UK and EU materials suppliers and prices

Where do people in the UK buy their filament? PLA mostly.

I see the guys from the US complaining about $20 a kg but most of the places I look are 50% more than that.

I am rapidly working my way through my first 100m of Faberdashery stuff (which seems fine) but would like to save a bit of money on the next lot. I dont think that Faberdashery's prices are too bad given the lovely range of colours (shame they aren't all in stock though), but the shipping is a killer (working out at nearly another 50% on top unless you buy a huge amount).
If the guy from Faberdashery reads this, any chance of getting the shipping costs down within the UK? 3 x 100m at under 3kgs should ship for less than £10 pretty easily (City Link Standard). Even a one off by UPS can be done for under £12 so I dont see why it is over £25.

Has anyone tried makemendel.com (based in India) a couple of kgs from there works out at around £65 (with another kg being £24 with extra shipping) which is substantially less (though they have very few choices of colour right now)?

Anyone any feedback on filament print [filamentprint.com] ? Prices are good, colour range seems good, shipping is very reasonable, 30m lengths seem good for getting started with a range of colours but not ending up with lots of waste ends...

I appreciate that the grades and the quality of the material vary quite a bit so any advice on a good source would be appreciated.

George

I buy all my PLA from the GRRF, but then I am located in Germany.

---

Bob Morrison
Wörth am Rhein, Germany
"Luke, use the source!"
BLOG - PHOTOS - Thingiverse

Gone through most of my first 30m of yellow from Filament print and it seems good.

There seems like a lot of variation between the colours. The four 30m coils of filament I bought are all different weights and different diameters but for the price I am happy so far.

Roundness seems OK 2.94 major axis and 2.8 minor on the black for example, however they are very tightly coiled (150mm diameter) so that may be the cause of this. What I think is more important is the variation in cross sectional area along the length and this seems virtually zero.

Will try ordering larger quantities next time in hopes of getting it less tightly wound.

George

I also buy from faberdashery, one very nice touch from them was the little freebie filament i get with every order.. I do have to agree that they charge a lot for the delivery although most of the cost went directly to royalmail...

Usually I do not need the filament urgently, so it might be very nice that we can choose our delivery method accordingly like what many online electronic shops are doing.

Other than that, I think eBay is an other good place to go...

The problem with ebay is the seller will typically specify a no return policy. Which means if you get it and inspect the diameter (and you ARE inspecting your incoming filament, right?) and find out it's unusable, you can't get your money back.

you can always hold the money or even retrieve it if the seller is not willing to deal with the problem. Of course, you'll need to use Paypal and you have to be sure that the fault was not on your side.

I brought some filament from FilamentPrint a few weeks ago. I've been meaning to do a full review, but things came up so I've still not do one.
Here's a quick one;

Pro's
Cheap
Good customer service
Free samples
Good delivery times

Con's
4032D, meaning its fairly brittle and requires a lot more heat (210C for my config) then 4042D/4043D
Oval. Not terribly bad, but bad enough.
The colour fades when extruded (the transparent red, it looks more pink)
Slight variation on width, not a lot but more then faberdashery.
~2.8mm
Not too easy to use, its coiled rather tightly and its very springy. Which means its a pain in the neck to respool.

Personally I wouldn't use them again due to the extra heat (nearly 40C more then I've been using) and the springiness of the spool.

This is a email I got from them after inquiring about the filament

This material is off of a proven line, just that the material is being sold direct and unbranded, by FilamentPrint. By adjusting the quantity on the reel we are trying to give the end user the best deal by minimising the carriage/delivery cost.
This is Nature works 4032D base material with a small percentage of pigment. All our current stock is this base grade. The processing to filament is done here in the UK on a line also used for oil/gas grade products. ( We are also trying 4043D and other grades. With later batches will also be adding a anti embrittlement agent which vastly improves the handling performance and reduces the “set” that happens on coiling. A vast amount of PLA has been run down this line, supplied and used without issue without the additive.)

I will try to take some photographs of the end section for you, but thinking about how I can best light and focus on the ends for you. The line this is run on has a optical micrometre to control the haul off and hence the die draw.

I have various 10-30m lengths that we stripped from reels to reduce down to 100m and for evaluation. I have measured some of these, in transparent Red for you.
The filament measures in the axis of the drum core 2.8833mm Average with a STD deviation of 0.0126mm and in the orthogonal axis/across the reel face 2.7504mm Average with a STD deviation 0.0185mm ( ovality of 5.43%)
The ovality is probably due to the winding/coiling stress and does not cause any problem either to the feed or nozzle. The other colour I have measured are very slightly larger with better/reduced ovality,. i.e. the red transparent material is at the small end of the whole population and all very tightly controlled on size. Whilst obviously working to achieve near the nominal size and perfect shape cannot risk shipping product that would exceed it. Shipping with a max size 4% below max has given customers good consistent printing results.

If you order 100m of the transparent Red, we will put in some 10m samples of other colours for you to try also. Interested in your feedback, comparisons to other sources and how it runs on your printer.

Regards Peter
FilamentPrint

---

My Reprap blog

jds-reprap.blogspot.com

Hi,
do you have a weblink to FilamentPrint ?

Tthanks,
Texy

Try dot com

---

Most of my technical comments should be correct, but is THIS one ?
Anyway, as a rule of thumb, always double check what people write.

OK, LOL. I googled FilamentPrint and gave up after 3 pages.

Texy

http://www.filamentprint.com/index.asp

How much does 100m of 3mm PLA weigh? I'm guessing a kilo but i'm not sure.

100m is about 850g.

---

My Reprap blog

jds-reprap.blogspot.com

I ordered some ABS and PLA from filamentprint, the price seems good...