Rest of the Spool problems

[StephanK 30]

Hi there,

I keep running into this problem with my favorite PLA (from a small austrian company called Extrudr)  and it is a bit annoying: usually the last 10% of filament on a spool cannot be used anymore. It just snaps. Usually somewhere in the bowden tube, rarely already at the feeder and consequently kills my prints.

I've tried "refeeding", hoping the newly fed material would push the broken pieces forward, but in the end, it just snaps again sooner rather than later. Yesterday it got completely stuck in the tube, the feeder was grinding it happily to bits and nothing moved. It required removing the bowden tube on both ends to push the fragments out

I guess it has to do with the fact that it is bent way more than at the beginning of the spool, or maybe sitting outside for usually a week or two (that's how long it takes me to finish a 1.1 kg spool) has already made it more brittle?

Now, 10% waste on a 35 Euro spool that starts out with 1.1 kg is not tragic, but i still hate throwing it away.

Is there any way to salvage the rest?

Is your PLA working better and if so, what brand are you using?

[Titus 170]

Colorfabb doesn't have that problem(haven't ran out of an UM spool yet).

But I believe some people got better results when removing it from the spool, and reflowing it in an oven. But I'm not 100% sure on that one.

[ultiarjan 1,223]

In my experience the issue happens more with pure pla, had it myself with faberdashery, never had it with the softer colorfabb.

What also helps is to buy fresh filament, if you buy in a store check the production date on the packaging, if there is non I don't buy it, maybe with an exception of high turnover colors...

I did rejuvenate the faberdashery;

https://ultimaker.com/en/community/18137-rejuvenating-filament

[StephanK 30]

I've contacted the filament manufacturer and they knew about problem. Their answer was: we changed the formula a little while ago and more recent spools shouldn't show that problem anymore.

So, in order to test this, i bought a new spool in a color that is guaranteed to use the new formula. Well, so far so good, but its not empty yet. I think it's less stiff, so maybe this will actually work out.