Because this is so long, I have broken it into 3 Parts. Sorry in advance …
I’ve been wanting to try printing RC aircraft for a while, but knew that I would first need to learn how to print using LW-PLA (never tried it on my previous Prusa’s). There is a fair amount of information online about printing with LW-PLA, but most of it is based on printing with “conventional” printers and not with the Bambus. So I went down the “rabbit hole” to try to understand exactly what it would take to work (and not work!) with this filament type. For this project I’m using an X1C (the approach should be the same for the P1P) and plane design files from Eclipson.
Since this won’t be my only plane model, it made sense to invest the time to try to pick a “favorite” filament to use (based on my needs) and then really learn how to use it with the X1C. Although it’s an expensive and time consuming “experiment”, I grabbed several different rolls of filament to compare for weight, printability, appearance, and cost. I used my standard PLA as a baseline (eSun PLA+), two different foaming LW-PLA’s (ColorFabb and eSun), and one “pre-foamed” PLA (Polymaker). I cut part of a wing section from an Eclipson design file to use as the “test”.
With the standard PLA and the pre-foamed PLA (which prints basically like normal PLA), I figured I could print a decent test using standard PLA settings on the Bambu. But before I could print meaningful tests using the LW-PLA’s, I had to first figure out how to print with it … chicken and the egg. What information I could find online using the Bambus was kind of contradictory, but I ended up using these posts to cook up some initial settings …
[Anyone tested LW-PLA on the X1?]
[Settings for the LW-PLA on X1C - #5 by Totorus]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/BambuLab/comments/zqc0us/has_anyone_used_light_weight_pla_eplalw_or_lwpla/]
Spoiler alert … trying to “guess” at settings didn’t really work out for me! Eventually I figured it out enough to get test prints for the filament comparison part of the project (don’t worry - I’ll go through the settings that did and didn’t work for me later in Part 2). Once I was able to get fairly clean test prints, here’s what I found. Remember these are my results (YMMV) …
These will be listed in the format Product: Type / Slicer Settings / Weight / Time-Speed …
- eSUN PLA+: PLA+ / Bambu PLA / 9.17g / 17m @ Standard
- eSUN ePLA-LW: LW-PLA (Foaming) / Custom / 4.49g (49%) / 28m @ Standard
- ColorFabb LW-PLA: LW-PLA (Foaming) / Custom / 5.00g (54%) / 28m @ Standard
- PolyLite LW-PLA: LW-PLA (Pre-Foamed) / Generic PLA / 7.29g (79%) / 34m @ Silent
Filament Comparison Highlights:
- Both of the foaming LW-PLA’s generated test prints that were basically half the weight of regular PLA but required “tweaked” custom settings. This is pretty amazing material but it does have a learning curve!
- The pre-foamed PolyLite filament was easy to print (basically standard PLA presets), but it didn’t save that much weight vs standard PLA. I also had to print it at a slower speed (Silent) to get it to work.
- The eSun LW-PLA is a lot less expensive than the ColorFabb (plus it’s a 1kg spool vs 750g), but it has an unusual “beige-tint” color that isn’t really a pure white. This is kind of a bummer for me since I plan to leave most of my plane models unpainted and really want a decent “pure white” color. A lot of models also mix LW-PLA and regular PLA for different parts, and having two different colors would look funky. I think the eSun filament would work just fine in all other respects (eSun is my “go to” for PLA and PETG), and it would save a lot of $$$, but the color just wouldn’t work for me.
So my personal “winner” was ColorFabb LW-PLA. BUT I’m sure you can use the rest of the stuff I learned if you wanted to go with eSun LW-PLA (or SainSmart or any another foaming LW-PLA).
If you want to see the comparison of the 4 test prints you can look here (color rendition might not be as dramatic as the way it looks IRL) [LW-PLA Filament Comparison - Album on Imgur]
So with a LW-PLA pick in hand, it was time to move on to the printer setting part of the project. See you in Part 2 …