I agree, I rarely print anything tall enough to get much out of the vertical color change silks. The horizontal ones are my go-to for printing. I’ve tried a lot of different brands, but so far the one I like the best is OVV3D Tri-Colors PLA 3D Printer Filament since it’s given me extremely consistent results between spools. I’ve ordered a lot of the 4 packs, and the colors are great. I’ve also enjoyed the AMOLEN 3D Printer Filament, PLA Filament 1.75mm dual color filament. I printed up about 45 flexi T-Rex toys for Halloween, and after calibration, had a fantastic time with it. I had one tiny spaghetti failure on a tail, but that was it. It gets bonus points for coming on a plastic spool that works flawlessly in the AMS, too.
I have been using Sunlu off Amazon for quite some time…get it cheap on a subscription basis and every color I have tried prints great. Works for high speed prints even with difficult geometries. The only problem I see is the Sunlu spools have larger than normal middle openings and will be too large for the AMS Lite of the A1 if you buy an A1 you’ll need adapters to reduce the center size.
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Not many reasons, and they aren’t the best, but these are them for me.
Firstly, live in Rural Australia, so shipping is shipping out here. Amazon, Aus Post or otherwise, everything takes days if not weeks to ship out here. And of the few orders I have made, BL have consistently been faster than Amazon so far. So if I were in a hurry, I’d be more tempted to go BL than Amazon.
Secondly, of the filament I have put through the X1C, the BL just prints in every single PLA job I’ve asked of it. The PETG was a mess, but I have a feeling that’s settings and I will get onto that once I can be bothered to tinker (exactly what I didn’t want to do and why I bought this printer). A few of the residual Amazon rolls I had left from my Ender 3 that I put through gave ok results, but not as nice as the BL filaments have so far.
And thirdly, Amazon are still a terrible company. The way they treat their suppliers and workers is pretty awful while they take home all the profit. Sure, we consumers squeeze out so cracking deals, but at what cost? So if an option exists that is comparable on price, performance and shipping times (which BL has been in my experience) I’ll pick them over Bezos every time.
Not the greatest of reasons, but it factors into my decision. At the end of the day, I’d sooner support BL with my money.
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I’ve tried a wide variety of PLA filament and honestly, I can’t find a consistent difference between Bambu PLA and the cheap($9-$13/kg) filament on Amazon and elsewhere. The only advantage I see to Bambu filament is that you will be sure that the spool will be AMS compatible. However, between the different types of adapters and spool winding machines, that’s not an issue for me. I printed an assembled a spool winder that’s powered by my cordless drill and if I get filament on a spool that isn’t AMS compatible and can’t work with adapters, I just wind it onto another spool. Also, I’ve also used “cheap” PETG and ABS filament with great results.
I’ve been getting Peakace PLA filament for $13.99/kg from Amazon and that works great in the AMS. The print quality is as good as Bambu and I’ve used it in Sport and Ludicrous mode without issue. I also tried Peakace ABS for $14.99/kg and that works great also.
Fixdry brand PLA for $14-$14.49/kg has worked well and their cardboard spools have worked without issue for me in the AMS.
Fixdry tri color silk PLA filament also has worked great for me. That is uaually under $20/kg.
Firos PETG works great and its been costing me $14-$14.49/kg.
Mchyi PLA for under $14/kg with great results in both Sport and Ludicrous speed modes.
Cuieed PLA works great in both Sport and Ludicrous speed modes.
Tpoimns PETG for $12.99/ks gave me great results.
With the regular promotions Sunlu runs on Amazon, their regular PLA is under $13/kg and has always given me great results.
For Silk PLA, Mokem Silk PLA for under $15/kg has worked well for me.
As mentioned before, the convenience of Amazon returns definitely is a factor. The lower prices with Bambu’s filament membership are nice, but they still can’t compete with Amazon filaments that have great print quality and easy returns.
Also, I have an Amazon rewards credit card with 5% back on Amazon purchases. I pay it off every month and get 5% back in Amazon credit or to put toward my bill. That reduces the price of filament from Amazon even further.
That doesn’t mean I won’t but any more Bambu filament. I do like some of their colors and getting the AMS compatible spool that I can use with other filament is nice, even though printing spools isn’t expensive. However, the number of PLA, PETG, and ABS filaments that work for me in Sport and Ludicrous modes with great print quality is much higher than I expected.
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I would not buy bambu labs filaments. My experience has been that their profiles never work and that therefore the RFID tag system is more of a hindrance than an aid as I have to constantly force my own profiles back into the system when I put a reel in that thill automatically select a profile that will not work.
I don’t have enough experience to know much same basic filaments of the same type will differ between manufacturers but I would not expect that much. At work I simply used up all oaf the scraps of PLA on the same settings.
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When my printer was new, I compared prices of filaments and decided to buy from Amazon. While the filaments itself were mostly (not always) ok, I ended up having issues with the spools in AMS:
250g spools, of which I got a 10-pack with different colors, won’t work in the AMS. I’ve printed 3 different adapters and it’s still a pain. One adapter just broke into pieces, another traps the filament between spool and adapter and the third one keep on jumping, requiring a manual nudge on virtually every filament change. Besides, they won’t even go on the external spool holder. I did consider printing a hydra AMS, but effort seems to big without being sure it would actually solve all the issues. By now I can’t wait till I’ve used them up and really only use them any more for single color prints through the external filament.
For regular 1kg spools I always stayed away from cardboard spools as it’s mentioned somewhere in the AMS docs that they won’t work well, but even with other brands plastic spools, I often had problems that the spool is slightly too large, or have the jumping issue too, or are too thin and sort-of cutting into the rubber in the AMS etc. With multi-color prints that frequently change filaments that’s a real pain. Also I hate throwing out those plastic spools when the spool is empty.
So, next, trying to solve this, I printed the beforementioned filament winding machine and thought, okay, then I’m just gonna print the Bambu spool and move filaments onto those. Again, initially excited, it didn’t last long. Soon enough I had to dry a filament and guess what, the spools soften up during the drying process and aren’t usable in the AMS any more either 
. Tried PLA, PET and PC - The PC one is the only one still working, threw away the self printed PLA and PETG spools by now…
Then I decided to be done with it and just get a bunch of original Bambu filament spools and reconsider options once I’ve used them up and have proper spools to wind 3rd party filament on.
So, here I am having bought like 20 spools of Bamub filament with different colors/types, nearly none of which emptied yet, and I learned to love the Bambu filament. I like the colors, I like the RFID stuff, I like the plug-and-play (Bambu presets work prefectly fine for me in virtually all cases so far).
Especially with multi color prints, Bambu filaments - for me - have another big advantage: Other filaments are often slightly translucient. This is a non-issue for single color prints as long as they’re not really really thin, but with multi color prints I ruinted quite some prints by enabling “flush into infill” or generally having too thin walls around color changes. Bambu filament seems much less translucent and one or two walls are enough to not let any “dirty” infill shine through.
There are still occasions when I do buy other brands. When printing large prints which require more than one spool, I do go out and find the cheapest deal (staying away from brands which disappointed me so far) and use them through the external slot.
Not sure yet what will happen when I have used up many color and end up having lots of good empty spools, but I could totally see myself keeping on bying bambu refills, as IMO they just did a good job and that needs to be rewarded. However, I mostly really only buy Bambu filament in combination with some offers as the stock price is still too high. If they’d stop doing those promotions/membership deals, I will very likely buy other brands for most prints as 50-80% higher price is too high IMO. I’m okay with paying, like 20% more for the all-in-one-just-works package.
Have used both the Bambulab PLA and others. No issues with the BLA profiles supplied by Bambulab. 75% of my PLA filaments are currently BL.
Creality Hyper had winding issues and kept getting stuck. Sent it back through Amazon.
Sunlu’s “high speed” is NOT what it claims. Max print speed is 100 some people have pushed it to 150. Have a couple of their normal PLA from my other printer to use, but haven’t got around to using them yet, so no feedback.
eSun provides both profiles and tables of settings for all of their filaments. Have used the PLA + , the PLA silk Mystic, and their ABS+. I entered the profiles manually as importing them for my P1S was not working. All have printed very well, but the silk will need a little tweaking for vase mode.
Have used Voxelabs PLA. Used Bambu’s PLA tough settings and it works flawlessly. This brand is made by Flashforge.
VoxelPLA is another alternative that works great using the PLA tough settings. Good luck on getting the colors you want though. This brand is known for high quality, and with the low price, they are constantly selling out of colors.
Just got my hardened nozzle and extruder. Once those are installed, I have some Sunlu TPU and Flashforge ASA to try.
I only use Amazon when I need a special type or color. I propose another option. Check out Fremover. I am at the high end of a hobbyist, use about 8-10 rolls per month of PLA, they have prices around $10 per roll in quantities of 10 or more with free shipping and it is pretty good filament. I guess I have purchased over 150 in the last year and have not had any problems.
Speed is not everything. Filaments are not specified in print speed, that is just to give you a rough idea and for the same reason the printer specs are that it can move at 500mm/s not that it can print at this speed. The extrusion rate of the filament is what counts, this is the volume of material not the speed. The speed is a combination of the volume extrusion speed and the layer thickness. I have found filaments that fall short of their specs and bambu filaments that show the same issue if pushed as fast as the profile lets you.
I’m really wondering though if most people who say they don’t have issues with inexpensive filaments if that’s because they are using an X1C or are using a P Series and calibrating the filament before hand.
I say that because I see a lot of X series owners claim they don’t have issues with certain types of filaments but I’m guessing because auto cal is happening before the print assisting with the filament. Whereas if they just sent it without intervention or enabling the auto cal if the results would be the same.
I have a P series and before Overture had a profile I would use the generic profile and it print just wouldn’t turn out aesthetically how I hoped. But after calibrating it was back to how I imagined it should look.
Now if I had an X series of course auto cal for me would be enabled on every print/filament so is the machine assisting with printing those cheaper filaments?
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I have an X1C and its very rare for me to have any kind of issue with filaments so far. In my post above I mentioned cheap filaments that worked well for me with the X1C. So maybe you are correct that the X1C is just more tolerant of cheap filaments than the P series due to the flow calibration before printing.
When Computers first came a part of everyone’s life there were these constant comparisons that were extremely confusing even to the “Experts” in their respective fields. So we came up with a standard protocol of Make, model, operating system, and alterations and additions when discussing needs, wants and desires. ie. Apple, 2019 iMac, OS 10.14.xx, Graphics cards, hard drive types and connections, etc. That way we could compare Apples to Apples and Windows to Windows.
So perhaps those reporting issue with X1C-AMS versus P1S and other open spool mounted systems would demonstrate a much different result when comparing things like Filament performances, Speed choices, and the other myriad parameters of 3D printing. While the forums are designed for that distinction, the replies from these different groups to a common discussion about Filaments and their resultant performances, leave out those important profile considerations.
BTW,[more on topic] I have been using Bambu filaments, FlashForge, SunLu, and Amazon for over sometime on both my QIDI X-Plus and my X!C-AMS systems. [99% PLA printing to date.] Humidity and old filament are my 2 reasons for not using Amazon’s Basic PLA. Stringing and breakage are the most common problems I have found with my X1C-AMS. The others I now use daily without concern and with acceptable print qualities.
And the learning curve is a little steep, but climbable for the patient. 5 years in chemical research teaches patients combined with a little trial and error. Making notes about your theories [pro’s and con’s] keeps you a bit more conservative and humble about the outcomes. Understanding the environment of your production, focuses and limits the results of your efforts.
Fremover does not bring up any results on amazon. Maybe not available in North America?
As a user from Germany I only buy Bambu filament when I need a specific color I can’t find anywhere else. For that reason I also buy other high price filament like Extrudr.
For anything else, specially basic colors like black and white I buy JAYO filament from aliexpress or Ebay. Mostly they get even delivered directly from Germany within 2 days and cost ~8$ for PETG and ~10$ for PLA Meta.
I can’t spott any difference between Bambu and JAYO filament while printing.
Only the cardbord spools are a bit anoying with the AMS but with adapters they are okay to use.
But even if Bambu is very high priced, I like to see more varity in filament colors, so please continue. 
Funfact about the shipment here: Looks like Bambu uses a shipment/warehouse company here in Germany, all packages get routet and sendet from " DE WH: Online Seller Online Seller".
The same company is also used from JAYO, Sunlu and all the other cheep brands when sending from Germany… I also received one time my Sunlu filaments from aliexpress in a Bambu labeled cardboard. 
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I find that lately Bambu has been great with their shipments. They must have shipment warehouses here in the US because I’ve gotten the last couple orders within a couple days. I’ve been utilizing their filament membership program (since i have 6 months free) to branch out and get into PETG and ABS. Previously I have mostly used PLA. Their discounted prices are pretty comparable if you get enough for the free shipping. I also think some people like the peace of mind of having a predetermined filament profile in their slicer. Not that all of this couldn’t also be true with other filaments and distributors like Amazon, I think some people just prefer to stick with a brand for all their endeavors even if it costs a bit more.
I don’t differentiate between Bambu Lab filament and other brands available on Amazon or other websites. I find that most filaments seem to be about the same, with some exceptions. Still, I like the benefit of the RFID tag on the Bambu Filament, and it only takes about two spools to get the free shipping (I’m usually buying multiple spools anyway). But I don’t limit my selection to just Bambu Lab. I have bought spools from a range of vendors, and most of them work well enough in the AMS. I do transfer cardboard spools to Bambu Lab spools, though.
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I don’t think that’s as much of a flex as you make it out to be. That’s just a fancy way of saying BL filaments are massively overpriced. You could get 5kg eSUN filaments for that price. I’d take 3kg(150%) more plastic over RFID tags any day.
Where are you finding esun filament so cheap, when I look for it the price is almost the same as Bambu.
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Great deal on anycubic petg. Comes dry, with a filament clip, resealable bag and prints great at high speeds. If you buy 5 rolls, its $14.40 per roll.
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I’m certainly not trying to flex anything. Nor am I trying to comment on anyone’s prices. Just saying it doesn’t take much to get the free shipping.
I don’t think Bambu Lab’s prices are that bad, too be honest. Yeah, some brands you can get for under $20, but I think their Basic PLA is pretty much in line with most other places on average. Maybe a little on the high side of the average, but not bad.
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