3D Printing Stack Exchange
3D Printing Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [filament-quality]

Questions on the quality of the print material for FDM printers that comes in the form of filaments

29 questions
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How do I know when filament is getting old, and what things can I do to correct for it?

I've heard I should store filament in sealed container, preferably with a desiccant. But let's say I let a spool get a little old on the printer, or I purchased a filament spool that was old or improperly packaged. How would I know? How would this…
Joel Coehoorn
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What is causing 'droplets' on first layer?

I recently changed filament and for starters it worked perfectly well, but quickly I got some problems with my first layer. It's like droplets are forming on the surface (finished item + 3 undersides): The final part is (for me) okay but I'd like…
Valmond
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Gnarly filament: just one of those things, or grounds for complaint?

everyone. I'm a relative newcomer to 3D printing, so I don't know what constitutes an unacceptably bad spool of filament. About 1/6 of the way into a roll of PETG (and maybe 4 hours into a 6-hour print), an over/under wrap brought things to a…
Glasseyed
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Any fix for PLA prints getting more brittle over time?

I've been printing small quantities from a PLA filament spool on a Craftbot printer for about two months now. Recently the printed objects have been coming out very brittle. Some structures that printed fine two months ago are now difficult to…
emackey
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What type of plastic can be used to produce your own filament?

I'm considering purchasing Filabot or some similar filament maker. What kind of plastic can I use to produce my own filament? Can I use any type of plastic or just specific printable filaments? Can I also mix different types of filament together or…
kenorb
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Extruder clogs with HIPS

I've got a Prusa i3 MK3. I have printed with PLA, PETG and tried HIPS. Haven't had any clogs with PLA and PETG, but with HIPS I've got a weird problem. My first three test prints in HIPS went fine, but then I got a very bad clog (required total…
Eyeballs
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How to compensate for bad quality filament?

Bad filament with changing diameter causes an uneven flow of plastic out of the nozzle. Besides buying very high quality filament (do we really want to be dependent on professional Filament producers?), what other ideas and methods could be used to…
Lars Pötter
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What is "HDPLA", and why is it so hard to find out more about it?

Googling 'HDPLA' has so far availed me very little. http://3dinsider.com/what-is-pla/ indicates that /all/ modern PLA is 'high density' compared to 'the early days'. But a fellow at the local makerspace indicated that he was specifically using…
mmb
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How important is the dimensional accuracy of filament relative to the detail of a print?

In this answer user Barafu says, Yet I manage to keep my tolerances +- 0.05 mm which is enough for everything but miniature printing. I have asked for clarification on that answer regarding what is meant by "miniature printing" but in the…
LegendaryDude
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Stone-look surface via painting?

Has anyone tried painting a PLA (or other) print with stone-look spray paints? In particular, how does the result look compared to printing with stone-fill filaments? It looks a lot cheaper, but will it look inferior? One such paint:…
TextGeek
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Are black filaments more brittle?

I've been 3D printing for a while and I've noticed that, when printing small parts, my colored plastics (PLA, PLA+ and ABS) have better layer adhesion than black ones. Did you notice this? What could be the cause?
Fredo Corleone
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Filament long term storage

I was noticing on a print I had just done that the quality was not up to typical snuff. I had just started using a roll of PLA filament that I had been keeping on a shelf without a wrapper for a couple months. How long can you store filament before…
ropes17
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Which photopolymer for printing?

I am thinking about building my own DLP 3D printer. I want to know which uv curing resin I should use. Also, I came across a continuous 3D printing technology where oxygen permeable glass was used to stop the photopolymer toching the glass from…
user962
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Humidity sensor says drybox isn't that dry - are my expectations unrealistic or is something wrong?

I have recently, in anticipation of printing carbon-fiber-reinforced nylon filament (Polymaker PA6-CF) on my Prusa i3 MK3S, built a filament drybox. It is made out of a large aluminum equipment enclosure which I had spare, every seam, rivet, hinge…
DodoDude700
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Creality CR-10 extruder clicking and/or nozzle clogging

So I am fairly competent with 3D printing, but this problem has got me stumped. I use a Creality CR-10 and I hadn't printed anything off for quite a while (maybe 5 or 6 months?) and I just recently starting printing again. I got a roll of somewhat…
CouscousKingpin
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