3d Printers South Africa

Hello again. So, my experiences so far have been pretty cool. There is a lot you can do without not really knowing anything on the subject, fortunately.

My question is about filament. I got two rolls of Ender brand PLA when I bought the printer. There is a lot of blue stuff lying around in the house. I want to buy more filament - specifically black and green (to print some baby yoda's for the upcoming birthday party). Should I stick to PLA or just switch to PLA+, Ultra PLA or PETG, seeing that there is not really a price difference and the stronger ones might have some more use?

Also, where do you buy? How is the stuff on Temu?

Thanks!
 
Superjakes said:
Hello again. So, my experiences so far have been pretty cool. There is a lot you can do without not really knowing anything on the subject, fortunately.

My question is about filament. I got two rolls of Ender brand PLA when I bought the printer. There is a lot of blue stuff lying around in the house. I want to buy more filament - specifically black and green (to print some baby yoda's for the upcoming birthday party). Should I stick to PLA or just switch to PLA+, Ultra PLA or PETG, seeing that there is not really a price difference and the stronger ones might have some more use?

Also, where do you buy? How is the stuff on Temu?

Thanks!
Click to expand...
PETG for functional parts. It's plenty strong. I've done some mechanical parts in PETG and it's holding up well. But it doesn't look as good as PLA.
 
Superjakes said:
Hello again. So, my experiences so far have been pretty cool. There is a lot you can do without not really knowing anything on the subject, fortunately.

My question is about filament. I got two rolls of Ender brand PLA when I bought the printer. There is a lot of blue stuff lying around in the house. I want to buy more filament - specifically black and green (to print some baby yoda's for the upcoming birthday party). Should I stick to PLA or just switch to PLA+, Ultra PLA or PETG, seeing that there is not really a price difference and the stronger ones might have some more use?

Also, where do you buy? How is the stuff on Temu?

Thanks!
Click to expand...
Geewiz (https://geewiz.co.za/) currently has a special on filament 15% off
 
Superjakes said:
My question is about filament. I got two rolls of Ender brand PLA when I bought the printer. There is a lot of blue stuff lying around in the house. I want to buy more filament - specifically black and green (to print some baby yoda's for the upcoming birthday party). Should I stick to PLA or just switch to PLA+, Ultra PLA or PETG, seeing that there is not really a price difference and the stronger ones might have some more use?

Also, where do you buy? How is the stuff on Temu?

Thanks!
Click to expand...
pla/+ prints easier than petg in my experience. The stuff on temu is overpriced or smaller rolls. These days I prefer Pla+ because it's stronger than regular Pla in most cases.

I get cheap pla form these guys: https://escolorstudio.co.za/ R200 a kg ex shipping.
 
Superjakes said:
Hello again. So, my experiences so far have been pretty cool. There is a lot you can do without not really knowing anything on the subject, fortunately.

My question is about filament. I got two rolls of Ender brand PLA when I bought the printer. There is a lot of blue stuff lying around in the house. I want to buy more filament - specifically black and green (to print some baby yoda's for the upcoming birthday party). Should I stick to PLA or just switch to PLA+, Ultra PLA or PETG, seeing that there is not really a price difference and the stronger ones might have some more use?

Also, where do you buy? How is the stuff on Temu?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

PLA is one of the more ridgid plastics and its the easiest to print.
PETG is my regular day to day filament these days its primary issue is it sticks to itself very well so supports can be difficult to remove if you don't plan well.

Throw a roll of each of the ones you mentioned in the basket they are all easy enough and tou will get a feel for each of them.
 
Park@82 said:
Wow that's cheap. I may try some but one thing that turns me off using petg for prototypes is that it takes significantly longer to print vs pla.
Click to expand...

Its not supposed to. PETG has a lower melt viscosity so you should be able to print faster.
 
B-1 said:
Its not supposed to. PETG has a lower melt viscosity so you should be able to print faster.
Click to expand...
Perhaps im just a noob but this is on the generic pla and petg settings on Bambu for the same item:

PLA
1782846531286.png

PETG
1782846559132.png

I can manually adjust the max volumetric speed on PETG to match the PLA but I am not sure how well that would turn out with printing PETG.
 
Park@82 said:
Perhaps im just a noob but this is on the generic pla and petg settings on Bambu for the same item:

PLA
View attachment 1918559

PETG
View attachment 1918560

I can manually adjust the max volumetric speed on PETG to match the PLA but I am not sure how well that would turn out with printing PETG.
Click to expand...

A quick google said that the generic petg settings on Bambu are pretty bad.
Which slicer are you using? Maybe try Orca for your printer and see what its print time would be?
 
B-1 said:
A quick google said that the generic petg settings on Bambu are pretty bad.
Which slicer are you using? Maybe try Orca for your printer and see what its print time would be?
Click to expand...
Its a bit of a pain to use Orca with Bambu. But thanks for pointing that out. Whats the max volumetric speed that you are using by default for PETG? I see on Bambu studio its set to only 8 for generic PETG. Ill have to play with faster speeds and see how it goes.
 
Park@82 said:
Its a bit of a pain to use Orca with Bambu. But thanks for pointing that out. Whats the max volumetric speed that you are using by default for PETG? I see on Bambu studio its set to only 8 for generic PETG. Ill have to play with faster speeds and see how it goes.
Click to expand...
Orca is fine if you left your firmware version on 1.04
 
Park@82 said:
Its a bit of a pain to use Orca with Bambu. But thanks for pointing that out. Whats the max volumetric speed that you are using by default for PETG? I see on Bambu studio its set to only 8 for generic PETG. Ill have to play with faster speeds and see how it goes.
Click to expand...

You don't have to use Orca you can use it to get an estimate of print time and if its faster then copy over some of the settings.

8 is pretty low but the best way to find the correct setting is to do a volumetric flow test just make sure your temp is at least 235C to 245C for PETG.

Also have a look at the minimum layer cool time. Sometimes they set that to a ridiculous amount.
 
I did my first petg print yesterday - a replacement leg for my in-laws’ couch. I thought I was very clever by scaling it to the exact size in the slicer, but it did not come out as nice as expected. Google Gemini was very supportive in setting up a different petg print settings profile, it was clearly not as simple as just changing the nozzle and bed temps. I need to get some hair spray for the bed before attempting it again, but hope to redo it today.

1783060857994.jpeg

In other news, apparently my printer cannot stay in my spare room at my house. So, I will need to build a shelf for it in my open plan home office…
 
For those running multiple printers - I have a farm of 12 x Creality Ender-3 V3 KE - what are you using to manage multiple printers
 
This thing on takealot just improved my entire 3D printing experience.

1783624501262.png

My print work desk started to look like a f**ing christmas tree as I kept stacking ugly ass lamps and lights to try and get a workspace where I can actually see properly at night if I wanted to do some assembly or parts cleaning and support removal.... but it was just never bright enough so I'd get irritated and call it a day.

Well not anymore.... I should have done this ages ago.
It has an added, unplanned benefit that there's a presence sensor mode on it, so it'll turn on and off on its own, but since the printer shakes the table a bit it'll stay on until it stops printing, so even keeping an eye on the camera from the livingroom TV is now a much improved experience due to the amount of light.

1783624570026.png


Highly suggested for anyone else with the same issue.
 
Also, while I'm here.
I'm busy doing another full Dino skeleton print, a big mofo, but this time I decided to do the entire thing in PETG (SA Filament White, PETG Speed, bought from Geewiz) instead of the usual PLA.

I can't overstate just how much nicer these PETG prints are working out for me.
The adhesion is insane, the quality basically indistinguishable from my PLA prints (it even has the same pearly sheen), there's almost no doubt the print I'm currently looking at would have failed at least once, or partially with PLA since some of the sections are at an angle, over 400 layers high, and have very little support... also barely any stringing even though the roll has been in the AMS Lite for about a month now.

Oh, and also, for the first time ever, since this is PETG Speed filament that can apparently handle 500mm/s, I do my prints now using Sport mode on the A1 (124% speed). It's already saved me quite a few hours and cannot see a difference quality wise.

1783625525717.png

I would definitely advise anyone who's new to this and have so far only been sticking with PLA to try out PETG.
Results may vary, of course, but so far all the benefits I was told on Youtuber videos about PLA vs. PETG seems more applicable to PETG with the printing I'm doing.

Support removal is also easier due to it being more forgiving and for larger, heavier models like the ones I print I'm still a bit worried that the PLA prints will start to deform in the hot summer months where there's a lot of stress on portions of it, not so with PETG.

EDIT:
*yawn*
*Wipes sleep crust from eyes*

Now that's what I'm talking about.... to have a tall, angled, wobbly anemic looking structure with no support like this one print for 8+ hours and then almost perfectly mate up with the main body is the type of thing that would have undoubtedly either snapped off or deformed into all kinds of hell when I was using PLA.

1783663112374.png
 
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Wow. Some nice setups in here!

I made an impulse buy and brought home a Creality Ender-3 V2 with some upgraded gubbins today for the princely sum of R1500.

It seems to have the silent motherboard, upgraded bed springs and came with a roll each of PETG and Flexifil along with some Dimafix, spare Bowden tubes and so on.

I had to do some repairs and fiddling to get it to operate but so far it's been going well.

I loaded the mriscoc firmware just before bed so I will give it a go again tomorrow. I couldn't wait so I printed a calibration cube which finished a few moments ago.
 
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