umagi

Hi Lars. Thanks. Yes, I finished it! It works fine, but the whole 3D printing process is too slow for my liking (and I get bored quickly). So, for the moment, I am focusing on other stuff.

That's what I did, and the supplier sent me a new one, from another batch. They indeed asked me for a picture of the fabrication label (including the batch ID) to send to the manufacturer probably. Nevertheless, any good manufacturer (the package in which this spool comes states "premium quality material") would have caught such gross fabrication error immediately, since this can be easily automated.

Found a 2.83mm section somewhere along my 1.75mm diameter filament spool... Doctor, would that be a problem? https://ultimaker.com/en/community/20351-damn-filament-vendor-175mm-filament-roll-has-283mm-fused-section-in-it It would be nice to have a setup that checks every new spool by automatically unwinding it and onto a second, empty spool while having the diameter checked somehow, since apparently this particular manufacturer does not seem to bother.

As maybe Einstein would have said: try to buy as cheap as possible, but no cheaper. I recently got this cheap crappy one: https://ultimaker.com/en/community/20351-damn-filament-vendor-175mm-filament-roll-has-283mm-fused-section-in-it

Maybe to avoid problems such as this one: https://ultimaker.com/en/community/20351-damn-filament-vendor-175mm-filament-roll-has-283mm-fused-section-in-it

What a nasty surprise I got when by accident, I checked my filament after my extrusion halted to a stop, with the filament ground (grinded?) into the profile of my drive nut... Somewhere along the roll, I discovered something that looks like a section that was fused together, or more probably it is just an extrusion fabrication error. In any case, that section has a diameter of 2.83mm, more than 1mm off the size it should be! Quality control please? For the remainder, this filament produced by Esun is rated to be 1.75mm is actually closer to 1.65mm. What else am I to expect of this spool? That they would sell such is thing is really scandalous.

Hi swordriff, It is obvious that I am a beginner isn't it? ^^. Well the difference is that we are talking about raw materials here, the result of a simple (but what do I know, I always hated my chemistry classes) polymerization process to give a single, base material (well, if you don't count the carbon and fluor of course). What you are talking about are complex finished products. I agree that dimensional tolerances etc... can be different for a worked piece of PTFE, but I don't see how much different the raw material can be, which is the result of an automatic chaining process of the C2F4 monomers. Impurities maybe? Small impurities can have a great effect on material properties of course, cfr. semiconductor doping for instance. In any case, I was just wondering. As you suggested, I'll have to indeed experiment! Thanks for your valuable info.

Hmm... PTFE is just a polymer of fluor and carbon ... not sure any difference in polymerization process justifies a 5 to 10 times increase in price... As for TFT, I can't seem to find any info on that? What does it stand for?

Hi Dim3nsioneer, You're right. I was looking at a well-known Chinese site... Yes, but have you seen the price ? 16 Euros for this thing? They must be kidding? Apparently, they are out of stock, "waiting from material from the US", so are they making these parts themselves? If so, I could try to make my own part, since I can have access to a lathe. However, I'm not sure how well PTFE is worked on like that. Update: I found this Youtube link that shows some (big) PTFE seal being made from a lathe, so I may give it a try myself, if I can find some PTFE rod somewhere...

Probably yes. I was looking on some well-known Chinese site for 1.75mm PTFE couplers for UM2, and they all seem to have that input diameter of 8mm, which makes no sense to me. I will have a look at the TFT coupler from 3dSolex as Dim3nsioneer suggested.

Hi. I'm using 1.75mm filaments with 4mm outer diameter bowden tube and noticed that the PTFE isolator in the printhead has an input diameter of 8mm! The exit diameter is 2mm, which is OK. Looking at the drawings of the vendors of such isolators, they all seem to be the same 8mm input diameter for the 1.75mm filament version, while the 3mm filament version has an input diameter of about 6mm, which is about right for a 6mm outer diameter, 4mm inner diameter bowden tube that is usually used for 3mm filaments. Since the bowden tube usually used for 1.75 mm filaments has a 4mm outer diameter (2mm inner), I really don't understand why the 1.75mm version of the PTFE isolator has an input diameter of 8mm!?? Since I use a 4mm OD bowden tube, I have initially fitted the end of it with a 6mm OD section which I happened to also have. However, this is still does not match the 8mm input diameter of the PTFE isolator, and therefore results in problems, e.g. when inserting new material, since the hole of the bowden tube and the 2mm hole of the PTFE isolator do not normally align even when I use the 6mm OD section. I cannot imagine that I must use an 8mm OD, 6mm ID bowden tube for my 1.75mm filament... Or that I must fit a section of 8mm tube to my 6mm tube end for my 4mm tube (like russian dolls). Any ideas as to why such a travesty in the PTFE isolator design for 1.75mm filaments?

Labern, tommyph1208, thanks for sharing! Chose the first answer as the "best" one, because, well it was first...

Hi, Wondering if I can turn off the heated bed of a PLA print after a sufficient number of layers have been printed? For long prints, it seems a waste of energy to have the heated bed on until the end of the print. Thanks for sharing your experience on this!