I want to print a cool health counter and I want the parts that look like wood to be printed with BL Wood PLA filament and the rest with BL basic PLA.
Has anyone done this? is there going to be an issue with layer adhesion?
thanks for any insight.
I’ve printed with wood but have not mixed them. If I was curious about compatibility I’d make a simple test object. You’d have your answer in about 10 minutes, but this is assuming of course you already have the wood filament to test.
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I think this is the point of asking the question here. I’m interested in the answer myself but not so interested that I’ll buy a spool of wood filament to run my own test. If I saw that this was a useful and effective combination I might be inspired to try my own design.
So @owensieber , if you do find the answer, please post here! TIA!
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Bambu advertises that they print togehter in the product description
I have mixed PLA Wood with PLA Silk for an early prototype of my pencil cases.
It was isanmate PLA Wood (higher wood content than Bambu, more difficult to print due to moisture uptake and retention) with Bambu PLA Metal.
Still going strong
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I have all of my printers running right now, but, I will run a few tests when the first one frees up.
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I am just starting a 20mm cube with 4 sections of 5mm each of four colours/materials.
- Bambu Lab PLA Basic White
- Bambu Lab PLA Wood Black Walnut *
- Bambu Lab PLA Basic Red
- Bambu Lab PLA Wood Rosewood *
* I may have the name the wrong way around as they look very similar in the swatches when selecting.
I have all the other materials.
If you have a suggestion for a reasonable test that doesn’t take ages, let me know.
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Well you guys really came through! THANKS! These are very convincing!
It’s time to start thinking about a project! 
Since you asked for a reasonable, simple test:
How about three rectangles? 100X2X2?
- One from PLA Basic
- One from PLA Wood
- One with PLA Basic on one side and one with PLA Wood on the other
- All settings (except of course filament) identical
=> Is there a noticeable difference when trying to snap the samples?
Edit: 100X2X2 is a bit of a typo
It should habe been 100 X 20 X 2 although that 20 width may be a bit tricky to grip. Maybe 30?
Do you mean 50 % left is PLA Basic, and 50% right is PLA Wood?
With each layer having both materials?
I can tell you now that doing this with just PLA Basic will make it very easy to break, as it is a simple join over a long distance. It will snap relatively easily. I am not sure this is a suitable test.
My test turned out far better than I thought.
I thought it would be much easier to separate.
I used pliers and it is still together, you can see the bite marks in the top.
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Yes, indeed. It is a worst case which makes sure that it breaks where we want it. But you are right that the joint will at best be soldered.
Standing it up would be better for print time and filament change, but it’ll still be much weaker than a single PLA print.
So maybe compare like with like?
- One standing up, PLA Basic, two different colors?
- One standing up, PLA Basic with PLA Wood?
=> Still an easy to break worst case, but representative and addressing the question. Just wondering if a difference can actually be felt.
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Nice one @MalcTheOracle 
I am using two printers for this test.
Identical P1S units.
test block
10mm x 10mm x 50mm tall (25mm each height section).
Printer 1
- BL PLA White bottom 50%
- BL PLA Bambu Green top 50%
Printer 2
- BL PLA Wood Black Walnut bottom 50%
- BL PLA Wood Rosewood top 50%
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Results of the test pole tests.
Test 1.
PLA Wood 50% & PLA Wood 50% = easy to break.
PLA Basic 50% & PLA Basic 50% = harder to break.
With zero scientific evidence to support this, it was around three times harder to break the PLA Basic combination.
This test was designed to fall. Only two walls and 15% infill provide little connective surface area.
However, I would say that my earlier test which had significantly more surface area connects due to the nature of the test is much more likely for real-world usage.
Provided the design accounts for this, it should be fine.
You caught me at a good time as I have been organising my filaments so despite me having more than 200 separate and unique ones, they were not well organised, particularly the ones from BL (laziness on my part).
Some of the BL ones.
These are all from my self-designed swatch.
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Great tests, thank you! However, I am totally confounded on how you close that box without losing all the swatches you have in it!!! 
I have two boxes, I moved the tray from one into the lid of the other so I could get everything in frame.
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You are the Best, Malc!!!
With, I believe, around 20% particle loading, we can expect a significant performamce drop as the filler is not functionalized. I am quite amazed that in this worst case condition you got such a clearly noticeable difference immediately
I do believe that in these conditions, your rough estimate on relative forces could very well be explained by the filler allone. We just need to think of them as voids/pores in the joint.
For real life prints, of course the much larger relative interface surface, much smaller moment arm and (if painted) interlocking anchoring give little chance for separation.
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WOW! thanks for all the tests, this is awesome. I think I will be good to buy a spool of wood PLA!
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Just chiming in I have quite a few prints I have blended Wood PLA’s with non-Wood PLA’s and had no problems yet. I will try to post an example picture later.
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