Buying Filament from Amazon?

Please let me know if this type of posting is not allowed - I will remove it right away.

I'm thinking about buying some filament from Amazon. There's this supplier (or manufacturer) called JET, which seems like a lot of people love and at the same time a lot of people hate (typical Amazon customer review). There price seems pretty good, and they ship for free.

Has anyone used filament from this supplier? I'm looking to buy 3 mm PLA.

Thank you!

Leave it alone, one spool there got out golden brown has what appears to be metal particles,massive lumps where the filament appears joined together,
Cheap shit in my view.

i got this other stuff from reprapper, it says 2.6 pounds but they really mean the spool with the plastic weigh 2.6, also they sent me the wrong plastic color and they want me to send it back first before they send me the correct one.

The biggest complaint I have about the jet filament from amazon is that they use small spools. With PLA especially, this causes the inner wrappings to be in such a tight radius that I have difficulty getting it to feed properly.

Also, amazon doors not give a good description. I ordered red and got translucent red.

The other gripe I have,and this is primarily with amazon, not jet, is that the search returns everything. I search for 3mm PLA and I get PLA and ABS, both 3 and 1.75 mm all mixed together in no sensible order

i have got the sainsmart from amazon, not great, but i find it to be workable.

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[mike-mack.blogspot.com]

the stuff ive gotten that is marked amazon prime is great though, the color is not usually awesome but it is correct and its fast and cheap, for black and natural abs you cant beat it, i havent really run much high quality abs through my machine though so i couldnt tell you if it was any different.

Thank you for your responses.

So, it looks like the most of you guys had negative experience. Seems like another case of you-get-what-you-paid... Well, it's still very tempting, to be honest though. As I have mentioned, it's not just the difference in the base price, but free shipping is additional $5-$10 saving.

I did notice Sainsmart had a really high number of reviews on Amazon (probably because there's one product page for all different colors) and the most of them were positive, quite overwhelmingly so actually. However, apparently they only sell 1.75 mm filaments.

Check out monoprice.com. They only have red, black and white, but they have all color available in both 3mm and 1.75mm, and both PLA and ABS.

I 1kg spool is $26 which is 2/3 the price of avywhere else. My order is due to arrive today so I'll let you know how good it is, but at that price, I had to give it a try. To date, everything I purchased through monoprice has been top quality.

I could not find 3d filament through their menuing system - go to their site and search for 3d filament.

I bought prototype supply abs (blue) from amazon, it's on a small reel but it's working pretty nice so far. Good diameter, pretty uniform and it doesn't seem to have any moisture problems or anything. Toybuilderlabs.com has it too

jbernardis,

Monoprice looks good. The shipping cost to my address is a little of $8, so the final price is around $34 for a 1 kg spool. This sure is a good price. Please let us know how your filament worked out.

ForgetfulJones,

Thanks for the info. I have searched Prototype filaments on Amazon, and even though had very few reviews, they were all 5 stars. But then again, $39 per spool is a bit on the higher side, and also their items are not eligible for Super Saver free shipping.


After some more searching, I came across this supplier called MatterHackers. A few reviews I could find on them were either great or good. $33 per spool and shipping is free (UPS Ground)! I've ordered one spool this afternoon and got UPS tracking number 17 minutes later! So far so good.

I have had very good luck with Octave ABS from Amazon... In fact it is pretty much all I print with now...

I bought 2 different spools of PLA from Amazon. One is translucent blue from I dont know who and its not the best to print with. I bought a spool of black from JustPLA and I really like the results. JUst FWIT

I have a 1kg reel of Jet black 1.75mm PLA which I bought from amazon and I'm perfectly happy with it.

I also use reprapper filament a lot and I've been happy with that too.

I think people's experience varies partly because they are printing onto different beds. I have heated glass coated with dilute PVA, so pretty much anything sticks to it.

The only gripe I have with both Jet and reprapper is the lack of choice of solid colours, if anybody can tell me where I can get non-translucent 1.75mm PLA in the UK I'd appreciate it. I've used filament from Faberdashery and loved it; it's great quality and the colour choice is excellent, but it's not cheap.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/14/2013 03:25AM by fac13.

I'm currently using black 1.75mm filament supplied by Barsoom in the Amazon UK Market Place, and it seems to be very good ... sufficiently convincing for me to order several more spools in other colours.

Harvey

I would like to provide my own feedback:

As I stated in one of my previous postings, I have ordered a spool of PLA from MatterHacker last Thursday. I placed my order on Thursday afternoon, and received it on Saturday! It's an awesome shipping and handling, especially considering the fact that the shipping was free!

I've also decided to test my luck with JET PLA from Amazon, so ordered a spool there too. I got it a couple of days ago - normal Amazon shipping and handling time, and shipping was also free with them via Amazon's Super Saver shipping option.


I'm quite happy with both of them. So far I only have used them a few days, but as I'm having a production run of some object I've designed, I've been printing quite a lot.

MatterHacker 3 mm PLA Solid White:

I've printed an object which requires some degree of precision 5-6 times with this filament. Each print produces 2 pieces per print.

In a couple of pieces out of 10-12, I see a very small area (like 2-3 mm) of black/dark color (as if it was burned). So, this discoloration happens once every 500+ layers or so. Not sure what's causing this discoloration, but even if it was the filament's fault (= caused by some foreign particle in the filament or bad color pigment instead of external contamination) I think it's quite acceptable to me. It's just that because it's solid white color, it stands out a little bit. Actually, I think I wouldn't even noticed it if the filament wasn't white.

JET/Amazon 3 mm PLA Red:

I just started using it last night so I have only printed a couple of objects so far, but everything looks good so far.

However, I 100% agree with fac13 that the color is not solid. On top of it being translucent, my Red filament isn't really Red either, it has some hints (but quite noticable) of tangerine:



And this is what I would consider/call Red:



Another complain I have is that for some reason it looks as if I need to more precise with Z=0 setting. I think that's cause by the fact this filament doesn't still to the build bed as well as the others (for whatever reason - probably the color pigment). So, if I am hair too far above from the bed with Z=0 setting, it will peel off during the print.

I've tried cranking up the heated bed temperature + 5C and also applying extra amount of hair spray. Those seem to have helped a little bit, but I still need to be quite precise with the Z=0 setting.



Overall I am quite happy with both of them and I will definitely buy from them again.


Thank you everybody for sharing your thoughts and experience. Really appreciate it!

I just ordered Amazon's Octava brand 1.75mm BLACK ABS. Anyone use this recently? How is it. It will be my first filament, once my system is complete.

Thanks

Maxi!

Also speaking off OPAQUE colors. Can someone recommend a Opaque RED filament? ABS or PLA. Thank you.

I'm happy with my Jet natural PLA filament (decided to skip the pigment issues thing altogether). It's actually less "temperamental" about the first layer than Makerbot translucent green PLA, but more temperamental than Makerbot True Yellow PLA. All my filament is 1.75mm while a lot of you talk about 3mm, but I don't know if that makes a difference.
I also have a Jet blue ABS, but I haven't printed enough with it (or ABS all in all) to say if there's a problem with it.

Of course due to fulfilled by Amazon there's no problems with shipping.

As mentioned the Jet spools are narrow (diameter), wide, and have very little walls, so I mount my filament cantilevered right above the printer (with a piece of wood clamped beside the printer but not attached to the printer) and feed down to the extruder. Also the Jet filament I'm getting actually have a diameter of around 1.80mm not 1.75, so that may be the issue if you have over/under extrusion issues.