I'm starting to use larger quantities of filament in a small but growing 3D print farm. I'd love to find someplace where I could buy 10-100 kg of filament per order and be assured of good quality and good pricing, but I've been surprised that my initial investigations have been mostly fruitless. Maybe my search-fu is weak, but it looks like online sources aren't much better than Amazon.
I did stumble across MakeShaper.com. I recently placed an order for two 2.25kg reels of ABS filament. With the discount code from their website and free shipping, it was 1.62 cents per gram, probably the least expensive filament I've purchased, and it prints like a dream. It's the only filament I've ever used that doesn't dribble when the nozzle is preheated, but it prints very well without stringing or blobs. It doesn't have the styrene smell of other ABS filament when printing. The filament feeds reliably from the spool and the diameter in both reels is always 1.74mm or 1.75mm - much higher tolerance than other brands. The 84th part just finished of a 100 part order. In 30 minutes, the part will contract and separate from the glass plate. I'll lift it from the bed effortlessly, apply a few milliliters of glue juice (10 grams of Elmer's XTreme glue stick dissolved in 500 ml of distilled water), I'll spread the glue juice on the glass bed with a nylon bristle brush and press Print Another Copy. Easy peasey. Having good filament is important to reliable and trouble free 3D printing. I'm sure bad filament is the source of a lot of frustration and failed prints. If anyone has a good source of quality 3D printing filament at a good price, particularly TPU, I'd love to hear your suggestion. On 8/19/20 11:34 PM, James Isaac wrote: > >> The white pla is not the same stuff as the black, by a hell of a long row > of apple trees. Where the black is a brittle as can be cold, the white > is much more forgiving, . . . > > Back in about 1977, I got told the black plastic was the first that was > recycled. > The people doing the recycling needed a consistent colour in their product, > and hid the recycling by changing the colour to black. > The quantity of additives needed to mask the multiple colours of the source > plastic changed the properties of the plastic at the same time. > > Sounds as though the same thing is happening today. > > James Isaac. > > > ________________________________ > From: Gene Heskett <ghesk...@shentel.net> > Sent: August 19, 2020 10:47 PM > To: emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net <emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net> > Subject: Re: [Emc-users] found a harmonic drive set of .stl's on thingiverse > > On Wednesday 19 August 2020 19:17:08 Gene Heskett wrote: > > Well, I'm back, hat in hand. > > The white pla is not the same stuff as the black, by a hell of a long row > of apple trees. Where the black is a brittle as can be cold, the white > is much more forgiving, AND it sticks to the glass about 1000 times > better, I just interrupted the job because I moved the glass trying to > get the priming . . . > > _______________________________________________ > Emc-users mailing list > Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users > _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
