Wow, what a nightmare… I was using up some Inland silk PLA that I had bought at MicroCenter some time ago… no big deal, I wasn’t a fan of the color, so figured I’d use it to print some reuseable filament spools to transfer my cardboard filament onto.
This stuff is a nightmare… It clogged up the primary feed gear in my AMS, requiring me to completely disassemble the primary AMS motor assembly, there were bits of what almost seems like shredded satin ribbon wrapped around the filament wheels, and nothing would feed.
Thinking I was all set, and confirmed the AMS was feeding again, I go to print… now the extruder isn’t taking filament in. So, disassembled the extruder, and found similar bits of what looks like shredded satin ribbon (presumably what gives the “silk” effect) wrapped around the filament wheels, and clogging everything up… I literally had to pick the pieces out with a dental pick to get all that junk out of there… You can see in the photo here how the “silk” is literally shredding off the filament, and the little blob of it that was wrapped around the wheels in the extruder.
Thankfully, its finally fixed and printing again.
If you’re going to run “silk” filament… stick to the Bambu or other top tier quality brands… avoid the cheap stuff.
Did you dry your filament before declaring it unfit for the application? Most importantly, if you did dry it, did you weigh it before and after to verify how much moisture was removed. I ask because I’ve had Bambu Silk filament fail on me in precisely that manner and after getting a dryer months later, Viola, it started to print normally. I took out nearly 2% moisture by weight from that partial spool.
Guess which one of the Bambu Silk filament print tests was wet?
Well, here is the problem with that approach. What if the filament was already dry. Then if you weighed it afterward, you would know for sure that moisture was not a factor. Then you could pursue another theory. Right now the only thing that you know for sure is that you had it in the dryer, you can’t know if the filament lost moisture.
BTW: The photos I posted above show Bambu silk filament straight out of the vacuum pack, which makes it hard to keep believing they’re a “top-tier” supplier. Sure, their prices are top-tier, but their service? Not so much. They have constant stockouts of basic filaments like black and white PLA, along with frustrating mid-order formula changes. The real kicker here is that users in this community have reported receiving multiple spools in the same shipment only to find color shifts between them—supposedly the same filament, yet visibly different shades. That kind of inconsistency is unacceptable from any supplier claiming to be top-tier.
That’s fair … I’ve actually begun sourcing all my filament from Polymaker…(with exception of a few colors they don’t have, like Burnt Titanium, which I get from Flashforge). Zero quality issues, and a huge selection otherwise…and their Fiberon PA612-CF impresses the hell out of me.
Are you having any curling with your PA612CF? Seems I’ve tried everything to make it stick yet still the corners eventually curl (minimal). I’m using Bambu Studio and Fiberon PA612CF default profile with 0.4 nozzle on X1C.
None at all, although since its nylon, I do print it on a Garolite build plate… But if its giving you adhesion issues, I’d recommend using Vision Miner Nano Adhesive on the build plate.
Ok, first off Inland is not even “Cheap Stuff”, their silk is $24-30 which is pretty standard. I have used 2kg of inland silk since November and currently have another 3kg of it, and I have never ever had a single problem. Maybe yours is wet or you just got a bad one, but you wouldn’t call SUNLU a terrible brand just because you got 1 bad roll.
Inland is not a ‘reseller,’ per se, as that would imply that they are authorized by the manufacturer to sell the product under the manufacturer’s own brand name.
Virtually every store brand of anything (potato chips, bed pillows and even 3d filament) is made for that store by a brand manufacturer. Sometimes it is changed significantly for the specific store that buys it and other times it is simply put into a different package with the store’s name on it.
All Inland brand filament is made by someone else - Micro Center does not make their own. Micro Center employees in the past have confirmed that all of their filament is made by either Polymaker or eSun, and used to tell you that the way to tell was whether the package had a logo with 2 green leaves on it. If it has the logo it’s made by eSun, if it doesn’t it’s made by Polymaker. On my last visit I noticed that many of the boxes now have a hexagon cutout while some are still oval. According to an employee at my local Micro Center, that is now part of the difference between manufacturers - the hexagon cutout is made by Polymaker and the oval cutout is made by eSun. He also said that it was his understanding that eSun was being phased out and all their filament at some soon future point would be made by Polymaker.
Now, that’s not to say it will work exactly the same as filament that is actually branded Polymaker - and I can tell you from personal experience that the PETG does NOT print the same. Likely, the formula is slightly different for Inland specs and Polymaker modifies it accordingly. That said, while Polymaker is clearly my preferred filament, I also use a fair bit of Inland and would consider it my second choice.
