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Hi all,
Since I've tested out ABS and PLA PRO that I got from Matterhackers in Lake Forest, I'm curious as to why 3rd party filaments such as Hatchbox are much cheaper on average. I also noticed that some have much cheaper (but less cost efficient) 333g spools which are ideal for me, since I don't see myself printing a ridiculous amount of yellow parts for example. Any major downsides to these? I assume it'll take some tinkering to find the correct temperature for the bed and nozzle since this stuff probably has more impurities to it.

What brand of filament to you all buy? Where do you buy it from? Are some brands notorious for jamming up nozzles constantly? Any insight is appreciated.

soul_reaper_38 wrote:I'm curious as to why 3rd party filaments such as Hatchbox are much cheaper on average.

China

I've gone through about 10 spools of HatchBox PLA in the last 6 months, and I've had consistency issues 3 times that killed a print and once or twice where the pigment wasn't consistent and I got a semi-clear layer that made me scrap the print for cosmetic reasons. Luckily I've never had a spool with a knot in it, but you hear those kinds of horror stories from time to time.

You generally get what you pay for. I've switched to ordering my materials from PushPlastic. It's a domestic company, and it's worth the extra few dollars for me to not have the headaches of cheap filament anymore. Too many jobs have deadlines for me to risk missing them by trying to save a few dollars, and I can feel good that I'm spending semi-local and not funding poor labor practices in China.

Hey thanks for the information! Didn't realize there was a separate forum just for filament. Well I'll test out this cheaper stuff, but honestly since I live in Lake Forest anyways I'll probably go to MatterHackers and buy from them directly.

For ABS I have been primarily using Hatchbox for about 6 months. Its very decent filament. I haven't had any issues with any of it. I have seen some complaints about various things but I haven't personally had any problems.

It is definitely different from your standard pure ABS, its stiffer and the filament itself will break if you rapidly fold it over where most others will just bend. It doesn't dissolve in Acetone fully either.

Interesting that you mention the bending and breaking... The Hatchbox PLA has the opposite oddity. It will bend back and forth until it fatigues enough to break. It's nowhere near as brittle as my other PLA filaments, something about its chemistry makes it tougher.

I ordered Hatchbox when I first built my machine and I have to say I'm not impressed at all. It worked ok for a couple days but I've had huge inconsistency issues with the diameter ranging from 1.4 to 1.9 on almost all my stuff!

I've since ordered some stuff from Atomic Filaments and I'm extremely happy, if his stuff goes over .10 he stops production and fixes the issue and tosses out anything over that range so generally his stuff is very accurate and he uses some amazing pigments especially in his PLA.

Needless to say I won't be ordering hatchbox again.

Just my 2 cents, but I've been using almost strictly Hatchbox since mid-march and havent had any issues (poor college kid problems).
I've gone through their reviews and seen the stories and its like a whole different product. Either I'm really lucky or just incredibly naive. Hopefully the former, but who knows.
I have had one filament knot but somehow it happened when I was loading the spool on, so the printer wasnt even running.

Conclusion, use at your own risk, for me 20$ and free 2 day shipping is hard to beat when you're are just making prototypes and nothing fancy.

But I feel like my days are numbered, so maybe looking into splurging on some nicer filament! (Maybe from Atomic! Thanks for the recomendation Hdale)

Funny enough my dad bought a small spool of BeeVeryCreative filament instead of Hatchbox so I can't even comment on it. Never heard of this weird brand; he got it because it shipped free to our Wal-mart. It seems okay. I'm still learning how to print effectively so I can't really comment on it's quality, but man were the tolerances way out there. I think it was +\-.15mm

I ordered some white PLA and translucent sapphire blue PLA (clearance) from Atomic. It had 1 review that was 5 stars. The website presents itself to be high quality. It has taken about a week to ship. Price seems good for what I'm assuming is a good quality filament. Of course the sapphire blue may be on clearance because it's out of tune, but I'm really just curious what transparent filament looks like when printing.

I've got that same sapphire blue and it's not much out of tune, it just got slightly more than normal which is why it's on clearance now. Most other places would sell it as grade A likely.

Hatchbox Silver ABS is the worst filament I've ever used. That said, I've not had much issues with the other colors. Black should be printed 10 degrees lower than the colors, but aside from that, Hatchbox filament has been good for me.

Agree this prints about 10 degrees less. Have not had any trouble with black, green, red and blue.