In my experience, Bambu basic PLA has been not something I’d recommend. Now what eSun has switched to cardboard spools for PLA I’m gonna have to find something else to use. Bambu PLA has pretty bad warping compared to other brands.
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While I thank you for the kind words my friend, my feeling is that if we all actively contribute to this or any other community we have a stake in, the world gradually becomes a better place. In discussion forums such as this, everyone knows something no matter how small they may think it is. If we all try to contribute something quality - I don’t mean “me too” or “I agree” posts - this will be a place that will hold a vast storehouse of knowledge.
I only joined this forum a few months ago and lurked for quite a while to see whether the moderation here was heavy handed or not. I mentioned in another post that I had operated two discussion forums in a previous life. It is not an easy task to be MC, Host, “Julie the Cruise Director” and yes, too often be the referee. Once I saw that Bambu moderations staff was largely hands-off and only stepped in when needed, I felt more comfortable contributing.
Back on the subject of filament. I did post a suggestion for a reviews section for non Bambu product a few weeks ago. But you can imagine that I got the same crickets chirping from that suggestion that we get here from everything else.
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Its actually not too bad, I got like 50-60% discount or something on my last order of half a ton filaments, its around 75% if you count bambu prices since they print basically the same just doesnt have a rfid tag. Only issue is tou cant be to picky with the color, but if you buy in bulk once in a while you will manage to store up the colors you need. You can also get Pla+ so thats nice.
I’m genuinely curious when I hear that term PLA+, it makes me think “New and Improved”. There is no definition that I have found for what exactly that term means so each supplier gets to make up Sh*t as they go along. If anyone knows of a spec, I would dearly like a link to it so I can educate myself. So far, my experience with PLA+ is I think that the 
part actually means the amount they overcharge us for the same stuff. 
Yea this whole + part is a bit bogus, there is really no definition for what qualifies as +, anybody could just take their regular PLA and start calling it PLA+. Although I’ve had good experience with eSUN PLA+. I don’t know what extra they put in it but it does make it a fair bit stronger than your average PLA, at least in my experience. I assume it would be like Bambu Labs “PLA Tough”.
There is a certain subreddit which prints a lot of, hrm, airsoft accessories and paper weights in unusual shapes, not sure how OK bambu lab is with me marketing them but they do focus a lot on “free open source software computer aided designs”, I’m sure there is an acronym or something one could piece together with that, which has a lot of information on the subject, due to quite thorough testing.
The membership prices are quite good but unfortunatly their shopsoftware is a mess and charges you the wrong prices. Duh!
I got a subscription to their filament program with the purchase of my printer, so I went ahead and ordered 4 spools of PLA in order to get the highest discount and free shipping. It took less than a week to arrive. I used up the roll that came with my printer but in the meantime have been using Amolen filament from Amazon, and it’s been working beautifully - the plastic spool fits perfectly in the AMS with no retraction issues. The only issue I had was that I had to re-calibrate slightly for the silk PLAs. I’m curious to compare other brands with the Bambu ones. One thing I do love about Bambu is that I can order spool-less refills that I can just put on their pull apart spools.
I have tried quite a few different “no name” brands but keep coming back to eSun. BBL filament is a fair bit more expensive (~40%) here in Australia, even with the club discount. The other reason I stick with eSun is they have filament and print profiles (json) for BBL printers to download which work fantastically.
My sole experience with silk was Bambu filament which in my view was an unmitigated disaster. No amount of tuning would get rid of the zits and artifacts that were produced during extrusion. The filament reminded me of video I saw of cheese doodles or other puffed corn or puffed rice products in that as soon as it left the nozzle it expanded to 20 times it’s volume. I’ve seen enough video to realize that this was standard.
However, I decided to give Silk one more shot last week when I tried out a sample spool of multicolored print and I was shocked how well it came out without tuning and using just the default Bambu filament definitions. The experience was totally different from my Bambu Silk experience.
I paid $7 for a 250g spool, which means of course I bought a $28 spool of filament. That’s beyond what I am used to paying lately but as a sample product, well worth the money.
3Dgenius Silk PLA 3D Printer Filament Triple Color Silk PLA Filament
I had no experience before with tri-color filament. I learned that there are two approaches. One where the filament color varies every 10-100cm. That turned out to be awful for small prints. And then there was this one above which has three colors at once, that was pretty cool.
The model on the left with the benchy for scale, were printed from the same PLA multicolor spool consecutively. You can see that there is almost no color variation in the benchy because there isn’t enough variation in the color over the length of the filament despite the look of the filament on the spool. Filament was GIANTARM 3D Printer Filament, Multicolor Pla
Model 2 in the center was the silk PLA. Noted the rich variation in color and no artifacts. Amazing performance that might have me trying their other silk filaments.
Model 3 on the right is a stringy mess but that’s not why I got it. That’s Marble PETG Filament 1.75 mm 3D Printer Filament from HZST3D who also goes by CC3DChina.com. I’ve had good luck with their PC filaments but this Stone PETG was not so much. It didn’t matter because the project was for a stone replica of a functional part so despite having to clean it up after the fact, it still served its function.
I agree, bought one spool with ethe printer, havent bought anymore and very much doubt I will.
Why? because I can get better, cheaper and faster on amazon, I save at least 50% and when i order elegoo x 10 I save around 60%, including delivery. Jayo is excellent and a lot cheaper, creality high speed is cheaper and prints better ,
With calibrating I push even basic elegoo to print fast and cleanly pla to a lot higher speeds than they set in the slicer, I think the flow rate is set low to make people think they must buy bambu , I find, again with after calibrating, its possible to push jayo and crealith high speed more than bambu filaments and get better results.
Maybe Ive just been lucky but so far bamu filament sems a waste of money, money that i save to buy another printer so they will end up with my money anyway
@Olias Nice post! I just don’t print any PLA… What are your choices for PETG?
Recently I’ve ordered from California Filament and have been happy. I like to order from local businesses if practical and they’re almost next door (I’m in SoCal). Shipping is free and if you order 4 spools you get 10% off, which makes ‘cloudy white’ and black come in at $17 (+tax) and colors at $21.60. It’s not rock-bottom but a reasonable trade-off in my book.
My impression with the super-cheap offerings is that what you give up is consistency. One spool may be great and the next awful. The result really depends on whether you’re ok with that or not.
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Well, if I lived in SoCal, I’d by local too. But the closest Microcenter from me is over 2 hours away. Back in the day, Frye’s used to be my personal Mecca. I know SoCal is a big place but if you’re ever down in South Orange County, check out these guys storefront in Lake Forest. https://www.matterhackers.com/ I’d love to hear a first hand report of what their retail looks like in person. Their note exactly located in a consumer storefront but then again, it is Orange County.
As far as PETG goes. I haven’t picked out a Go-to supplier yet. I just took delivery of a Sunlu spool Transparent today and I’m letting it dry first. So far, I’ve used the following:
- Bambu White - I know… yawn
but you have to start somewhere. - CC3D Transparent https://a.co/d/b6LeZ0x _ this is the one that did the optically clear prints with that I posed here last week. Very nicely priced. Right now, it’s the lead PETG, I purchased two more boxes under a clone name HZST3D
- Sunlu Black
- Jarees Black Matte - Didn’t like this. Very stringy even after drying for 12 hours. I paid $23 JAREES Petg Filament 1.75,Black Matte Petg 3D Printing Filament
- Sunlu Transparent - This is the one I got in a flash deal and I’ll do a bake-off this weekend against CC3d Transparent to see who produces the most optically clear part. Unless this blows me away with totally clear optical clarity, at $20, it’s a no-deal.
- HZST3D Marble - Sorry! Something went wrong! At $19 it was a totally fair deal but it was very stringy and I was too lazy to tune the filament profile. Sometimes you just gotta put your feet up and relax.
Plus, I bought it for another purpose which was to simulate a stone soap dish that I could also throw in the dishwasher, hence the need for PETG. - Kaaber - https://a.co/d/1GDJuxX This was another flash deal at $15 on Oct 3 and now it’s at $14 and so far, I am real impressed. It is the closest thing to PLA ease of use and I didn’t even tune the profile, used the Bambu PETG profile already in the slicer, not the generic profile but the Bambu one.
I would actually love to use the Bambu filament.
It seems good quality, but for me the refill and re-usable spools is amazing. I’m sick of the plastic waste of other brands.
But being in the UK it’s just not affordable. The price for the filament is too high and shipping, plus I have to wait 3-5 days to get it.
I can get sunlu PLA+ from amazon much cheaper same or next day.
It’s more affordable with the membership but my account is completely screwed up.
I created a shop account to buy my printer, then when it arrived and I installed the bambu handy app I signed in with apple on my iPhone - this created a new account, which I’ve then used to buy all my accessories/AMS and spares.
So now I’ve got two accounts, can’t merge them, and can’t get the 6 months membership on my main account because I bought the printer on another one.
The printer is fantastic, the price of spares is great, and support has been ok - but the ecosystem around the printer needs some thought (especially account management). And until the filament stock becomes available next day in UK I doubt I’ll be switching to it 
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Today, Bambu forced me to revise or at least add to my initial response on this topic.
After a challenging but in the end successfull Cults-print, I went on a bit of a splurge yesterday morning.
Having ordered my full monthly membership discount at 09:24 yesterday, it was sitting before my front door at 13:00 today.
That … was really impressive.
Amazon can be as fast (~25% of orders), but not faster. At least until they use anticipatory shipping for the last mile
Firmly back in the honeymoon phase 
(As long as I can turn a blind eye on Makerworld business practices)
I assume you are in the US? I am in Holland (EU) and the prices of the membership program are still not calculated correctly. Or asm I the only one they charge more to?
Don’t despair Phil, I am not able to buy filament on member prices for a month now.
Answer from BL “Hold of buying” …
I am just across the border in Northern Germany. Membership prices calculate properly for me for the total sum.
It is a bit intransparent while ordering due to the different discounts (PLA, PETG, spool, no spool), but it is nicely summarized for me correctly just before committing.
The total on the bill was also OK but the individual entries on it are, …, interesting: €19×1,19 (VAT) = €28… 
OK for me though as I can not claim back the VAT anyway.
Thanks for coming back to me, I can claim back VAT so maybe there lies the problem
This is my shopping cart price. Its deducting the VAT but not using member price.
Yeah, that’s strange. Is that before or after you proceed to the checkout?
For me, it again logs me into their shop once I proceed to the checkout. So before that, it does not actually (want to) know if I am eligible.
I assume that you have tried that but I am afraid that I am out of other ideas 
Yup, in the US, so I haven’t had any issues with price calculation. Hopefully they’ll fix the international issues soon. 
They should at the very least extend your membership by how long you couldn’t use it.