FDM Filaments - The Good , the Bad and the WTF?!?!

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2wdMod

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Like the title says , lets talk filaments and filament brands , what are your favs, what are your not much liked brands attributes etc.. I will start with an issue I was having with some Sunlu PLA..
For a while I was running sunlu PLA for my Black prints as it was printing awesome and was pretty consistent from spool to spool needing only a SLIGHT temp tweak to bring things in .. Sunlu was running a *sale* on Scamazon on their spools of black where it was like 4kg for the price of 2 because it was a master spool and refill packs.. Hit the send it to me now button , and when it arrived , BOY was it different.. It seemed to be MUCH lower temp and was ridiculous stringy no matter how long I left it in the drier.. Was supposed to be the same product as comes on the normal 1 kg spools, even had the same product ID # just a different lot .. and we are talking about almost 20* C difference in printing temps.. I was running the single spools at 203, the bulk stuff still prints like its too hot at 185* C.. Stringy as all hell. I never use wipe in my profiles , but not even enabling wipe helps with this stuff stringing .. So I have had 4kg of crap plastic to use for prototyping .. Its taken a year, but I am finally down to about a 1/4 spool of the crap..
 
The very best filament I have ever used is this...
https://vo3d.us/

It has the smoothest top layers of any filament I have ever used. It prints like butter. And layers are super strong, and smooth. It is pricey, but if you want a nice print, it is definitely worth it in my opinion.

My previous brand was Zyltech, simply because it used to be dirt cheap, they have fast shipping, and I liked their colors. Then they raised the price.

I have recently switched to Overture. Their filament prints nice and smooth as well. Not quite as nice as the VO3D stuff, but still very nice. The price seems good for what you get as well.

Hatchbox - meh. Its ok. Eryone - it'll do. There are a few others. Another really good filament is what Creality used to supply with the old CR10 models. I believe it was CCTree.
 
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The very best filament I have ever used is this...
https://vo3d.us/

It has the smoothest top layers of any filament I have ever used. It prints like butter. And layers are super strong, and smooth. It is pricey, but if you want a nice print, it is definutely worth it in my opinion.

My previous brand was Zyltech, simply because it used to be dirt cheap, they have fast shipping, and I liked their colors. Then they raised the price.

I have recently switched to Overture. Their filament prints nice and smooth as well. Not quite as nice as the VO3D stuff, but still very nice. The price seems good for what you get as well.

Hatchbox - meh. Its ok. Eryone - it'll do. There are a few others. Another really good filament is what Creality used to supply with the old CR10 models. I believe it was CCTree.
Yep , tried all but the Zyltech.. I use a bunch of certain colors , so consistency is my main thing.. Overture is pretty consistent , hatchbox and Eryone both seem to be "streaky" .. meaning they will be consistent for a bit and then you get a couple lots that are out in left field a bit on temp.. I have been running a lot of Ziro the last year or so, but just got a few spools in that I'm less than thrilled with.. The transparents I just got in are very stringy compared to the previous lot. The standard colors are running like usual on the same g-code.. I agree the vo3d I tried printed great!
 
The very best filament I have ever used is this...
https://vo3d.us/

It has the smoothest top layers of any filament I have ever used. It prints like butter. And layers are super strong, and smooth. It is pricey, but if you want a nice print, it is definitely worth it in my opinion.

My previous brand was Zyltech, simply because it used to be dirt cheap, they have fast shipping, and I liked their colors. Then they raised the price.

I have recently switched to Overture. Their filament prints nice and smooth as well. Not quite as nice as the VO3D stuff, but still very nice. The price seems good for what you get as well.

Hatchbox - meh. Its ok. Eryone - it'll do. There are a few others. Another really good filament is what Creality used to supply with the old CR10 models. I believe it was CCTree.

I've had good luck with Overture PLA, PLA Pro, and PETG. Has been pretty consistent for me.
 
I mainly use Overature, eSun, and Eryone with Overature being slightly favored but I use the others because of certain colors they have. Never had any real issues with any of those three. I dont think I've ventured much outside these brands but the only roll I've ever just thrown out was a roll of generic Chinesium stuff. It was so bad I was screw this! Used a roll of hatchbox once and had no issues with it. I would buy hatchbox again if I needed a certain color that only they had.
 
One thing of note in my experience with both the Overture PLA Pro and PETG is that they hold threads very well. I've run regular M3 hardware into a 2.7mm hole and had it hold great. My Beadlock wheels use M3 hardware and even using the Chyrax tires they don't lose beads. Pretty good luck with M2 hardware as well, just have to be a little more cautious.
 
in the process of printing the brackets for my enclosure. Have sheet of some 1/8" Tuffak polycarbonate , and printing corner brackets out of PETG for now. Setting up to work through a couple higher temp filaments. Going to start with some ASA after the enclosure is built..
 
Well, I guess I wont be using Eryone anymore. They just raised the price of their normal PLA filament to $28/roll and their silks are now $36/roll. Thanks but no thanks o_O
 
I am doing some first prints with ASA today.. have the machine in an enclosure, enclosure at 78* F , bed at 90c, printing at 245c.. also have a in line fan and carbon filter on the enclosure.. keeping the enclosure sealed and venting the contents via the carbon filter when the print is done.. In essence using the enclosure as an "airlock" .. Repurposing an old 24x48 grow tent as my enclosure.. will share pics after first prints are done..
 
So yeah.. ASA is biatchy!! REALLY biatchy!! First impressions were that things were going to go pretty smoothly as I printed out some stringing/retraction tests and those were pretty close from the jump, so I decided to run a benchy. Just a simple regular old benchy.. half a dozen attempts and tweaks later we got 1!! printed at .2 layers ,Bed @100c, printing at 248C, chamber at 80*f , zero cooling of course .. I found out that ASA doesn't like overhangs as it likes to warp, your flow needs to be dialed in near perfect as any over-extrusion balls up on the surface.. The first 3 tries were getting flow dialed in. the next 2 were failing toward the top of the wheelhouse arches due to warping on the overhangs , so I had to increase my z hop to .5 mm to get over the thin warped edges of the archways without knocking things loose.. so yeah the 2nd color printed perfect on the first try , so I think I have my ASA profile roughed in..
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20221230_230433.jpg
 

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