Where can you get PLA?

It seems that PLA is the ideal material to use when printing (Nophead's posts seem to lend truth to that, and IIRC it's the official RepRap plastic).

Where can you buy it?

PLA doesn't seem to available anywhere. Makerbot doesn't have it, and BitsFromBytes doesn't either. Where can you get PLA???

Vik Olliver in New Zealand appears to be the local supplier here.
I believe Adrian is a local supplier in the UK

Does anyone supply PLA in the U.S.?

-Adam

BFB has PLA in three colours, Clear, red and blue

Tofletcher, I don't see where BfB carries PLA.

-Adam

Its new stock, might not be on the site, drop them an e-mail, I had some transparent Red from them.
Tony.

Tony, thanks for the tip! It's time to play (pardon the pun)!

-Adam

Greetings all,

I haven't heard anything about a US supplier for PLA, so I did a little digging.
This website lists some suppliers:
[www.ides.com]

I emailed two of the US suppliers (Ashland and Jamplast), who both source NatureWorks Ingeo brand of PLA in the US:
[www.natureworksllc.com]

I believe they supply in granule form, so we'd need somebody (New Image?) to make it into 3 mm rod.

Is anybody else looking into this (Zach & Co. at Makerbot?) I'd prefer not to duplicate efforts (or cost) of a test batch and I'mm happy to share whaterver info I get.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/04/2009 07:42AM by Larry_Pfeffer.

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Larry Pfeffer,

My blog about building repstrap Cerberus:
[repstrap-cerberus.blogspot.com]

Greetings all,

I've heard back from the two US suppliers of Ingeo brand PLA resin I contacted. I have preliminary pricing, which varies by resin type and grade.
In small quantities (under a pallet, ~~ 1600 lbs) The more expensive resin *granules*, would cost approx $1.88 / lb (at the factory dock) and the lower-cost material is $1.30 / lb.

At these prices, the cost of shipping (granules), extruding and re-shipping (spools of rod) will likely dominate the pricing. However, if we were to order in sufficient quantities, I hope the cost would be similar to ABS, or maybe slightly less. I have asked the folks at New Image Plastics to look at a couple of the PLA datasheets, and let me know if they can extrude a test batch, and please let me know how much that'd cost. So far, they've been quite responsive, and I have my fingers crossed. I'll report back what I learn from them.
Has anybody reading this worked with any other welding-rod manufacturers in the US? Similarly, would anybody else in the US be interested in sharing the cost of a test batch, in exchange for early access to material from the test batch(es)?

I'd rather not get into the welding-rod supply business (except to kick-start a US supply of PLA), so I also queried Makerbot.com (via contact-form email), to see if they'd be interested in carrying PLA welding rod as a product.

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Larry Pfeffer,

My blog about building repstrap Cerberus:
[repstrap-cerberus.blogspot.com]

Hi Larry

If we can get PLA into a bunch of High Schools based on the fact that it is biodegradeable we can build up the volumn.

Hey guys, I just had a couple test runs of PLA successfully here in USA and am setting up a store to sell it.

The first run went to several of the old heads here in the Western Hemisphere and they approved so far

I have a large batch being being shipped to the fillament extruder as of last week, and should be able to ship 5lb rolls by the end of the month at the latest.

The website is not very pretty right now, still being thrown together. If you are interested you can email me at johnny at ultimachine. Or through the site UltiMachine.com

Johnny

Hi all,

sorry for the delay in getting it up onto our site but Bits From Bytes do indeed have stocks of PLA in translucent colours (red, yellow, green and blue) It costs £47/kg and we can ship world wide. If anyone needs more help or wants to know shipping costs to them please just drop me a line at sales@bitsfrombytes.com

Best regards,

Iain Major
Bits From Bytes Ltd

This is great Johnny, I can't wait till you get up and running.

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[www.binaryconstruct.com]

How about here?
[ultimachine.com]
I just ordered a 5 lb roll of PLA in natural color, should be here today.