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2012 11:43 am
by 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.
Re: Filament Good and Bad.
Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2012 1:43 pm
by 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.
Re: Filament Good and Bad.
Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2012 5:43 pm
by jasco13
Polygonhell wrote: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.
Re: Filament Good and Bad.
Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2012 5:55 pm
by jasco13
Re: Filament Good and Bad.
Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2012 4:01 pm
by 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
Re: Filament Good and Bad.
Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2012 1:07 am
by 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.
Re: Filament Good and Bad.
Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2012 9:43 am
by tom10122
I'm working on it , once I get rid of the skew I'll print something out
Re: Filament Good and Bad.
Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2013 7:47 am
by Highcooley
michaellatif wrote: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
Re: Filament Good and Bad.
Posted: Thu Jun 06, 2013 4:40 pm
by 3DPrintingpro
Try BotFeeder Filaments (Taiwan), it works for me.
3dtrend.net
Re: Filament Good and Bad.
Posted: Thu Jun 06, 2013 5:57 pm
by kbob
3DPrintingpro wrote: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.
Re: Filament Good and Bad.
Posted: Fri Jun 07, 2013 8:56 am
by 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.
Re: Filament Good and Bad.
Posted: Fri Jun 07, 2013 6:05 pm
by 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.
Re: Filament Good and Bad.
Posted: Sat Jun 08, 2013 5:37 pm
by 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.
Re: Filament Good and Bad.
Posted: Sat Jun 08, 2013 6:21 pm
by 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.
Re: Filament Good and Bad.
Posted: Sun Jun 09, 2013 12:11 am
by kbob
Jimustanguitar wrote: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.
Re: Filament Good and Bad.
Posted: Sun Jun 09, 2013 1:39 pm
by 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.