3D Printer Filament is not round!

[jzatopa]

I see a lot of people saying to measure your filament and use that number, I have had better printing performance not doing that. I honestly have no idea why. The few times I have measured and used those numbers I end up with over extrusion. It's important to recognize that all filament has different tolerances. The Filament I sell has a diameter within +/-0.10mm and roundness of +/-0.07mm and you should find the same to be true with any high quality filament. Before I found a good source of filament I bought some stuff on amazon with poor tolerances. The biggest problem I ran into was filament that was thick enough to jam my extruder.

[old man emu]

Sometimes I wonder if people aren't becoming too anal about the accuracy of their machine's output. Afterall, these machines are supposed to be for prototyping, not for producing museum quality one-offs.

Old Man Emu

[Vanguard]

Hurrrmf ! ! Almost choked ! Ha ha !

[Geoff]

Not sure about 3mm spools as I use 1.75mm, but the variance has been pretty minimal in all but 1 of maybe 20 rolls I have been through, so that's not so bad really.

I found the new HIPS ABS (the limonella dissolving filament) after some time took in moisture very easily and parts of it expanded which led to some clogged nozzles, so I had to set my filament diameter to 1.85mm but even then, it slipped a little bit, but I generally find if you keep it in a nice dry airtight container it stays uniform.

That being said there is some cheap filament out there, ive had some rolls with all sorts of garbage thrown in with it :/

[PrinterNinja]

..... Unless there are manufacturers of inexpensive filament in the Americas or Europe I guess that this filament comes from China. ...

Old Man Emu

Thanks for the insight on the cross section calculation. I was well aware that filament could be oval, but had not thought much about the volume of material and how that is affected. I would have assumed that if the filament left the extruder nozzle round and sagged into a different shape, like an oval, that the resulting cross sectional area would remain constant. Is it safe to assume that you have a perfect oval? I'm not sure. Maybe it's egg shaped. Who knows. I guess you have to use an oval to get an estimate of what the theoretical round diameter would have been though.

But I wanted to comment about Chinese filament. People are pretty quick to associate it with poor quality, but there are many producers of filament there with a variety of ability. I sell and use filament from a supplier in China who has manufactured engineered plastics of many types for nearly 25 years. Sheets, bars, billets, filament, etc. I personally have 32 spools of it because I wanted to see and test everything that I offer on my site. The roundness and average diameters have all been within their stated tolerances (which are identical to nearly all other manufacturers worldwide). I have had no issues with contamination and the PLA and ABS print with very low odor. In fact I can barely smell the PLA at all. I have very good consistency between colors.

I sampled some filament from a US producer and the 3mm filament was way out of round and oversize. I really wanted to buy American for several reasons - freight costs being a big one - but the Chinese filament I found was great quality and reasonably priced. (Not the cheapest mind you - there are some REALLY cheap offerings from Taiwan and China. I suspect these are the ones selling on Amazon for well under $30.) Not everything made in China is poor quality.

[jzatopa]

I just did a video that discusses how to deal with filament that is out of spec. I only recommend going through the trouble if you have 2+ rolls that are out of spec.



I have not had PrinterNinja's experience with Chinese filament but it doesn't surprise me that there is at least one good manufacture out there. The problem is that there are large variations between all the chinese manufacturers, not just in size but in formulation as well. You have to kiss a few frogs before you find your princess or prince.

[old man emu]

I agree that there is a good deal of China bashing going on in all fields. I suppose the best estimate of how good Chinese filament is, is its price. If it is selling at an equivalent US of European price, then there is a good chance it is OK. If it is cheap, then expect it to perform cheaply.

Old Man Emu

[Vanguard]

I think there is something that goes something like you get what you pay for. Like any country, there are a few shady characters that want to make a quick buck, or Yuan, and don't care about repeat customers, or quality. However there seems to be developing a supply base of quality products coming out of China, maybe. I seem to remember something like this in the early 60s (I know the Jurassic) when Japanese products were really poor quality, now Japanese stereos, and cars are some of the best. Do the Japanese make 3D printers ?

[botfeeder]

Your filament is not perfectly round because of the production line.
For high quality filament, the tolerance should be less than +/- 0.05mm.

Most of the filament on the market is average quality which is +/- 0.10mm.
This roundness will have an impact on the printed products.

Daniel Poon
BotFeeder Canada

[old man emu]

If the truth be told, I don't think that the cross-sectional shape of the filament means a hill o beans. After all, the filament feeds into a heated tube where it melts and is squeezed through the extruder orifice.

Old Man Emu