Toss me some recommendations :D

Merry Christmas! Had a great holiday, hope you all did. Got me some Simplify3D, Amazon Prime for a year, and a $100 Amazon gift card to spend! What kind of material do you recommend I give a shot? I have only used ABS for about 2 month's now, have not experimented with any other type's. I currently have a White, black, red, blue, green, and glow in the dark color's. What do ya think!

I was debating trying some T-glase, as this guy had some great result's in his photo's ( http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:606386 ) but it's almost 2x my normal price for filament, and half as much, and not amazon prime eligible :rolleyes: . So any other recommendations, or I may just give a few color's of that a try. Hope you all had a great day!

Maybe a smaller hotend?

I have been printing ABS for quite a while now....just started playing with PLA and have been VERY pleased with it.......Seems so much easier to print and i get a MUCH cleaner finished product........Im sure the are downfalls somewhere but i haven't found them yet.....And you can get some pretty cool transparent colors that kind of look like tglass when printed....

I would give PLA a go as Mike suggested Bassna, I was an ABS fanatic for a long time but for quick printing, prototypes and just general better smelling printing lol... PLA is pretty good. Hotbed low heat, means fast warmup times, lower print temps... there is more issues, like... instead of the bottom curling like ABS when it wont stick, the top curls up with PLA if things are too hot, but cooling fans fix that... i.e you DO leave the window open and it actually helps it, unlike an ABS print.

ABS I use for parts that need to be super strong and have some flex... PLA is not very flexible (it is very rigid tho...) but not flexible and does snap easily, but generally is good for an all round plastic. I got PLA with my printer but because it was kryptonite green, I never really had alot of cause to use it, but turns out it actually shows less step lines in the print than ABS does, the plastic sort of fuses better and gives you a very nice finish on the bottom when using blue tape.

Hmm alright sound's good, I don't have a extra cooling fan hooked up, kinda one reason I havent been in a rush to get PLA. I think I will get a spool of HIPS, PLA, and T-glase.

I have been leaving the front panel open for ABS print's lately also, it seem's to help keep it from warping in as much at the bottom of the print's. If it's a big print I close the front after a while though. How about elastic or rubber filament's with these extruders, are they "ready to go" for those types?

Been printing for a few weeks now, mostly PLA/ABS...but have tried TGlase, bridge nylon, PETG, and flexible TPU

Actually only had 2 failed prints, both with nylon because you have to slow it way down,and it needs glue stick to hold it.

I have had some garbage ABS but for the most part my ABS seems to be the most accurate prints, and no harder to print then PLA. Strength wise....TGlase and bridge nylon are pretty nice, ABS probably the weakest.

ABS being the weakest was a surprise, but with 2 different spools (white and grey) that has been my experience. Both my PLA (blue and black) have been stronger.
My grey ABS has some shiny particles in it, for appearance I think....and it is brittle like crazy

I was gonna buy some HIPS for support....but since I have learned to bridge properly, I don't bother with support much (still do need it from time to time)
i printed a few object where the internal support was almost impossible to remove where HIPS would have been really handy, but I reprinted with no support and did some bridging tweaks and it printed near flawlessly

Thanks for the input harrington. I have got pretty good at printing ABS as well by now. I just can't get it to make a perfectly flat edge while going up, towards the bottoms. I suspect a bit of extra cooling at the beginning of the print may help/fix it. Will have to test. The HIP's is a decent price, and I want to scoop it up for if I want to make some print's that otherwise would be too hard/too much breaking with supports, like for instance, this thing: http://www.thingiverse.com/make:55725 the design was for a SLS printer, but with the use of HIPS he had a really nice end result!

I really want to get some bronzefill, but that will be a little while still.

Ya, that design may need a few supports :)

i was just reading this about bronze fill last night...expensive stuff

http://3dprintboard.com/showthread.p...ll=1#post37154

LOL....I guess you read this too since you were the next post

Don't get me wrong I like the idea of HIPS....I even have some here.

my problem is getting limonene for a decent price. In the US there seems to be lots for cheap, Here in Canada I have had a real hard time finding it for less then $35 a litre, you can get a gallon for less in the US....but shipping can be tricky since it is a solvent, lots of places won't ship it international

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Originally Posted by Bassna

Hmm alright sound's good, I don't have a extra cooling fan hooked up, kinda one reason I havent been in a rush to get PLA. I think I will get a spool of HIPS, PLA, and T-glase.

I have been leaving the front panel open for ABS print's lately also, it seem's to help keep it from warping in as much at the bottom of the print's. If it's a big print I close the front after a while though. How about elastic or rubber filament's with these extruders, are they "ready to go" for those types?

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I do not recomment HIPS and if you do, do not get black. I have tried black from 4 sources and the same issue presents itself with all of them, they are a very goopy plastic and the prints look awful from my flashforge. I would only use it for dissolvable support material now, not for actual prints.

hips - is polysterene. Mostly recommended for supports or really weak parts.
I've never seen anyone recommend it for actual prints.
Pet seems to have good reports - I think I've got some samples around, but no labels :-)

Advanced pla is the way to go.

Polymakr plus, max and flex are awesome filaments.
Mind you, I find all the pla I've used is Stronger and more giving than abs. ie: I can jam a really tight connecting part together in pla that will break at the same tolearance in abs.
The material chemists have really made huge leaps with pla in the last couple years.

Flexible filament wise the polymakr flexible pla Prints EXACTLY like standard pla. But bends. It's not tpe, so isn't super elastic. But it is idiot proof and flexible. It's also cheaper than the tpe based filament.

I will say stay well away from taulman nylon 618 - I've managed to print a few small things: teatowel hanging clips and tabe cloth clips but it warps like a bastard and you can't stop it stringing (even after 12 hours in a dehydrator).
I've got some nylon bridge I haven't used yet - hoping that'll let me print some larger items.

Most flexible filaments print on a flashforge without any issues. The only thing I've done is wedge the tensioner leaver open for ninjaflex. Flexible pla doesn't need that, and works best without the wedge.

I'm pretty much converted to cold bed filaments. As geoff said, faster less hassle prints. Plus they all stick really well to blue tape so no messing about with bed coverings.

Bronzefill is great - but wait till the brass fill is available. that polishes up like gold and looks a lot more like metal than the bronzefill.

For soluble support get pva filament. Dissolves in water, which is both cheaper and more user friendly than limonene :-)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by curious aardvark

hips - is polysterene. Mostly recommended for supports or really weak parts.
I've never seen anyone recommend it for actual prints.
Pet seems to have good reports - I think I've got some samples around, but no labels :-)

Advanced pla is the way to go.

Polymakr plus, max and flex are awesome filaments.
Mind you, I find all the pla I've used is Stronger and more giving than abs. ie: I can jam a really tight connecting part together in pla that will break at the same tolearance in abs.
The material chemists have really made huge leaps with pla in the last couple years.

Flexible filament wise the polymakr flexible pla Prints EXACTLY like standard pla. But bends. It's not tpe, so isn't super elastic. But it is idiot proof and flexible. It's also cheaper than the tpe based filament.

I will say stay well away from taulman nylon 618 - I've managed to print a few small things: teatowel hanging clips and tabe cloth clips but it warps like a bastard and you can't stop it stringing (even after 12 hours in a dehydrator).
I've got some nylon bridge I haven't used yet - hoping that'll let me print some larger items.

Most flexible filaments print on a flashforge without any issues. The only thing I've done is wedge the tensioner leaver open for ninjaflex. Flexible pla doesn't need that, and works best without the wedge.

I'm pretty much converted to cold bed filaments. As geoff said, faster less hassle prints. Plus they all stick really well to blue tape so no messing about with bed coverings.

Bronzefill is great - but wait till the brass fill is available. that polishes up like gold and looks a lot more like metal than the bronzefill.

For soluble support get pva filament. Dissolves in water, which is both cheaper and more user friendly than limonene :-)

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Thanks for all the info. I have not ordered anything as of yet, my PC will not boot and I have been monkeying around with that for the past few day's. I will look into the advanced PLA, I was just going to order normal PLA. The main reason's I have not used PLA yet is because I like to acetone vapor thing's a lot, I have a lot of kapton tape left, and I hear it sag's in the summer heat, or in car's, etc. Does advanced still have the sagging issues?

I don't think I will order the HIPS right now, considering it will cost a lot for the liquid over time I was thinking. Maybe later on. I will look into the brassfill, I like the metal look that bronzefill gave after polishing

Just bear in mind on the metallic powder filaments (bronzefill, copperfill, brassfill, etc) that the material is weaker than standard pla.
While it looks like metal when polished, the metal powder is giving no real structural strength to the material. It's just bits of metal embedded in plastic.
The stuff is a LOT weaker than standard abs or pla.

As far as all the negative things I've heard about pla goes. So far I haven't encountered a single one of them.
hell it doesn't even get soft in hot sink water - like it's supposed to.

Which given that I have a roll of white pla that won't even extrude at anything less than 210c - doesn't actually surprise me.

The supposed lower limit on most pla I've got is 185 - all the stuff I've used is more like abs in that it doesn't soften till you get close to it's actual melting point.

So if you're car temp regularly hits 100c - then you might have problems. But then I suspect you'll have similiar problems with any kind of plastic.

Like I said the material chemists have been working overtime on material characteristics. And I don't honestly think that any of the pla on sale now has the weaknesses of pla a couple of years ago. Could be wrong, but I can only go on what I've printed and how it behaves.