problem printing colorfabb PLA

[skinny-kid 65]

Sure thing!

Printing temp at 220

Bed temp at 60

Layer height at .1

20% fill

Speed at 70 mm/s

Printed Full size :mrgreen:

 

[mika-mannonen 0]

Wow nice! Maybe there's hope with colorfabb stuff

[emilio2 2]

I have tried a Colorfabb box of PLA samples. I have used 60 and 75C bed temps and 210C extruder. The parts do no stick at all to the buildplate. Do i need perhaps higher temps on the hotend?. It is pretty disappointing for a filament on the expensive side.:-(

[yellowshark 153]

Emilio, at what speed are you printing layer 1? If it is 20mm/s then the temps are fine for colorFabb - well personally I think the bed temp. is unnecessarily high. I have never gone above 65 and these days use about 55.Maybe your nozzle to bed distance needs adjusting?

 

[mika-mannonen 0]

I agree with yellowshark. I preheat the bed to 55 and let it to drop to 45 when I start the print. I use pva glue on glass and it works like a charm. Otherwise the colorfabb filament gives me a headache

[mika-mannonen 0]

I found out that the problem is not the filament but cura and it's settings. I changed to SImplify 3D and prints like charm without tweaks

[skinny-kid 65]

Colorfabb support helped me out and sent me a new spool of the translucent green PLA. Loaded it up and prints no problem :-P The bad spool was old (produced 2013) and had arrived unsealed.

Using same setting as listed for the gray PLA above and have printed a few items already without any issues.

 

[shawng 0]

I purchased several rolls of ColorFabb a few months ago and have been trying them off and on to get them to print.

"Inconsistent" is probably the closest descriptive word, albeit without the vehement annoyance implied. I have a roll of red PLA that is barely used, yet every time I end/stop a print or even after the initial loading of it, it jams and the nozzle has to be cleaned again. It also hates every distance between the nozzle and print bed; too close and too far away is apparently the tiniest fraction of a knob turn on the print bed and I cannot, for the life of me, get any of the colors to go down well at all. Feeder clicks even if the nozzle is actually too far away and no temperature range from 200 to 230 seems to be right.

All this holds true for both the heated glass bed (yes, I've varied that in all manner of ranges, too) and the PrintInZ Zebra Plate (unheated).

I put my old roll of silver Ultimaker PLA in the printer and it works much better on the first layer. The difference is absolutely staggering.

It's probably been too long to expect any kind of return or customer support on them, but I will probably be avoiding ColorFabb from here on out.

[cloakfiend 995]

Id gladly take any colorfabb filament off your hands (purchase of course), but your too far away for shipping fees to be worthwhile for me as i get it for $20 a roll as it is.

[danilius 118]

 

@cloakfiend, where do you get colorfabb filament that cheaply? Does it involve propitiating demons and the sacrifice of maidens of virtue?

[cloakfiend 995]

Its a secret but I'll pm you next time I order.

Edited March 17, 2016 by Guest

[shawng 0]

Amusing as that suggestion is, I think it'd be more helpful if you gave me some idea as to how to make this stuff work because everything I've tried has just wasted filament and time.

[cloakfiend 995]

Once you are familiar with how your um2 printer works there is no problem. I often find people are stubborn and think they know the best way to use their printer and wont listen to any advice regardless. This just confuses and frustrates me, as they cleary dont if ther are having many issues when i dont on exactly the same printer, including their unit. It would take many paragraphs of explanation as to why exactly certain things must be done in certain situations, but still i have not seen anyone do it. Just individual cases covering issues. You need to really want to know why and be open to reasons you may not agree with. My friend is an engineer and believes my tinkering is and has damaged the printer yet i achieve near perfect if not perfect results every time when his fail almost every time. He wont listen to my 'workarounds' as he calls them, and believe that ultimaker produced a printer that you should be able to print perfectly from everytime regardless, just by pressing start. He thinks that if it breaks they should come and fix it. I believe he's in fantasy land. We now agree to disagree. some people just dont listen people who are not from their field, and wont take any advice even in times when they really need it.

Your ultimaker WILL eventually need the nozzle cleaned, and the temps manually adjusted according to the brand of pla.  these are Undeniable facts in my opinion and if ignored WILL lead to poorer prints. Ultimaker made the printer, but the methods of using it floorlessly are no-where to be found from what ive seen. People may know but they arent sharing their wisdom. Its also quite tiring repeating yourself when no one is willing to listen.

Things never work in the wild as they do in the lab, this at least should be common knowledge.

If you are in London and are struggling with colorfabb drop me a pm and if ive got time ill come show you how i do things, but im not wasting time writing things up as some things need to be seen first hand as instructions are often misleading due to interpretations, much like religion. I believe what i believe and no one can change my mind.

As usual, sorry for the rant and no i dont work for colorfabb. Sometimes i think i should considering the amount of times i plugged their filament for the past year and a half odd.

Edited March 19, 2016 by Guest

[shawng 0]

I have absolutely no problem listening and learning, cloakfiend. If I came across as close-minded, that wasn't my intent, so please calm down and understand that I'm trying to find ways to work with it that others may have figured out but I haven't yet. Rather than continuing to bash my head against my personal wall that is PLA printing on my machine (as I have for a solid year now), I figured asking may be a better alternative, which is why I did in my last post.

I'm not attacking you. Please calm down.

[cloakfiend 995]

Sory mate, dont take anything i say personally, its just the way i am. Im sorry youre not having a lot of luck and can only advise you to keep on trying and trying to logically think why things are going wrong and what you could do to get them better. I admit it took me a few months to figure everything out myself, and there were man moments i wanted to pick up my UM2 and smash it on the floor while swearing non stop.

Read the forum a lot and find out as much info as you can even if it contradicts itself, then you be the judge, good luck.

No hard feelings, lol.

[izzy 33]

On the whole I have little problems with ColorFabb PLA and PLA/PHA. I use a bed temperature of 50'C and I use a good quality hairspray on the glass which I have found better than the glue sticks. Then I have a nozzle temperature of approximately 200-205'C and in general I'm running at 40-50mm/s with a 0.4mm nozzle and 0.1mm layer.

A lot of people are having problems trying to run faster, uping temperature speed and feed and then having problems, calm down and run at the recommended settings and usually it will work fine, if not check your print head, is the nozzle clean and is everything in line and tight.

[cloakfiend 995]

I print at 185 for 0.06 and 175 for 0.04 and only really stick to 30mms my bed is always at 60, maybe 55 for 0.04 but only for small stuff. If my model has many retractions i just slap an extra 10 odd degrees or so on top to be sure. I have had no failed prints in the last year from the filament, i had some issues with my old.um2 but thats cos i worked it hard 24/7 and the rods needed tightening, but thats about it. I dont even see myself getting the upgrade kit anytime soon because i see no benefit for my purposes.

[chuckko1966 0]

Hi Cloakfiend,

Thanks for this post, it confirmed my suspicions. I just got my first roll of Colorfab pla/pha and found my default PLA settings totally WRONG for Colorfab. The raft and first few layers of my first 2 test prints looked "melty" and other signs of temp to high. My guess was to drop down to 185 for my first experiment for 0.04, but based on your post I am going to try 175 to start off. Wow I am completely surprised at the vast difference in using Colorfabb PLA/PHA and standard PLA.....

 

I print at 185 for 0.06 and 175 for 0.04 and only really stick to 30mms my bed is always at 60, maybe 55 for 0.04 but only for small stuff. If my model has many retractions i just slap an extra 10 odd degrees or so on top to be sure. I have had no failed prints in the last year from the filament, i had some issues with my old.um2 but thats cos i worked it hard 24/7 and the rods needed tightening, but thats about it. I dont even see myself getting the upgrade kit anytime soon because i see no benefit for my purposes.