You know that BBL is not producing any filament? The producer is not known and for sure BBL will never tell who it is. Because, as you say, making money. What is okay.
For me the given data is enough. You are right, its not 100% comparable. Anyway I test the filament to see how its printing, surface, speed, bridge, etc. But at first (at least for functional parts), I can decide which filament fullfill my need and I am able to compare different brands.
I assumed as much. As long as they do proper quality control and provide consistency over time, thatās all that should matter to us end-users. Well, as long as the price is right, of course. e.g. Prusament is nice, but not at $40/kg.
This is the same argument that applies to scale model arylic paints
Acrylic from the art store is 5 dollars for 150 ml. From the scale model people, you get 15 ml for the same price making it 10x more expensive.
The difference is quality, size and strength of pigment, and consistency from bottle to bottle. About 10 years ago i used Citadel Color (Games Workshopās āWarhammerā paints) to paint a model tank. About a month ago I painted another one in the same scheme. I bought a new bottle of the same paint and itās exactly the same color.
Now buy 2 rolls of the same color filament from the same conpany at the same time, and theyāre not the same color at all.
Never used prusament but I can see that the quality and consistency standards for most current filaments are very low. Prusament is supposed to be good.
Fair point. Iād be willing to pay more for color consistency when it matters to me. Itās just that color consistency doesnāt always matter to meāe.g. when prototypingāwhereas other aspects of print quality do matter to me nearly all of the time, like proper dimensions and not turning into spaghetti.
For the moment, Iām still trying to get my arms around how much of any particular problem is bad filament vs user error from not having properly tuned the filament. I donāt want to blame the filament if Iām at fault, nor visa versa. Itās not as easy as simply swapping one filament for another to āproveā that one is bad and one is good, since they each might have different parameter settings that may or may not be right.
PLA are generally similar ā¦ what kind of errors are you seeing?
Your idea of buying a roll of bambu to get āknown working settingsā is a good one.
Iāve had a lot of stringing since switching to a 0.6mm nozzle, with PETG and to a lesser degree PLA. It varies depending upon filament. Even the Prusament PETG had a lot of problems with it. Iām right now calibrating a roll of Voxel PETG, and so far it looks like it may do well.
Iām getting closer to the point where I either solve the problem or ekse at least can better define and articulate what exactly the problem seems to be.
Anyhow, at the moment Iām getting fairly decent results in PLA, so at least I can move forward with that while I sort out the situation with PETG. I want to get my tuning skills honed before I start-in with PET-CF, since thatās quite a bit more expensive, but something I need to use for a particular project.
And the good news is that I had long ignored PLA, but now that Iām trying it, Iām finding itās available super-cheap compared to everything else. Well, Iāll know in a couple days when I get the super cheap stuff whether or not itās any good, but buying it through amazon gives a degree of insurance if it turns out to be lousy, because amazonās a-z guarantee is pretty comprehensive.
āuse PLA where you can, something else where you mustā
So PLA works reliably and is cheap and comes in lots of colors; unless you need the structural or environmental properties of something else, using PLA will generally be the best solution
2 Likes
I continue trying new filaments, and Iām finding that, generally speaking, those which explicitly claim to be good for printing at 500-600mm/sec generally do seem to print well on the X1C at high speed, whereas YMMV with filaments which donāt make such a bold claim.
Anyhow, continuing to gather data.
Iām late to the game here but there is a lot of information scattered in different replies that when taken into consideration together paint a better picture.
In reguards to PLA it is true that no manufacturer has the same formulation, even some of the manufacturers vary in runs from one batch to the next. The mixing of the different components are different from one batch to the next, and some manufacturers donāt even use the same color supplier consistently.
The difference between pla and pla+ is debateable but there are other additives that change the properties, and in some of the pla+ or pro filaments a bit more durability, heat resistance and layer adhesion are factors.
But in most filaments manufactured for 3D printing itās kind of the Wild West since as has been mentioned there is no āstandardā in pla or pla+ properties, only that they contain a quantity of components of pla and compatible pigments and binders that will work in a 3D printer.
ABS, PETG, and most Nylons donāt suffer as much variation as pla because there was already established manufacturers standards because these plastics are already used in standard manufacturing. But there is no label denoting what standard any given manufacturer uses on these plastics so there are variations between manufacturers but most of the formulations are the same with the same manufacturer with the exception of color since most donāt use digital metering when adding pigment pellets to printer filament. I canāt speak on some of these new āhigh speedā ABS filaments or the like except that in the few that I tested didnāt work very well with the bambu series printers. They worked fine for a while before the extruder pushed the filament out of a gap in the side of the print head requiring a near complete disassembly of the hot end and extruder gears to remove. So it certainly is different.
It was mentioned that Slant 3D started manufacturing their own filament and that was mostly due to quality control and color control for their own manufacturing purposes and the ability to consistently have larger rolls on demand since obtaining larger rolls is difficult at volume. They likely decided to start selling directly to consumers likely for a combination of reasons but recouping costs and offering more consistent color and properties.
Iād agree that an industry standard for filaments would be helpful, and as 3D printing becomes more main stream and printers continue to increase speed and capability that may be on the horizon, but I donāt see manufacturers making changes until then and the consumers demand it. The printer manufacturers more or less refused to build faster printers until Bambu took them by surprise. I imagine when the kickstarter launched they all figured it was a scam and the company wasnāt a legitimate threat.
Surprisingly Prusa has kinda doubled down against faster printing though made the newer printers capable of increasing speed, not sure if they have updated to do so or not yet though. And that is where my surprise is at, because Prusa made, and to a certain degree still does, make a really good printer. Up until now everyone else was more or less copying what they did. I can only imagine what Prusa could do moving the technology forward.
Right. Soā¦ any guidance on how to pick the best filaments?
I do think that high speed filament does work since i do use a high speed filament from SUNLU and it works fantastic with high speeds and even though normal PLA does, this has improved rigidness and much sturdier than normal PLA just to note. This comment is not sponsored btw
SUNLU makes a few. Which one, exactly?
BTW, Iām fairly sure that SUNLU and Anycubic source from the same filament maker, though the filaments themselves may or may not be coextensive. Thatās harder to judge.
Yes they do! Here is the it is, this is the one that i use to be exact its called the
> āHS_PLA(High Speed PLA) 3D Printer Filamentā
2 Likes
@Mike3DLab Thanks for sharing your success experience. I think I found it on amazon:.
and will give it a try. AFAIK, for two rolls, $24.69 is about as low as the price usually goes for 600mm/sec high speed filament on amazon, even for dodgy brands. Some of them sell for twice that much.
Ordering directly from China, once Iāve settled on a particular brand, is probably the least expensive of all, but comes with its own risks that may not be worth it. That said, many of those companies have warehouses in the US, and for those the delivery times usually arenāt bad. Then the main risk may only be whether they are dumping defective filament on the market to dispose of it, which did seem to happen sometimes during the covid pandemic.
1 Like
Iāve had good luck with Sunlu filament, so I just bought that HS set. Added a grey-black set of PETG for $27.99 too. Apparently, they have a sale going on with most all their filament. Iād be loading up with more if I had the space to store it. 
Yup, if you follow the pricing so you know roughly where the low is, you can time future purchases to stock up at those moments. I think they lower their prices pretty frequently to draw in new customers and then they raise them so that anyone they hooked may pay more later. But, Iāve been watching this market for a while now, and inevitably it will cycle through another price dip. Usually itās not that long of a wait, but you canāt know for sure when it will happen.
I tried out HF TPU for the first time yesterday and if you discount the bed levelling, it prints over twice as fast as standard TPU without any quality loss.
I approve of this transition away from filaments not designed for the current crop of fast machines.
To help the rest of us: which TPU filament, exactly?
Happy to, it was discussed in depth yesterday in a different thread, itās worth reading all of it.
Starts hereā¦
The link though for convenience isā¦
OVERTURE TPU High Speed Filament 1.75mm Flexible TPU Roll 3D Printer Consumables, 1kg Spool (2.2 lbs.), Dimensional Accuracy +/- 0.03mm (HS Translucent Red)
1 Like
Thatās the very first time Iāve ever noticed a filament manufacturer offering a ālifetime guaranteeā on its filament. Sounds like it may be useful insurance against the scenario where you forget about the filament and then somewhere down the line you remember and find it again, except so much time has passed that the filament has degraded. because of old age. Iāve done that before. 
For me it might actually pay off.