this post was submitted on 12 May 2024
69 points (94.8% liked)

3DPrinting

15591 readers
11 users here now

3DPrinting is a place where makers of all skill levels and walks of life can learn about and discuss 3D printing and development of 3D printed parts and devices.

The r/functionalprint community is now located at: !functionalprint@kbin.social or !functionalprint@fedia.io

There are CAD communities available at: !cad@lemmy.world or !freecad@lemmy.ml

Rules

If you need an easy way to host pictures, https://catbox.moe/ may be an option. Be ethical about what you post and donate if you are able or use this a lot. It is just an individual hosting content, not a company. The image embedding syntax for Lemmy is ![](URL)

Moderation policy: Light, mostly invisible

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

As I'm graduating college in a few weeks, I'll be losing access to my university's free printers and filament. I'm going to build up a home lab with a couple printers where I can make goofy little mechanical projects as well as some components for my cars and stuff.

Who's your go-to for PLA and ABS/ASA filaments? Those will be my primary print jobs in any serious volume. I know our college's club has had hella problems with random chinese brand filaments not printing consistently but I also don't want to spend $30+ per kg for something like Prusament.

top 32 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] brightandshinyobject@lemmy.world 18 points 6 months ago (3 children)

I have been using tangledfilament.com for my PLA and it's been great. Their goal is to get to $10/kg for US manufactured filament and then expand to PETG.

[–] empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Oooh, tangled. Thanks for reminding me about them. Having all US produced product is a nice plus and if they can keep it that cheap domestically, I'd happily buy it for all my bulk printing that doesn't care about color. $15/kg is about as good as it gets these days.

[–] brightandshinyobject@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

The just had another price drop to $15/kg and their road map is going well.

[–] johnb48@mastodon.online 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] Tolookah@discuss.tchncs.de 12 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Microcenter's Inland pla+ has been good to me. Microcenter used to ship it free, and they may still, but it's been a bit since I ordered. It's $15-20/kg. Some day I'll use great filament and might call this stuff garbage, but I'm not there yet. The standard pla is less impressive, causes me more grief than I like.

[–] Thrashy@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago

Inland is (or was, at least) relabeled eSun filament, and they're considered a decent brand for basic filaments. I've only ever used their PLA(+) but it's always been bulletproof.

[–] lightnsfw@reddthat.com 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Their stuff has worked well for me too.

[–] qwertilliopasd@lemmy.world 10 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

In USA I usually get Printed solid's Jesse and 3D Printing Canada's Budget PLA. I also pick up a couple rolls of Inland any time I'm by my local Microcenter

Filament sourcing is pretty region specific. Where are you buying from?

[–] IMALlama@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

TIL of Jesse, thanks for the link!

[–] IMALlama@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago

I've printed a decent amount of PETG from both Push Plastic and Atomic Filament. Both have been very solid/reliable, but I would probably give an edge to Atomic as far as quality. Their PETG has never let me down. On the ASA front, I've run around 9 kg of Polymaker ASA through my Voron with another 1.5 of blue and white sitting on two different 3kg spools. I ran 2 kg of their ASA through my i3 clone printing prints for my Voron. I haven't had any problems with it, and it does occasionally go on sale for very attractive prices. I bought my last two spools on November 24th last year for $50.39 (for a 3 kg spool of blue) and $67.19 (for a 3 kg spool of white). Polymaker's ASA does require what seems like a very low extrusion multiplier (I'm currently at 0.893), but you can print the stuff blazing fast in terms of mm^3/s.

Now that I know that both Atomic Filament and Push Plastic offer ASA, I might give them a spin when I need a refill. I don't go through that much filament and don't mind spending a little extra $$ for something that could result in less headache. I also like supporting American companies/manufacturers where I can.

[–] bronxasaur@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago

Big big fan of Fusion filaments, especially their ABS 2.0. It's what my Voron Trident is made of. It looks amazing and is the best ABS I've found to work with as of late.

[–] MrQuallzin@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Tried IID Max's PLA+ since they were always posting discounts on Reddit. I've stuck with them since for anything that needs color, their filament is vibrant and I've never had any issues. Buying in bulk you're looking at roughly $10/kg. For my black I use Elegoo PLA. It has a nice sheen to it.

[–] agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 months ago

I do everything in black anyway, and 4 packs of Elegoo PLA are like $45. No complaints so far and $11-12/kg is hard to beat

[–] empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 6 months ago

The bulk 10kg options look good. I might stock up on those and packrat a few colors since they dont' really go bad

[–] JustBrian7872@feddit.de 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

If you're shopping in the EU, I recommend Devil Design PLA - they're available through a couple of shops.

[–] JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

My favorite webshop tinytronics.nl (very little markup on their electronics unlike almost every competitor)

And they have both Azurefilm and Devil Design. I was debating on which to try. Sounds like J should go devil design

[–] JustBrian7872@feddit.de 1 points 6 months ago

Thanks for the tip with the shop (shipping is reasonable and electronic components are well priced)! Cannot help with Azurefilm filament as I haven't tried it yet.

[–] Manifish_Destiny@lemmy.world 4 points 6 months ago

Sunlu pla+ prints super well for how cheap it is.

[–] qaz@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

I'm in the EU and have been buying filament from https://www.123-3d.nl/ so far. They also have an English shop https://www.123-3d.co.uk/.

[–] dlatch@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago

My go-to is their "REAL" PLA brand. It's good quality, is made in NL and comes on cardboard spools.

I am a bit fed up with all the shit they throw in with each order though, there's only so many pens and stacks of post-its I need. When I remember, I add a line in the notes field to leave it out.

[–] neclimdul@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago

Had great luck with polymaker and find they're in the sweet spot of predictable quality and price for me.

[–] bluewing@lemm.ee 2 points 6 months ago

For PLA and PETG, I like MatterHacker, though I have been buying some Voxel PLA lately and that's been pretty good stuff too. Voxel does run sales that get the price down to $15/$16US a kilo.

For ABS/ASA, I'm still using a the same kilo of Zyltech ABS I bought 5 or 6 years ago. And I still haven't used 200g yet. I did dig it out this weekend to print a couple dozen custom cable clips for my boat with it though.

[–] GrayBackgroundMusic@lemm.ee 2 points 6 months ago
[–] BastingChemina@slrpnk.net 2 points 6 months ago

In France I'm buying from ArianePlast. It's good PLA for a decent price.

I have not tried it but they also have "Eco" PLA at 13€/kg

[–] CyanFen@lemmy.one 1 points 6 months ago

Filacube's pla 2 has never done me wrong, and it's STRONG as hell

[–] Oha@lemmy.ohaa.xyz 1 points 6 months ago

3djake's PLA is pretty decent from my experience

[–] morbidcactus@lemmy.ca 1 points 6 months ago

I bounced around a couple, my goal was to find stuff cheaper than prusament that also produced nice results. i really liked the stuff spool3d in Canada sells but ended up coming across matter3d as spool3d carries some of their products. They're way cheaper than anything I can get on amazon and I found the quality up there.

[–] Dettweiler42@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

I've been using Creality's hyper PLA. It's pretty good quality and my printer/slicer combo has presets that are 95% what I want (I tweak the print and bed temps as needed). I'm using an Ender 3 V3 KE for reference.

[–] th_in_gs@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

"Jinos 3D Filament” is pretty cheap. I started using them during the pandemic when it was hard to find PETG. Seem to be a small place in North Carolina that manufactures mostly for their own use? Sometimes they take a couple of days to ship.

They sell mostly on eBay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/382556327412

[Edit: Just re-read that you’re looking for ABS/ASA - I don’t think Jinos does those, unfortunately]