CEL Polar White PLA

[Clicky @clicky]

Quick question for those who have more experience in PLA plastic (filaments). So far I’ve only see/work with CEL’s Polar White PLA and I am not sure what’s the problem but I don’t like it as much as ABS I’ve got from CEL. While bring printed PLA seems more ‘runny’, when printed very, very hard and kind of shiny, especially until cooled down.

I’ve seen some pictures here of people printing with PLA (different than CEL’s Polar White) and it looks better.

Is it just me having prejudices about this particular PLA or is it normal for PLA to appear runny when printed and very hard at the end?

BTW by hard I mean support it really hard to remove from the object (unlike with ABS where’s that so easy) - all the blobs take ages to remove, etc…

[biscuitlad @biscuitlad]

PLA will always be more runny than ABS as it comes out of the nozzle. And it’s well known that it’s much harder to finish PLA - i.e. it’s harder to drill, sand, etc. than ABS. But I get better results with PLA than ABS, or at least I did when I had a working printer (over a month ago now, sigh….).

 

[gid @gid]

PLA is easier to print (no heated bed required) and it doesn’t shrink (as much). However, as @biscuitlad says, it’s much harder to finish, as you can’t really sand, drill or cut it worth a damn… as soon as you do anything that generates heat (sanding, drilling, cutting) it goes chewy. ABS is a lot easier to work, but it’s more difficult to print and it shrinks.

All plastics have pros and cons.

Tom Gidden -- Bristol, UK -- New Roboxer? Check out the wiki, and add yourself to the map! http://roboxing.com/user_locations

[Clicky @clicky]

Thanks. I feel slightly better that it is not just me (and CEL’s Polar White). I’ll give it a go now until half of the reel or something like that - just to get more experience. So far I was printing with ABS and suffering from wrapping, shrinking, etc, now with PLA with hard to fix/unmanageable prints and runny-ness…

[dave @dave]

I’ve focussed on printing in PLA for the last couple of weeks and it works great with the Robox; The Polar White PLA is giving me issues so I put that one away for a while but with third party PLA you can print very nice objects. It seems the Robox’s fans can’t cool down the prints fast enough with smaller prints messing up prints with layers merging, I fixed this by placing a giant fan in front of the open lid of the Robox, this worked fine so far; I might build a more elegant solution using 3D printed parts, some low-noise PC fans and a fan speed controller later.

[pelgrim @pelgrim]

a kickstarter: the robox fan kit ?

java (EE), JavaFX, HTML, GIS) programmer, database wizard, framework inventor, looking for a job ! http://roboxing.com/wizards

[Clicky @clicky]

@dave Thanks. So, maybe it is time for me to fetch different PLA filament. Any suggestions or what PLA are you using?

[dave @dave]

@clicky: I’m very happy with and had good results with the filament from Colorfabb (http://colorfabb.com/pla-pha); I’ve currently got 4 reels of Colorfabb PLA filament in Black, glow in the dark, green and orange (special halloween offer they had) and they all print fine.

[Clicky @clicky]

@dave Cool! I was just about to get 20EUR worth of samples but shipping ended up being quite steep! 12EUR for 20EUR filament!

Strangely - if I throw in full reel, too, I get shipping for 7EUR which, for the cost of everything else, is quite acceptable. Now I have moral dilemma:

- I want samples to see how good their PLA is but don’t want to pay 12EUR deliver for 20EUR filament

- I don’t mind buying extra reel and have quite reasonable delivery, but not until try out samples…

Catch 22, isn’t it?

EDIT: BTW Buying two sets of samples makes all much cheaper! Total is, then 40EUR (20EUR per set of samples - 400g - almost all available colours for samples). If there’s anyone around here who’s interested in sharing costs it would be much easier for me just to get it now…

• This reply was modified 2 weeks, 5 days ago by  Clicky.

[dave @dave]

I ordered some samples as well at first but I’m not sure if I would do it again; Sure, you have a lot of nice colours, but the samples aren’t that big so you can only do one or two small prints with them and if you’re unlucky it runs out before your print is finished. I’d personally pick a color of choice on a decent reel over one or two sample packs. If you just want to know how good their PLA is on a Robox maybe these photo’s will help (all printed using the Robox and Colorfabb PLA)?

Leaf Green:

Standard Black:

Dutch Orange:

Glowfill:

Blue Grey:

Note: this is actually a failed print due to layers merging together, the bottom looks crap but the backside of the helmet is super smooth, I could’ve avoided this by cooling my print with a big fan in front of the robox like I did with the other small prints using PLA, helps a lot!

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