Database for PLA / ABS and Settings?

[fuchs 0]

May sound a bit silly, but I think, every type of PLA seems to have some specialities, like temperature, maximum printable speed, blobbiness etc.

I recently bought some kind of sample pack with different colors and types of PLA - and i noticed, that each color seems to have a "special" temperature, where it works best - and that also differs with speed/extrusion rate.

So it's somehow counter-productive, that with every newly bought coil of PLA or ABS, one (meaning: Each user) has to fiddle and experiment to get a decent print.

I also understand, that it is kinda pointless that (the few) each user justs posts his settings into the Wiki, because there won't be (presumably) that much information gathered in a short and reasonable time (as only ppl. reading here would know about it) and also the suppliers / vendors could and will change material over time, making an outdated collection of info in a wiki kinda useless.

So my question or "food for thought" would be: How can one gather such information in a timely, reliable and sufficient quantity? Would we need some "general recommendations" from PLA/ABS vendors? From printer-makers? Or crowd-sourced approach?

Would e.g. Ultimaker test different PLA and sell them in their shop? Or get resellers to do that? Or would resellers pay their customers to gather such data? (I could very well imagine that users will get samples of PLA / ABS, test them, report their findings and get a discount on the next batch of material).

Any ideas? *looking at Ultimaking Ltd* :-)

[Daid 306]

Would e.g. Ultimaker test different PLA and sell them in their shop? Or get resellers to do that? Or would resellers pay their customers to gather such data? (I could very well imagine that users will get samples of PLA / ABS, test them, report their findings and get a discount on the next batch of material).

We test almost all our PLA. Only our white needs a slightly higher temperature, the we print at 210C. We notice more slight variations between machines then between PLA.

[mrjohnk 0]

I would welcome some help on materials. Even though I'm fairly new, I did notice a huge difference between printing with the white PLA that came with my UM verses the orange "JET" brand PLA I'm currently using. The orange blobs up a lot and doesn't print the same dimensional shapes as the white does. The parts just don't fit together with the orange as they do with the white without a lot more clean-up and modification.

[joergen 2]

There is a big difference between print settings and filament quality.

In regards to the print settings, there arent many differences between PLA and ABS. ABS just needs a bit more material to extrude (flow adjustment of 1.02-1.06), and prints obviously warmer. The slight differences between the UM temp measurements are pretty much the monkey wrench, that will prevent your proposed database from becoming useful, other than stating that 210C is great for PLA, and 230-250 is great for ABS. There are way too many variations between manufacturers and colors to really pinpoint a single setting for each spool out there on the market. In that regard, i find your DB proposal absolutely futile.

On the other hand, the reprap wiki has 2 pages about filament suppliers and their filament quality, which is a great resource, and can be updated by everyone, including the huge 3D community outside the ultimaker world:

http://reprap.org/wiki/Printing_Material_Suppliers

[jamado 0]

I bought several Auroram PLA 2.85 spools and would like to know if I have to make any changes on the temp setup on my UM2+ ?

[MarkHoe 3]

Im (still) pretty new to the 3dprinting World, but in my experience, i see a lot of finetuning of the settings even when printing in the same filament. (colour, vendor, ect.).

I see a lot of changes in how the printquality is just because the objects printet has different complexity.

So in my opinion i feel that every printer with every filament has to be tuned to the specific print-object to get the desired output.

Its not only the temperature, speed or flow rate. Its altso about how you cooling Works or small settings in your slicer-programme. - So from my experience, its only you who knows excatly how your printer Works. Start with the recommended temperature and finetune from there.

[jamado 0]

That is really what I thougtht , i'll start a "trial and error"print to get there, but aprecise setting would be time saving. Thanks anyway

[MarkHoe 3]

That is really what I thougtht , i'll start a "trial and error"print to get there, but aprecise setting would be time saving. Thanks anyway

 

Do you have a specific item you want to print? if you have, upload a Photo, and there is a lot of Guys inhere that could tell you a thing or two..

I browse in "tips&Tricks" from time to time, just to read about printing and printer behaviour, and for me, some of the Things are very usefull and others dont Work on my machine.

I have been printing almost non stop for over a week now, and im beginning to see a slight pattern in the settings, but its not the same as some others in here. So go ahead and print a object, finetune to that specific object, and do it all over Again for the Next one.

I know its not a direct answer to your topic, but i dont see a strict pattern in the settings yet.

[jamado 0]

Thanks for the tips that i'll do. I'm uploading what i need printed to seek some advise.

[geert_2 557]

@jamado: if you want to print with very fine details, smooth surfaces, and hard-to-see layer lines, I would suggest that you read the thread by Cloakfind on smoothing PLA with aceton. This thread contains a wealth of good info on temperatures, speed, layer heights, etc. for finest quality. Plus it has a lot of photographs showing each test. It is a lot of reading, but worth it.

I think it is this URL:

https://ultimaker.com/en/community/10412-acetone-finishing-on-pla