Reprapworld PLA Filament

Hi there,
Did anybody have any issues with reprapworld PLA filament? The hobbed bolt just keeps chewing it after the first 10cm of extrusion, then it jams. The only way to get a barely decent print was to tighten my idler screws all the way down so that the filament gets pressed really good between the bearing and and the bolt. Even so, the extrusion is not perfectly smooth.
A friend of mine said that the filament is too soft, as it doesn't snap when it is bent at 90 degrees. A video of their filament can be seen here:
[www.youtube.com]
Thanks

What temperature are you trying to print it at?

Some PLA I've got from RRW needed way higher temperatures (215C) than I was used to (185C). What made it more difficult to guess was the fact that some plastic was coming out at 190C but I could not get a reliable flow of plastic at that temperature.

My advice would be for you to try higher temperature to see if it improves.

lazzymonk Wrote:
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> What temperature are you trying to print it at?

I tested it from 185 to 195, in 2 degree increments. At 197 I also fastened the idler screws all the way down and called it quits after a bit of fiddling.
3mm PLA, various colors, .5 nozzle.

misan Wrote:
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> Some PLA I've got from RRW needed way higher
> temperatures (215C) than I was used to (185C).
Yes, indeed: "some plastic comes out". I would have never guessed it would need that high temperature. Since it is that soft (you can actually bend it 180 degrees without it snapping), I thought it needed less heat. I will give it a short test at 215 later on, who knows.
Thanks

Of course, some help from the supplier will be excellent.

I have some pla that works fine at 185, I have others that need over 200 and one that needs 215 also.

I have the temp of my hotend calibrated by a highly accurate temperature probe. If your temp is off by a few % you might need to go higher than 215.

Just keep increasing the temp until it prints ok.

I tried to work within the 200-215 degrees, but it got all gluey. Small objects turned into PLA balls. Large surfaces came out at mediocre level. Walls came out uneven, the ridges were all over the place. I tried various tweaks, besides my standard PLA settings, both repetier and skeinforge, but nothing decent came out. Unless somebody else claims to be able to properly extrude the filament from this source, I should probably stop messing with it, as it gets nowhere.

You should report this to the seller and see what they can do about it.

I have had 2 colours from them, the black was fine, but the green kept snapping. Have you tried using a fan? I use mine at 180-185. but I always use a fan with pla.

Hello,
I had a red spool and that was fine. Now I have an atomic green and it's also quite fine. Only breaks easy. Temperature about 195, No jamming.
Nice for the price. Currently still strugling with white ABS and V5 Hotend.... Extruding at 230,,, But often jams.
The PLA printer has a reprap-fab V2 ...

Will order from them again.

cu

Michael

stu121 Wrote:
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> I have had 2 colours from them, the black was
> fine, but the green kept snapping. Have you tried
> using a fan? I use mine at 180-185. but I always
> use a fan with pla.

Yes, I use a fan on PLA, no matter the source I bought from.
I bought a little bit of various colors, though they didn't have the black one on stock. So far, I am not sure why, but the red one seems to be extruding the most decent. Not quite ok, but at least it doesn't jam and you can finish your print. All other, especially the aqua blue for example, either jam after the first few couple of extruded cm (the hobbed bolt just chews them), or they are extremely gluey (feels like I am printing honey).

A particular propriety of their filament is that it doesn't snap when it is bent beyond 90 degrees, it just turns white at the bending point. In short, it's just soft. Strange thing is that if you bend random points over say 1 meter of filament, you find 1 or 2 spots where it snaps at 90 degrees. Also, when extruding long threads, say over 5cm, you can hear a pop while it is extruding.

mcp Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hello,
> I had a red spool and that was fine. Now I have an
> atomic green and it's also quite fine. Only breaks
> easy. Temperature about 195, No jamming.
> Nice for the price. Currently still strugling with
> white ABS and V5 Hotend.... Extruding at 230,,,
> But often jams.
> The PLA printer has a reprap-fab V2 ...

The red one seemed close to ok, though it still caused issues. For example solid layers were getting nappy at various spots (they were then nulled by the following layer, but still), or problems sticking to the bed (the bed was dial indicator checked and pre-heated).

Sounds like I got a bad batch, since yours breaking too easy, while mine can be bent 180 degrees without snapping it.

Actually, I have not tried the ReprapWorld PLA filament, but speaking from experience with their ABS filament, their quality is not the best (they are among the cheapest suppliers, though, so you get what you pay for).

I've only tried reprapworld translucent blue (i forget the name) so far, and have been having problems. It's a bit oval/squashed, and I can't seem to get consistent behaviour. It may be me overtweaking too many things at a time though, I'm quite new at this...
I think I have some Faberdashery PLA waiting for me at the post office tonight, I'll report back with any findings. That stuff is supposed to be great.

Edit: Just got home, it wasn't the PLA. I got ABS from Form Futura. Whole different animal I suppose. I'll post back when i get the PLA to compare with.

/Andreas

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/06/2013 12:15PM by anwe79.

Do not buy from ReprapWorld.
I bought a coil from 2.3 kg of white, is oval! It has a diameter between 2.9 and 3.3 millimeters. It hangs in the extruder.
I contacted them by email, to ask for a refund or a new coil. I had no answer.
DO NOT BUY FROM THEM!

I have ben buying from RRW a while now and have had no issues with filament. Been buying the 1.75mm stuff (noth PLA and ABS) and it has been great. Needed to get temps up to 220C but other wise no problems with it.

After printing some black and natural PLA from RepRapWorld, I have to say that I am actually quite satisfied with the results. The black filament didn't cause any problems and yielded very nice results while the natural one had the tendency to snap in various places like MPower described. Apart from that issue, their PLA is nice.

About the jamming issue:
Both someone I work with and me have had jamming issues, too. The root of the problem seemed to be the hot end, though.
The particular hot end we are using is the GRRF modular hot end, 3mm / .5mm nozzle, with no cooling fan on the "cold" side (well, you really can't call it "cold" as it reaches rather high temperatures).
We noticed that after printing ABS, the hot end needed a thorough cleaning (by means of burning out everything from the nozzle) to make it work reasonably with PLA. After that, a large portion of the jamming issues was resolved.
But ever since I bought an all-metal hot end, I don't think I would like to go back since I am having zero issues at all, no matter which filament I feed into the machine.