PLA Issues

Hello All,

I have had my Mendel working great the last few days printing PLA. Now I have just got to the end of the 1lb of sample PLA that came with the machine and switched over to the 5lb coil of UltiMachine 4043D and everything has turned to custard...

The material keeps stripping, I thought this material might need a higher melting point so took it up from 195C to 220C in steps of 5C. Still striping at 220C.

There are noticeable differences in the two materials. The sample material is smooth and snaps clean when the filament is bent. The 4043D is rough with groves running along the filament (I assume this is from a poor extrusion die), when this material is bent it whitens and does not snap.

Anyone had issues like this? Such a pain when I finally get the machine running really well. I will try to dry some material to see if that helps.

I am located in Brisbane, Aus. Can anyone recommend a reliable material supplier?

Thanks!

Alex.

Sounds like you have ABS.

You could try Viks company [diamondage.co.nz] he is in New Zealand

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The bag states PLA. I'll do a quick burn and smell test...

Its PLA for sure. I've got some in an oven at 80C for 4hrs...

I am in Canada and the only plastic I have ever used is 4043D from ultimachine. I print at 195c at 20-60mm/s with a 0.35mm nozzle. I do have my thermal barrier cooled because if the melt zone goes up to high it can jam the extruder. This is done with a small 12v 40mm fan blowing across the thermal barrier only. I run it off of 5v so it turns slower and does not make any noise while still keeping the barrier cool.

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alex_rycroft Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hello All,
>
> I have had my Mendel working great the last few
> days printing PLA. Now I have just got to the end
> of the 1lb of sample PLA that came with the
> machine and switched over to the 5lb coil of
> UltiMachine 4043D and everything has turned to
> custard...
>
> The material keeps stripping, I thought this
> material might need a higher melting point so took
> it up from 195C to 220C in steps of 5C. Still
> striping at 220C.
>
> There are noticeable differences in the two
> materials. The sample material is smooth and snaps
> clean when the filament is bent. The 4043D is
> rough with groves running along the filament (I
> assume this is from a poor extrusion die), when
> this material is bent it whitens and does not
> snap.
>
> Anyone had issues like this? Such a pain when I
> finally get the machine running really well. I
> will try to dry some material to see if that
> helps.
>
> I am located in Brisbane, Aus. Can anyone
> recommend a reliable material supplier?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Alex.


Alex,

I am experiencing a very similar problem - I bought my original batch of PLA (4 rolls - various colours) from Vik in New Zealand, and after building and calibrating my machine, I have been getting very nice prints from them.

All 4 rolls I bought (different colours) were very uniform in dimensions, and had a really shiny smooth surface finish. The filament is also quite tough - it takes quite a lot of bending to snap it, but then it snaps cleanly, rather than going white and bending permanently. All 4 colours print nicely at the same settings for temperature, speed, etc.

I recently bought some new PLA at lower cost from an Australian supplier (I won't name them here, coz' i don't want to appear to denigrate them until I resolve my issues). The new filament sounds like it might come from a similar source to yours (although I bought from a different vendor) - it has longitudinal grooves, and it doesn't seem to be as uniform in dimensions or material properties - in some places it will snap much more easily, while in others it goes white and bends rather than snapping when you bend it. It also slips in my Wade's Extruder - I am guessing this may be due to the grooves, and / or variable surface hardness so my Hobbed Bolt isn't gripping it so well. As a result, I can't get the same reliability of feed, and it also seems to have different melting / setting / bonding characteristics, so that rather than just placing filament neatly onto the previous layer, the extruded filament tends to stick as a blob onto the Extruder head and drags around the surface of the new layer.

I also bought some white ABS filament from the same supplier - this roll is nice and smooth and shiny (like my original PLA), but I haven't experimented with the ABS yet.

I'll persist with the new PLA filament for a while to see if can resolve the right temperature / speed settings for it, but if necessary, I'll just go back to ordering my next batch from Vik again. I'll post back here on my progress - if any.

(I am also based in Brisbane by the way - welcome to the local RepRap community! I got my first batch of filament as part of a "group buy" of local RepRappers - if I can't resolve my problems with my new filament, I might try and set up a new 'group buy" with Vik again.)

---

Follow my Mendel Prusa build here: [julianh72.blogspot.com]

Hi Julian!

Good to know another reprapper in Brisvegas!

Im keen for a group by from Vik. He has a deal on the website for 11 rolls delivered to Brisbane for $397 (AU$305). I may even be able to get the PLA sent to our Auckland office and couriered direct to me...

How many do we need for a group buy? 3 or more?

I'll email him and see what we can do.

His website looks good, product is packed and sealed well. When the UltiMachine material arrived the packaging was torn (this may have been done by the on seller), to my knowledge it is very important to keep PLA dry.

Cheers,

Alex.

alex_rycroft Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi Julian!
>
> Good to know another reprapper in Brisvegas!
>
> How many do we need for a group buy? 3 or more?
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> Alex.


I have sent you a PM

Cheers!

---

Follow my Mendel Prusa build here: [julianh72.blogspot.com]

HI..

If you are having a problem with your PLA or ABS being wet (water in the filement) just place it in an over for a few hours at a low temp say 100C.

I have used both Vik's and johnny's PLA with no great diffrence, but I did note that I have to rasie the temp to abut 200-210C for jonny's but found I could extrude Vik's at about 180-190C.

Auzze.

Auzze Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> just place it in
> an over for a few hours at a low temp say 100C.

Have you actually tried doing this with PLA? - I know when I dried a batch of PLA in an oven even at 60 degrees C the coils were starting to stick together and the filament becomes very floppy, I imagine at 100 degrees C you would have a real hard time stopping the coils sticking and if you try to separate them you will get lots of bends and kinks in the PLA.

I now store my plastic in the house in Cardboard (It's hygroscopic) and that seems to keep it dry enough, if you need more drying then keep it in the airing cupboard or somewhere with slightly elevated temperature.

---

[richrap.blogspot.com]

Rich, you might want to preheat the owen for some time in order for its temperature to stabilize, before putting the plastic in.

I measured my cooking owen variation and it overheats a lot at first when starting to work (set for 60° C, went up to 130 !) - probably to get a fast start.

The best safe procedure would be to verify the temperature with a multimeter thermocouple before using it for your pla.

I buy exclusively from Vik and keep my PLA on rolls in the workshop behind my garage, so far I have never had any issues with it, it just works. All I do when I get a new 100m roll is wind it onto the drums I made and hang it up. I find that a roll doesn't really hang around long enough to soak up any moisture anyway. I buy and once my PLA fairly rapidly

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__________________________________________________________________________
Experimenting in 3D in New Zealand

Have you tried tuning your idler tension? I have several rolls of ultimachine PLA that all work great, but I've noticed that the idler springs need to have a lot more pressure than ABS. If I switch directly from an extruder tuned for ABS to PLA, the pinch wheel just slips. Similarly if I have a PLA tuned idler and go to ABS it strips from too much pressure. Maybe the first set of PLA you had was softer and didn't need as much idler tension as the ultimachine stuff.

Hi All,

I managed to print using the material by really winding up the extruder idler tension and upping the nozzle temp to 215C. This was after drying the material at 80C for three hours (in one of our lab PID controlled ovens). However I don't think moisture is the issue as it does not dribble excessively, just a different material composition. The main difference is one being brittle and the other quite malleable. Maybe one is a corn starch derivative and the other sugar cane?

I think it must be blended with something else to make it malleable.

---

[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

Jsadusk, Alex & others, good call on pinch wheel pressure. I just received some PLA (5lb blue), also from Ultimachine and have been struggling with stripping all morning.

I spent a bunch of time re-leveling my bed and trying different films for printing onto, as well as a range of temps. I couldn't get the pla to sit down at all. Just balls and webs. Then I decided to search here, found this post and BAM!! Printing beautifully after cinching the pinch wheel.

I think it's important to note that this is the first time I've tried PLA, ever. I've only used ABS so far, but I thought I'd like to use PLA for parts that don't need strength, and I thought PLA might print with less troubles because of the lower temps.

I thought I may be wrong, but now it looks like the PLA will fit in just as expected. I was hoping that the Ultimachine material would be good as it was highly recommended, for ABS anyway. It looks great so far. I just need to keep the pinch pressure in mind when switching back and forth.

Also noteworthy, I started with a fresh 5lb PLA spool (4043D) in a sealed bag with a dry-pack in it. I made no attempt to dry it in the oven either.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/15/2012 08:09PM by Skypuppet.

its funny i have used pretty much only ultimachine pla, and i have had no issues with it what so ever,

with my exuberance PLA is not all that weak, it is allot stronger than i give it credit for some times. but i do know it dose not have the same amount of give that ABS dose it is allot more brittle i am told.

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[mike-mack.blogspot.com]

dissidence,

I'd relate my troubles to my own inexperience. You may have a better pinchwheel setup, or possibly a better hobbed bolt, could be any number of things. Maybe you just naturally tighten the pinch roller more than I do. You reg'd 2 years ago. You've likely forgotten more than I'll know for a while yet.

I hope that it didn't sound like I was casting aspersions on Ultimachines products or services. There are too many variables to narrow it down so quickly and the material is running nicely now that my machine is set up appropriately. So to be clear, Ultimachine PLA is working very nicely for me now.

I'm sure that of all the beautiful PLA products that are available through different suppliers, product usage requirements may vary (a little at least) due to proprietary formulations or processes. That doesn't make a product bad, just different.

oh no worries, its good to hear about how other people run into trouble, it helps people get better at things.

i have only been printing for about a year now my self, since then i find it amazing to see how many new people are getting into it.

for my self maybe i just got lucky with how i did some things, but trust me i had to spend more than a few bucks on parts i broke.

i know all about how different manufacturers products are not all the same, i used to spray urethane foam, and when ever we tried a new batch from another source, it was a learning curve some times, its the same thing on the wall you would think they would behave the same when you are spraying them on the wall.

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[mike-mack.blogspot.com]

It sounds like you and I have some similar experiences. I've worked in the Wakeboard/Waterski manufacturing industry since '88. We used urethane foam injection for cores and we definitely had to qualify new suppliers with lots and lots of testing. That stuff is super proprietary and its properties can be all over the map for the same given density.

I really hate urethane. Hazardous, nasty stuff (isocyanate).

Yeah, this industry is gonna be fun to watch as it's still relatively young (with respect to hobbyists).
Changes will be happening at a staggering rate with more and more bright minds collaborating like this.

The cost of learning can be discouraging. I spent my share on nozzles and some other hot-end parts right off the bat. Part due to rookie mistakes, part due to components (PEEK insulator) that weren't particularly robust.

Even so, I'm still having a lot of fun and I'm sure I will for a long time. I really enjoy this group of people. There are a lot of really talented folks here, yet not a lot of attitude. That's refreshing.

Wow, the part I'm printing right now is pretty big 6"x4"x3.5" and it is staying down really well. No warping. Yay PLA!!

I do have a heated bed, but I still see some lifting of edges when printing large items with ABS.

Is this the nature of PLA? Minimal warping?

from what i have read it is supposed to be better than ABS for warping, some people say allot better. i am staying away from ABS until i move into a place where i can have a fume hood, i guess the smell it pretty bad, vs the sweetish smell of PLA


the good thing about urethane foam is that once its cured its great to deal with, so long has you don't burn it

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[mike-mack.blogspot.com]

Yeah, much more pleasant fumes (PLA vs ABS). I'm liking it

Urethane foam is really an awesome material but we shoot into heated molds, so the vapors can be pretty intense. I shouldn't hate on it. It's used in the bulk of our products. The other core materials require machining instead of molding (PVC, Wood, Honeycomb) and are many times more expensive.

I get an asthmatic reaction to PU outgassing vapors which are also carcinogenic, so I wear a respirator when I'm going to be exposed. It's really rare that I'm near that anymore tho. Our production is in Taiwan, so I only see that stuff once or twice a year now. We can't even begin to convince them that they should wear breathing apparatus, but we pretty much forced them to install evacuation fans.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/15/2012 09:44PM by Skypuppet.

ya i can sympathies with ya, i did not get sensitized has much as you did, but i can feel it now my chest will get tighter when i am around it for long.

my dads/brothers company would go through trucks loads of the chemicals each year. we worked on buildings mostly. one year we were the third largest consumer of it in Canada.

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[mike-mack.blogspot.com]

That's saying something! I would think you'd be using a lot in that application tho. When I was at Hyperlite, we build over 50,000 wakeboards per year with about 3lb going into a core. That may seem like a lot, but what your talking about (construction industry?) is huge.

BTW, that's how my sensitivity manifested. Tight chest and sneezing fits. Then one day, wham, full on asthma. I had to have an inhaler whenever I was at risk. I didn't have asthma prior to that, but now I get it somewhat randomly. For sure if I get exposed to PU tho. I was a lab-rat ><

i have not done allot with molds, but with us when they went wrong they went wrong, thank god i was not there for that.

but it is amazing just how much the understanding of that stuff has helped me with this project and others.

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[mike-mack.blogspot.com]

Now I'm running into a strange problem with PLA that has me puzzled. I was printing beautiful parts for days, then suddenly, my external walls (shells?) started to look like dog dew (blue tho).

The wall surface actually looks like the hook side of velcro. Little hooks all over. It is actually a lot of loops, but it most resembles the hook side of "Hook & Loop".

So strange. My machine is inside my house, so I'm thinking my PLA should be dry enough. It was a 5lb roll and I'm down to about 1lb remaining.

At first I thought it may be tension on the spool (in a box with a broom handle hanging it) so I built a spool mount. Now the filament drops straight down into the extruder and I have even been feeding slack by hand. That didn't help at all.

Now, as I'm writing this, I print a part that is perfect again. No changes in settings either. What in the...?

Everything is usable, but I just really like really nice looking parts. Any ideas? Need more info?

@ Skypuppet

It sounds like your nozzle is dirty or clogged a little bit.

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FFF Settings Calculator	Gcode post processors	Geometric Object Deposition Tool Blog
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I should have mentioned that I swapped in a new hot end.

Aside from that I've tried running from 200-215c.

Odd thing is, it seems to have cleared up. It's running right now and looks nice. Maybe it was a goofy stretch of filament?

i would still be inclined to think there must have been something in it.

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[mike-mack.blogspot.com]