filament

Just curious. Who sells the best filament? Usability/Quality. Don't be shy.

There is no such thing as "the best filament." You need to qualify just what sort of filament you are looking for and what you are going to do with it. You also need to decide what sort of hot end you will be running and what sort of heated bed (or lack there of) you will be using.

That said, the premium ABS filament that Afina sells to run through the 260C hot ends on their printers is very nice stuff. It's 1.75 mm and useless in just about any other printer. In their machine, the results are impressive.

On the other end of the scale, there's the wonderful stuff sold by Uncle_Bob Industries for $10 a Kg on eBay ... grab it now ....

Thanks for the info @uncle_bob. I have a budasnozzle hotend setup for 3mm filament with a .35 nozzle on my Prusa i2. Heated bed and extruder fan also. I have not yet printed with abs filament, but I'm looking to buy in the near future.

I couldn't find you on ebay.

In general I found black filament hard to work with. I ordered filaments from various sources on ebay and black ones always caused me trouble, i.e. blocking my j-head and rendering it completely useless. Some manufacturers add garbage metal powder to the filament to reduce cost, and they can add a lot in the black filament without changing its color.

I don't sell on eBay, but I didn't want to pick on any specific seller. I have yet to see good filament sold for $10 a Kg...

More important that perfection (at least at the start) is consistency. A dealer probably is going to sell you the same stuff next month that he sold you two months ago. You may go through a spool of filament just getting things calibrated and tuned properly. Once you have that investment, you would like to be able to do some real prints based on the same settings.

Good filament is going to cost you $35 to $45 plus reasonable shipping charges. That's for PLA or ABS in normal sorts of colors. If you want something odd, you should expect to pay more for it. Pick a dealer with reasonable shipping to your location. Go with somebody who has been selling filament for a while. See how the stuff works in your setup. There may be some wonderful filament running around in New Zealand, given the cost to ship it here, I'll never ever find out. You aren't quite shipping rocks or lead, but it does add up.

I guess you're talking about Diamondage Bob?

---

_______________________________________
Waitaki 3D Printer

I *very much* don't want to name names. My only objective is to get people to be careful about who they buy from.

I've bought a couple of 'RepRapper' branded PLA spools and they've been decent quality. They sell on quite a few places. In the UK I've seen them on both Amazon and eBay, but a few of the UK RepRap parts distributors also stock their filament.

My last batch was natural colour, and arrived within 3 days of me ordering via their eBay account. Having checked its diameter with my callipers, it's pretty much spot on, dipping to 2.99mm in a couple of places. Couldn't ask for any better really. It extrudes great with a standard J-Head.

I hear that 3Distributed also stock some pretty decent quality filament, they also have the Taulman nylon and t-glass range.

It's going to come down to where you're located really. Also I don't think you'll ever find *the* perfect filament. No two batches are equal. You could get a great batch in one order, and a horrible one in another.

The problem I see with the eBay and Amazon low cost sellers is that they do not have a consistent source of supply. You can indeed get a roll of good stuff and a roll of junk in the same box from the same guy. A *good* dealer will go to the trouble of finding a consistent source of supply and checking what he gets. You'll pay him a bit for that service. I think it's worth the added cost.

A bit more on naming names...

There are an ocean of people on Amazon selling "Jet Filament". The stuff each one sells has no relation at all to what any of the others sell. Much of it does not even have a label on the spool. I haven't tried all of them, I have no desire to. What I do know for sure is that some of the people selling that stuff are selling absolute junk.

eBay is eve worse for names / brands / seller id's. Yes if you get right down to the *exact* id you will name the guy. As soon as you name him - poof!, he's there with a new name. I am quite certain that may of these guys operate under dozens of different id's on eBay.

I have absolutely no problem at all with buying from a *dealer* who I can verify on Amazon or eBay. If VXB bearings or Zoro tools wants to sell it to me cheaper that way than direct, fine. The difference there is that I can track them back to their "real" site and verify who stuff is coming from. Yes I'm careful to not buy from VBX bearings (if they exist) ...

Ok, so I guess I probably have to name some names. I have gotten nothing but good filament from:

[ultimachine.com] It's not cheap, but their ABS is fine stuff. I assume their PLA is fine as well.

[www.makerfarm.com] It's not as expensive, and not *quite* as good. You have to be picky to notice the difference. It's *miles* ahead of anything else I've seen for $30 to $35 a Kg.

I'm certain that there are at least a dozen other places that also sell good stuff. I simply have not tried every outfit on the planet. I'm running a Magma hot end most of the time and printing with a heated bed.