Two Filament Questions Regarding Brands

Do most brands perform similarly? IOW if I have my slicer settings for e.g. Hatchbox will they work well for e.g. Matter Hackers?



Which brands of PLA are good "go to" brands? I'll keep this post updated with recommended brands.

For example, I know that Hatchbox is good, but it's hard to find in some colors.

I hear Matter Hackers is another good brand; some of their stuff is pricey, but has no additional value that I can determine. Someone please confirm consistency of print jobs with Matter Hackers for me?



Hatchbox

never used ether of those brands.
But different brands will perform differently.

In general you won't need to change settings much.

I've just switched from red flashforge (my current favourite filament) to yousu black to print some car parts. I know they both work with the same settings. But for other brands or colours I might have changed a few things.

Flashforge pla is amazing stuff - thoroughly recommended. The yousu stuff is also pretty good.

I haven't had any 'bad' filament for a couple of years now.
The industry seesm to have standardised on the manufacturing equipment, so you don't tend to get diameter variations (I hold my hand up, I have never bothered to adjust for diameter variance, never). Some brands of pla might still produce a little warp, but on the whole even the really cheap no brand stuff from ebay, is pretty good.

Why is the Flashforge PLA $7 more than most other brands?

And why are most places out of some, if not all, colors of PLA? Has 3d printing really gotten that popular?

most 3d printing is done with either black or white pla.
Red and blue are the second most popular pair. So as a seller, you would keep those four colours in stock, and not so much the other colours.

The flash forge is worth it. Prints fantastic, clean, fast. It's got great strength and toughness and looks great :-)
The red I use is semi-translucent. Which i like.

Given that you can now buy a 3d printer for less than £100, and a good one for under £200 - then yes I reckon 3d printing has got fairly popular :-)

Yes 3D printing is incredibly popular because of its low barriers to entry.
However we are printing way too much useless stuff, so we need to stop printing crap and dedicate to serious projects :)

The slight differences are mostly in flow rate and temperature, they will all display some different behavior when extruded.
My best experiences with filament are EUMakers and Colorfabb. I hear Hatchbox is the best budget choice.

I don't disagree with you Ralph, but printing useless stuff is how you learn what works and what doesn't.

There's no doubt in my mind that I'll be printing calibration cubes, benchys, and other stuff till I get the quality I want. Then repeat for different materials.

After that I'll be doing some cube toys and other decorative items, as well as other functional items for myself.

I'm with ralph. I have never printed calibration cubes, benchiues or other pointless 'calibration' prints.

I've just made the stuff I wanted to make, and adjusted accordingly.

For new filament I might make giveaways as a test. The makerbolt and nut set is one of my favourite giveaways as it highlights both the versatility and practical uses of 3d printing. While using about 5 grams.
Shopping trolley keys and tokens are another of my test prints. All things I can use, give away or sell.

You won't learn ANYTHING from a benchy that you can't learn from any other print.
You might as well buy ten rolls of filament and straight away throw one in the bin.

I see far too many people, round here and on facebook who spend weeks, messing about with calibration prints, firmware and the like - when all that time they could have been making the stuff they actually wanted to make and learning as they went.

Noting like a single walled 2mm tall square and an accurate digital caliper to set starting height and extruder multiplier so your first 10 hour print doesn't fail 3 times! One persons useless junk is anothers treasure..

that makes sense.
But benchies - nah :-)

Well, more than a benchy I was thinking about this. Though I'd take a link to that small cube you were talking about.

Attachment 11595

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Originally Posted by Amateur Maker

Well, more than a benchy I was thinking about this. Though I'd take a link to that small cube you were talking about.Attachment 11595

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Onshape is a free cloud based CAD software that is fairly easy to use, just gota watch videos to get the basics. Then you can make your own. The idea is a single wall that is the same width as your extrusion width and a given height, I use 2mmThen when printed it should be exactly the same width as your Ex Width and 2mm tall. Fatter you are over extruding thinner your are under.. too short your starting too close to the bed, too tall and you are too far away. I use .2 layers so it is just 10 layers and takes a couple of minutes.If using simplified 3d you need the allow thin walls option on for it to print. I would upload a few but when I click manage attachment i get a black screenSo I put a few up on my web servers. The .xx is the extrusion width, if there is nothing that matches your let me know and I will make one Single Wall Calibration squares

Thanks man!