Which are strong Filament suppliers who also support the end customer with a strong website? Let’s start with the only one I know that actually delivers what I expect (when it comes down to important things):
This makes me think I should ask my ASA large print warping questions in the Polymaker discord and see whether I get any filament specific info (I’m mostly using Polylite ASA)…
In general what I really want is for filament makers to do their work up-front and well: good reliable filament, appropriate price, readily available, and with decent specs (TDS). Once I have it in my printer I’d rather not have to talk to them .
I suppose the higher the price the better the support when prints don’t come out. I’d sure hope that 3dfxtech provides good after-sale support given how much their filaments cost…
When listing companies here, please also mention where they operate. I think extrudr is a really horrible company 'cause they don’t support the US, which is where I am . Seriously, I have the feeling that there are a whole bunch of filament makers in Europe that don’t have an appealing US presence and a whole bunch of US filament makers that target the mass-low-end that are probably not available elsewhere.
yes - let me say it`s more to tackle a problem than to find a color and nice printing surfaces without reading the entire website. Questions that I want to have answered very quickly on a manufacturer website (on a case-by-case basis): FDA, UV resistance, Antistatic, Temperature adjustments between materials or currently I looking for something with a biodegrades in 3-4 years.
3dsurfr note was also great, the Manufacturing place. Depending on the application, I check this also extremely quick. So i add. to the first post Europe Austria for Exdrudr.
Hi 3dsurfr,
Thats a great tip – A Great comparison Page
Polymaker Headquartered in Changshu, China comparison Page:
eSun has good info, but they took an extra step and provide the filament profiles for BL printers that you can import. The profiles cover PLA (all versions), ABS, PETG, TPE, TPU, and PA-CF.
One caveat. If you have a P1S, you have to import the X1C profiles and choose an X1 nozzle instead of a P1S nozzle for the profile to appear in your filament list. But it works just fine, as the P1S uses a closed control print loop like the X1.
Now if they will only fix the winding issue I’ve been running into on their spools. Last 2 spools were horrendous. One got sent back to Amazon, and the other had to be rewound on another spool as it was past Amazon’s return date.
I’ve already looked at ESun’s “+” series a few month ago. But on the one hand, I’m a bit too lazy to compare all the documents individually without overviews. On the other hand who ist https://weipujishu.com/ (Unfortunately, I can’t speak Chinese)? How many batches of how many casts were made? Is it a One-time check or a continuous monitoring?
So i finaly miss the befenfit in contrast to Bambulab matirials which will work out of the box by prints without requirements. However, that’s just my opinion and it may not always correct.
Not really a surprise. Do you now want to check chemical analyzes of each cast to by sure this was done correct on PLA+? Do you believe on chemical checks a company that only have a Chinese website? If you give it to a company of trust to check, you can probably buy 500-600 kg of filament with each test and can add highly likely $3-4 to the price of each roll… Everyone has to know/decide this for themselves. I can visually check machines, but not the chemical composition/residues/plasticizers of Filament…
So I can take Bambulab fillament right away… without having to bother with websites that don’t have a comparison site and do not automaticly add to the X1C AMS.
There is no big difference between money and happiness or I never saw it that often in China… By the way, my favorite verse comes from China during the Tang period (possibly not translated completely correctly): How comfortable we were at the time of chaos! We didn’t need to eat or pee. Who visited us with his drill to bore us new openings? Day in and day out, grieving for taxes and rents, year in and year out. Traders smash each other’s heads for a copper coin. Screaming, the mass runs after life.
My Chinese ex-girlfriend was also convinced that the Swiss get dirt out of the earth and use it to make watches and everything in between is pure profit, because work and workers doesn’t cost much…
But that’s just my view of things, which doesn’t always have to be correct.
Why some Chinese parents are importing baby food from the Western world? And we are talking about exporting something to the Western world that is very difficult to verify.
Everybody can choose what they want to do. I simply look at the results. For what I am printing, the chemical compositions is not a big deal. I was first using filaments I had on hand for use with my old printer. I also ordered some HS ones form other companies when BL was out of the colors I needed. (eSun, Voxelabs- made by FlashForge, and Creality Hyper-which appears to be made by eSun BTW).
Since then, almost all of the filaments I have ordered have come from BL, as it’s just easier to use and to set up prints.
As long as BL can get me a filament in the color I need when I need it, I’ll use theirs, but if I have to have one get here quickly, I know which brands I can get off Amazon that I have already developed profiles for.
And just because you get a BL filament doesn’t mean it will work flawlessly using their default settings. Just dig through the forum. So that would lead me to believe their production is not always consistent with their analysis. They do contract out the filament production after all, so we don’t know what the internal QC requirements of the manufacturer are.
100% agree - I didn’t add BL or ESun to the first post either… Only Polymaker, as they at least have a small comparison page.
But I also have prints where chemical residues plays a role - I even have a printer that only uses EU manufactured fillament. This Printer does not come into contact with any fillament batch from China…
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. Seriously, I have the feeling that there are a whole bunch of filament makers in Europe that don’t have an appealing US presence and a whole bunch of US filament makers that target the mass-low-end that are probably not available elsewhere.