Lately I’ve been using inland brand natural Pla. It prints so nice and I find that it adheres to the print bed really well. My go to filament brand used to be Amolen but some of these cheaper filaments have gotten so good in recent years.
I use three regularly: Polyterra PLA for low cost filaments, Polylite PLA Pro for my fastest prints or prints needing a little strength, and Polylite ASA for anything functional, for outdoors, or for high temp. The ASA surprised me with how easy it’s been to print. I’ve printed with 3DBestX ASA I think, and it’s OK, but not nearly as easy as the Polylite ASA. I bought a roll of ApolloX ASA recently but haven’t tried it yet.
If I need PETG, ESUN PETG prints the easiest, I’ve found. Not as easy as ASA (I have a heated chamber), but it’s the least aggravating PETG. ESUN PLA+ prints great, but is a bit more shiny than the Polylite PLA Pro, so it’s a personal preference. The ESUN PLA+ has slightly higher temperatures and I’ve had one print failure recently from poor layer adhesion when I was pushing it as hard as I could with print speed.
For my Monoprice mini select with a V6 hot end, I use whatever PLA is on sale. Right now Amazon Basics silk PLA, and two rolls of elegoo PLA. I rarely print high demand parts with the Monoprice. Right now it’s only printing 18650 holders for a cell balancer I’m building.
Yeah, “cheap” filament is largely good quality now, and only the unbranded Chinese-made stuff is actually “cheap.”
I also really like Inland (Microcenter) because they use good manufacturers. Esun makes their PLA/+ and Polymaker manufacturers their ASA. I will also buy directly from both of those companies because of my exposure to them via Microcenter’s house brand.
I’m also a big fan of Atomic Filament and Overture and Prusament. Atomic and Prusament can be pricey, but man are they some of the very best I’ve used.
I second Micro Center’s house brand, it’s been really reliable in my Ender 3.
I didn’t know that they worked with polymaker for their ASA. I knew that Esun is their PLA/+ manufacturer though. I do miss those esun masterspools since they have switched to the cardboard spools. I’m glad that the spooless filament refills are still available. So far I’ve heard great things about atomic and I’ll have to give them a try. I also like overture a lot for their PLA and their PETG.
The Inland ASA is listed as Inland PolyLite ASA, and PolyLite is a PolyMaker trademark. I read this text on their site like 30 times before I made the connection.
Stay away from Esun’s matte PLA. It is almost impossible to get it to adhere to a PEI sheet, and it STINKS while printing. I love their PLA+, so I was quite disappointed with the matte.
Overture’s matte is great though, and not smelly.
Polymaker polyterra. I especially love their army blue and black filament. They print nice and matte, and the colors print almost identical between their different colors. I always thought polymaker was a more expensive brand, but polyterra hits that 20usd/kg for pla price point that hatchbox and other budget filaments used to dominate
I like the polyterra line too. My favorites are the cotton white and sapphire. I’ll have to give the army blue a try sometime. I’ve tried a spool of their polycarbonate and it was nice though difficult just due to the nature of polycarbonate. I also used to think polymaker was expensive brand but I’m so glad it’s affordable.
The muted red polyterra feels like terra cotta a little. The matte additive is really dense, so parts feel heavier than other parts (polyterra PLA and PETG are the two densest non-filled filaments I’ve used). Whatever the additive is, it also increases the strain to failure by a lot, so it’s less brittle.
My only complaint about polyterra is that it is not as good at layer adhesion as the regular PLA/PLA+. I can’t push my printer to the limit on speed without getting a part that wants to separate at the layers, so I have to slow the print speed and slow the fan down, and I usually print a little warmer.
I’m finishing up my first Polyterra PLA+ print right now. It has less of the additive so it’s advertised as a satin finish more than a matte finish.
For what it’s worth, I just bought my first 3kg roll of filament for a big project, and I chose polyterra PLA in black.
I usually print Polyterra PLA at 210C but I had some issues with it lifting off the glass bed on my Enders. I never tried printing it below 205C and I have yet to try it on my Neptune 3 max so maybe the lifting issue won’t be a big deal with the PEI sheet bed. It does kind of feel like a terracotta texture which makes me want to try that red out now.
I wonder if I tried printing it at even lower temperatures if I would also get the delamination issue like you had.
It’s been a while since I bought from Polymaker and I don’t remember seeing that satin finish PLA+ line before but I’m definitely going to look into it. I also saw they are now offering dual color Polyterra matte filaments which is super cool.
I switched to Atomic over 4 years ago and it’s the only brand I buy now. I don’t like wasting plastic and I know Atomic will print perfectly for me. If there’s an issue, it was my printer’s fault.
@thecitywelivein Atomic CF-PETg is absolutely amazing. And they even have some color choices for their CF filaments which I have yet se see elsewhere.
Wow I didn’t know there was a carbon fiber petg on the market yet. I have yet to try any cf filaments yet but I think they are pretty neat.
@PukeNukem They’re great, especially Atomic’s ones.
Warning! Do not use a standard brass nozzle or it will wear out after a single spool. Use a hardened steel nozzle (the black ones, not stainless steel, chrome looking ones)
@thecitywelivein@lemm.ee Have you ever had an issue with wet Atomic filament? I bought a roll of Starry Night Translucent filament and it printed like ass until I dried it out. It’s still sketch though. I can’t get good top layers with it. I used their Royal Blue exclusively when I first started and never had any problems. This new color gave me a whole bunch of problems that caused me to practically rebuild my printer. I even switched to Sunlu while fixing things and that gave me no problems. So I figured it had to be wet filament out the wrapper.
PolyTerra Matte
