Esunpla Filament Review (Chinese filament)

I seem to be the first person who has ordered some, so I though I'd share my experience so far.

I bought 5lbs of 1.75mm ABS in coil form.

Ordering was fairly straightforward, but you are limited to whatever color they happen to have on hand, or a minimum 20KG order and some additional wait time.

From the time I sent the money via paypal, it took 13 days to receive the package in Pennsylvania, USA.

There were a few issues at the customs office when it entered the country, as the shipping company they used did not do some of the necessary paperwork. After a short phone conversation and faxing a copy of the original invoice (along with a simple form) everything was sorted out without delay.

I included a picture of the filament and packaging

[i211.photobucket.com]
[i211.photobucket.com]
[i211.photobucket.com]


The filament feels like it weighs 5lbs, and is the same physical size as makerbot's 5lb coils so I'm assuming I didn't get short changed there.

The filament measures from 1.67mm -1.77mm. The vast majority is between 1.68 and 1.71mm. It has a uniform, smooth surface almost without exception.

My only concern so far is there are about a dozen small black spots on the surface of the filament. They look like tiny black abs shavings, but I can not be sure that they are not something more menacing. They are firmly attached and are obviously bumpy to a fingernail. At one of the bumps, the diameter is 1.8mm. Assuming it is abs, I'm sure it will go through my machine without incident. I've included a picture of one such offending black spot.

[i211.photobucket.com]

All in all, so far a decent experience. I'll know more when I find out how well it makes parts tomorrow.

thanks man , looking for full review. what was the cost and shipping, does he offer pla? what is cost list.i contacted him but he didnt reply

Could you please post a full review of it here [reprap.org] ><

ROTORIT Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Could you please post a full review of it here
> [reprap.org]
> ><


Sure. Didn't even know that existed.

I had to dry the filament for 1hr at 100C in an oven, since it was oozing quite a bit when idle in the extruder. After that, and adjusting my extruder/software for the 1.7mm filament, I started Printing.

The temperature to extrude this filament needed to be set to 270C. (255C is what I use for makerbot filament)

It seems to extrude very well. Overhangs/bridges are also quite successful. I was extruding it up to 60mm/s with a .35 layer height and 1.3 w/t.

I linked to some simple test prints for reference.
[i211.photobucket.com]
[i211.photobucket.com]

The little black spots are ABS as far as I can tell and went through the nozzle without a problem.


SUMMARY: Works great, 1.7mm OD, fairly consistent, 270C extrusion temperature, needs drying for optimal performance. Will buy from again.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/30/2011 09:57PM by Andrew Diehl.

Note to all who are willing to review international suppliers, especially those from China;

It is especially helpful if you include the person you dealt with. I have ordered a fair bit of product from China ( not filament yet) and the folks that handle small batch, international sales are often working very independently and can make all the difference in what you get and how smoothly shipping goes. Bigger manufacturers will have more than one online rep and different reps are often like different resellers in your local country.

Everyone, we are among pioneers doing filament for reprap 3D printer in China, we do that for two years.

for the past one year ,we made some improvements, maybe some customers get some samples testing, wrote some reviews, include good evaluation also much blames.

(1)we prefer a low water absorb grade ABS, natrual color is white, not yellow base, you don't need to dry it. However, the colors of ABS filament will absorb water severely, since the colors tones are easily absorb water, not ABS materials;

(2)we do much works to PLA,keep round, less bubbles, and we find solutions to cope with PLA not stick to hot bed and jam in extruder, if you buy PLA, we strongly suggest you download this technical file:[skydrive.live.com], introduce PLA natural propeties lead to printing problem and methods steps to printing with PLA.
we also have videos each batch produce test printing, [i.youku.com] ,
we have flikr photos :[www.flickr.com]

we are still young company ,we summary and progress, some customers didn't give us second chance ,when we raise our quality also lose some customers, retailsale to aboard is expensive, take examples if you buy a shoe from china that will be much expensive than local supplier. Retailsales filament in china also at $20-30/kg.we hope can do cooperate with resalers, that bunch buy will bring local cusotmers bargain.

Looking forward to do business with world, we are confident to do scales supply on quality goods.thanks. Jack Wu , westyang168@hotmail.com

Dear Sir,Sorry for that ESUNPLA you bought is not really Esun.i mean it is not the filament of "Shenzhen Esun Indutrial Co.,Ltd."
Lot of custumers said The quality of REALLY "Esun filament" is good. You can check it through its website to get more correct information: [en.esunchina.net]
Best regards,