Under $20? Its not particularly hard to get eSUN filaments under $10, which prints just as good as BL, making that RFID tag not really worth it. Id be happy to buy a couple of tags if they sold them separately, but up to three times the price to get those tags on a spool, nah I can select the type manually in studio.
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Honestly, bambu filaments could be esun. Last I heard, they use a few suppliers, slap on a .02 cent rfid tag and double the price.
Yep, technically the price is not even for the RFID tag, anybody could buy RFID tags and write to them, that is old tech any kid could do. Technically the extra $20~ is for the passwords/hashsums for the RFID tag making it possible to write a tag that is usable and readable with the AMS.
I mean, $20 extra are fine for certain products, if you receive something special, something that you cannot do yourself, or something that others cannot do as well. But $20 on every spool simply because they donāt feel like sharing 6 bytes and an algoritm, that is simply not justifiable.
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Well thenā¦ what do you consider bad then?
Hereās just a quick analysis from my last 90 days of black PLA filament purchases compared to Bambu which I purchased back in July during one of their sales.
| MFG | Best Price | List Price | Discount from BL Membership Price w/o spool | Discount from list |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bambu PLA w/o Spool | 17 | 25 | ||
| Bambu PLA w Spool Black | 20 | 28 | ||
| 3D Printer Filament PLA, COLIDO | 14 | 18% | 44% | |
| Ā¹JAYO PLA 3D Printer Filament, 1.75mm PLA | 10 | 41% | 60% | |
| Kretrum PLA 3D | 13 | 24% | 48% | |
| XYZPrinting PLA | 13 | 24% | 48% |
Ā¹Amazon Flash Deal Price
Note that the Bambu prices given best discount require a membership and the purchase of more than 4 refills so I am being very generous in calculating discounts by not doing an Apples to Apples comparison. The point is that given Bambu every possible advantage, they are still wildly over priced. If I did a true comparison such as 2 day shipment, single spool price etc., one can quickly see that Bambu is 2X their competitors on an Apples to Apples comparison of price per spool and shipping.
Also, some of these were Amazon flash deal prices so you have to be vigilant to find deals.
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Bambu is a little more competitive in Canada than the US. The Amazon prices below are with Prime membership. At least some of them had an extra $10 shipping without Prime.
| MFG | Best Price | List Price | % from BL Membership Price w/o spool | Discount from list |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bambu PLA w/o Spool | 22 | 32 | ||
| Bambu PLA w Spool Black | 26 | 36 | ||
| 3D Printer Filament PLA, COLIDO | 25 | +13% | -22% | |
| Ā¹JAYO PLA 3D Printer Filament, 1.75mm PLA 1 | 20 | -9% | -38% | |
| JAYO PLA 3D Printer Filament, 1.75mm PLA 1 | 22 | 0% | -30% | |
| Kretrum PLA 3D | 42 | +90% | +31% |
Ā¹ 9% off
Slightly off-topic but Iām curious as to why anyone would not be an Amazon Prime member. I mean just on sundry items such as toiletries alone during the course of the year, we more than make up for the prime membership is what we save. Then you add household goods and Iād say that our breakeven over the year is probably hit before the end of January.
We typically receive 2-3 prime shipments a week and go to the local store once a week whereas before Prime it was the opposite of brick and mortar purchases versus online. I know, I know, everyone points out that each buy on Amazon is cutting our own throats as local retailers go out of business, but the local guys simply can no longer compete on inventory and price. In fact, in my 30 minute area, which is about the distance to our now dying shopping mall, there are 5 individual million-square-feet Amazon warehouses and I live in the countryside.
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BTW: To expand on my post. I can easily envision the day when all major retailers and mom and pop shops are put out of business by Jeff Bezos & Co. He has often stated that Amazon is not a retailer but rather a logistics company.
One can easily envision the day when Amazon drone delivering parcels to oneās door step and that the home of the future will have a docking pad for delivery drones to drop off parcels using a standardized interface. It is on that day, that I can see the price of Amazon Prime subscription increasing to becoming more than my Broadband, Cable TV and Mobile phone bill combined.
People complain that Amazon warehouse workers are mistreated but what they arenāt aware of is that the warehouse worker is just a momentary stop-gap before dark warehouses become the norm. Whatās a dark warehouse you ask? Robots donāt need lights. In my day job, I have seen this technological transformation already occur in massive data centers.
ācutting our own throats as local retailers go out of business, but the local guys simply can no longer compete on inventory and price.ā
You have the answer right there, thatās the reason why they cant compete. Global mass manufacturers can push down the prices easily when they manufacture so much and when they pay their workers so little. The more you buy from Amazon, the less the rest can compete. Keep that up for a decade and there will only be one company in the world that can put whatever prices they want. Its not like Amazon is a saint.
Iām not an amazon prime member, toiletries and stuff I can buy in my local super market. I know those are not saints either, but at least they are not global. I really dislike the whole idea of those multi billion companies that have no problem loosing money while trying to monopolize on a market, and when they have the monopoly they increase the prices way beyond to make up for what they lost. I rather pay a dollar extra for that sort of stuff. I make that dollar back buying filaments for other sources ^^
I just cant support that idea, we already have that issue with so many things. Itās literally gonna become hell on earth when there is only a single company that provides every single item, any time someone tries to compete, they lower their price for that product and increase it on everything else they sell to recuperate until that company either sells their product to them or goes out of business. Corporatist dystopia.
Even if Amazon is just a logistic company, they will be the centralized hotspot for everything, they can decide what to put on the search list, whatever they make the most profit of they can put as āAmazon choiceā and what not.
Regarding dark warehouses, that would have been a good idea, if the money saved by them was split on the population, if they paid their taxes etc. But they dont, instead Bezos makes even more money, and the former workers gets even poorer. There will come a time when every warehouse is run by robots. Where 90% of all the corporations are run by robots. For that to work companies cant be run by multibillionaires hording money. First of all its immoral but its also a catch 22, if all the former workers are starving because no one is paying taxes and they cant get any jobs, there wont be any money to buy the products anyways.
The society most people live in today wont be able to handle those things. We either need to heavily refactor how we look at consumerism, or literally 99% of the world is going to starve while 1% lives like kings.
I used to be all ācool robots and AI taking over the worldā but thatās an utopian dream, it will never become what people envision, it will just become worse than it already is today.
Youāve already seen all this in some parts, self checkout machines, marketed as help for the cashiers, make their days less stressfull, but what happened? They fired half the cashiers. Still as stressfull for the other half, just more profit for the companies. They use that money to set up shell corporations and what not to save on taxes.
We donāt need more robots or AI, we are long over due for a revolution. Once societal order has been restored, then we can talk about robots.
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Amazon supplied cc3d filiment here in Australia is 25.99 1kg spools, au$ and is free shipped (PRIME),next day delivery.
Never had a problem with any pteg,pla,pla plus,silk,abs from this company.
Canāt see any reason to buy bambu filiment.
Yup! Exactly!
I canceled prime when the shipping became a joke (a week) and I tried to order stuff elsewhere. 90% of stuff I want/need I canāt get locally, plus I donāt have the time to go store to store to hunt. The reason I subscribed to prime again is that (a) the online shopping experience almost everywhere else sucks, and (b) due to reward points on my amazon credit card (which I only use to order at amazon) I was loosing money.
WRT ordering at other online merchants, I have to say that shop-pay really has made things better. Checkout at stores that use it is now a breeze. If they could put up a search engine that consolidates all ātheirā stores that would be interesting.
Ebay search is horrific. Walmart, wellā¦ Target is perhaps an option for certain categories. Beyond thatā¦
Big discounts for large quantities. I have 12 rolls in my cart now at $124.68. Just deciding whether or not to pull the trigger.
I saved over 2 grand in shipping prime this year. Most deliveries are next day or over night. Amazon SHOULD be the first step to a automated utopian society. Or distopian overlord. lol
Based on this thread, I made a large purchase of JAYO PLA and Kaaber PETG off amazon to test out.
I must say I am very impressed.
JAYO - Purchase Price: $9.99/kg
- Came in a high quality, heavy duty, double zipper, resealable bag.
- Standard cardboard spool.
- Only 1 gram of weight change before and after drying for 8 hrs, indicating a dry filament out of the box.
- Consistent color and perfect printing w/ default PLA profile.
- Speed, I have not tested its top speed but I ran it up to 350mm/s with no issues or noticeable decrease in print quality.
- Good adhesion to all bed types (Textured PEI, PEO, Cool Plate)
I am extremely impressed with this filament. I cant believe it came with such a high quality, resealable bagā¦ something Bambu doesnt even do. I am still skeptical that it comes from the same factory as Polymaker or any of the other name brands, since the spool dimensions and the cut outs on the spool do not match any of my Polymaker spools. But, I will defiantly be buying more from JAYO.
Kaaber PETG- Purchase Price: $14.99/kg
- Came in a normal non-resealable bag.
- Standard plastic spool.
- No weight change after drying.
- No stringing.
- Also printed well w/ standard Generic PETG profile.
- Good adhesion to all bed types (Textured PEI, PEO, Eng Plate)
Good PETG at a good price. I will also be buying more in the future.
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Does anybody bother printing with the high speed filaments from other companies, or do you just get their standard filament?
Also, it seems like a lot of people are printing regular filaments at a higher speed than the generic settings. Do you use the same speed as the Bambu filament and do you notice any issues at that speed with regular filament?
No, just normal filaments. But I also generally donāt go above 150 mm/s anymore, even with Bambulab Fillament. Since every incorrect print is one error too muche. Likewise, Iām no longer waiting for the printer, the printers are now waiting for meā¦
Even 120 mm/s is enough for me. The prices for maintenance-friendly printers have now reached their lowest point and at latest by summer, every printer will be capable of 120mm/s, even the really old ones so the next big step to me are the pad`s. Iām anyway again back on 100% PETG, BioFusion by Exdrudr or TPUā¦ and since even the Bambulab mebership price are to high for fillament made in China - so ignore this mebership price as wellā¦
On the other hand, the higher the acceleration, the higher the wear - acceleration is the square of wear.
I have 2 modded cr10s pro v2ās that print beautifully at 200. 250 it skips steps. No need to go that fast unless youre racing anyway.
What do you use to test before and after drying? Link to a certain type of a scale?
Yes, throw it on an accurate scale that reads in grams. Any digital food scale should be good enough.
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If PETG gets wet - it will break the same way as PLA?
Weighing is certainly good, can you really be sure that only water comes out?
In all candor. I call bullshit on this test method. I say that because Iāve taken filament, dried it and weighed it and it went into the dryer flexible and in some cases where I left it in for too long and too hot, it became brittle just like this idiot says a wet filament is.
Where YouTubers like this lose me is with their unscientific approach. Itās like them explaining Darwinās theory of evolution as being āIf youāre parents never had sex, then odds are you wonāt eitherā. 
If he wanted to have credibility he should have done a very simple control. Set aside the portion of the filament and weigh the rest of the spool. Place the spool in the dryer and weigh it again to prove that moisture either was present or not. Then take the set-aside sample and the dried sample and see which one breaks like he says. What he fails to take into account is that heat treated filament will also become brittle. If he were to witness Filament manufacturing process, he would know this but itās easier to just put up SHITE on YouTube.
But you know what? Likely he already did that and couldnāt prove his factoid so he conveniently leaves it out.
OK rant overā¦ you can go back to your regularly scheduled programming ā¦ 