Beyond PLA and ABS?
Beyond PLA and ABS?
I started 3d printing back when you had to build it all from scratch, and it seemed ABS was the only filament to be found. PLA came along soon enough and made things sooo much easier. Then came some more exotic ones like TPU or Nylon I think, but I never tried them out because they seemed pretty niche.
But now I'm getting back into it after some time and am seeing PETG popping up more and it seems to have become one of the mainstream materials now.
Are there any other key materials I should become aware of these days? Has PETG started to replace ABS as a superior "high-temp" filament? Does anyone have experience with these?
PETG has become the second "entry level" filament besides PLA because it's almost as easy to print with (just hotter) and also doesn't require an enclosure. Not as stiff as PLA and has a little flex, so perfect for prints that don't have to be 100% rigid. For example I printed a smartphone holder for my bike out of PETG with 4 "arms" that grip the corners, and it has just enough flex so I can get the phone in and out. Temperature resistance is only a bit higher than PLA.
TPU/TPE are flexibles and available in all grades of flex, the softer ones can be tough to print on bowden machines.
The "kings" of temperature resistance and toughness are ABS, ASA, PC (blend) and PA ("nylon"), but they pretty much require an enclosure and good ventilation (fumes...) and have to be printed very hot, so an all-metal hotend is highly recommended.
PETG is great but ABS is still more durable I think in most cases and probably more rigid.
But PETG does not give off toxic fumes. I believe I remember there being even less fumes than PLA.
PETG is trickier to print than PLA though, but easier (and safer) than nylon. TPU and TPE are flexible and don't really compare apples to apples with the others.
PETG is my favorite filament after PLA. It is much easier to print than ABS, not toxic and has one of the best UV resistances.
I use it primarily for things I leave outside or in the car. No issues with warping even when the inside of my car can reach 60 °C.
My only problem with petg is it is super susceptible to humidity. And once you get some moisture in there, it gets really sticky and stringy.
I don't think I've ever had a filament jam as often as petg. I do enjoy printing in it though as you almost never have to worry about warping.
Petg is my go to for general use unless I need heat tolerance, I have an enclosure and have abs pretty dialed in so I flip between them. Only petg part I've had fail was the x idler piece after printing enclosed abs for a few weeks straight. Only really complaint I have is it likes to stick hard to the nozzle but that's solved by a sock, and it likes to be dry but that's something to do with abs as well.
I used petg to print a holder for my pour-over coffee maker (v60 with the carafe, it broke but wanted to use the perfectly good piece that fit in the carafe), yeah it doesn't touch boiling water directly but it holds up just fine and I've been using it for the past 2 months.
I've printed primarily in PETG for a few years now and just started printing voron parts in ASA. ASA is way more rigid than PETG, but PETG will yeild more than ASA before breaking.
ASA is ABS but a little easier. PC is my favorite for structural parts. You can get away with small stuff in PC without an enclosure. It is ideal for print fan shrouds too as it has the highest temp tolerance of any hobby grade filament.
They make PC filament? TIL. Seems like it would be really difficult to print with.
Prusament PC Blend is really nice to work with on their machines. It prints at 290C with a bed temp of 110C and is best to print with their glue stick, (although any gluestick will work, theirs just cleans off easier than some others). These temperature ranges are beyond the capabilities of many cheap printer project type machines and definitely outside of the hotend temperature range you should print at if you have PTFE tubing passing through the heatbreak and in contact with the butt of the nozzle.
I have printed some fan shrouds in Polycarbonate (PC). ASA is another popular one. Check this article out.
We're printing with Nylon at work. Great material but it vacuums up water and if it's absorbed any amount it prints like crap.
Might give ASA a look while you're at it.
I'm on my second spool of ASA and love it. It did require me to upgrade to a enclosure and PEI print bed.
TPU is awesome, even with bowden printer. I would even say it's easier than PETG.
I will never stop recommending PHA lol.
Quick search gave me this information:
Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are a family of polyesters formed through bacterial fermentation of lipids or sugars. What sets it apart from PLA is the fact that it will decompose in soil and waterways, though it is more than twice the price of petro-plastics
Are there any other pros and cons with pha?
It's less rigid than PLA, but wayyyyy more durable. It can really take a beating. The only major downside is that it warps, but there's definitely ways around that. Also just from having handled it a bunch, for some reason it's just got the nicest texture. You know how those incredibly strong thermoset plastics they use for pot handles and such almost don't feel like plastic, compared to something like PET? It's like that.
I'm fond of PVB, as anyone who's read my posts here may have noticed. Prints with similar settings to plain PLA, but can be smoothed with isopropyl alcohol, and smoothed prints can be pretty close to truly transparent if that's your thing. Also, smoothed prints have much improved interlayer adhesion, for obvious reasons.
I've printed a couple of spools of PETG at this point, and it's touchier than PLA, but still easier than the ABS/ASA/HIPS family plastics. In particular, it likes to be stringy, so you need to either tune your retraction or do a certain amount of postprocessing on prints to get uniformly smooth surfaces (I mostly settle for the latter, and "good enough").
I also have a spool of PCL (filament with a very low printing temperature) that I keep meaning to get around to playing with. What can I say? It was on sale. (I buy mostly from filaments.ca , who often have somewhat exotic plastics among their house brand filaments, although they can never seem to keep them in stock. Just as well, since it keeps me from impulse-buying LLDPE or the like.)
Idk but my experiences with abs / ASA have been way more positive than petg. Even with just a ender in a cardboard box.
MJF and SLS can do glass filled nylon now. Good long term creep resistance and surprisingly affordable for moderate quantity batches.