Bought some ridiculously cheap filament - 1kg 1.75mm ABS for 19.89€ shipped, through ebay. As expected, there was a catch: The saran-wrap-like wrapping on the outside of the roll somehow reacted with the top layer of the filament - not only did it stick enormously well to it, but it somehow also made the filament extremely brittle. I ended up un-spooling about 120g of filament to get to the good part, which now prints reasonably well (at 260C in the well-ventilated basement).
The seller already offered a full refund, which i gladly took. I mean, i’m not going to say no to free filament.
Here’s what i bought: http://www.ebay.de/itm/271427502743 , now at 20,90€
(on a related note, the pictures show RepRaper spools, but i got some other type that seems to be quite common as well, judging by the spool type).
I got good filaments in Nederland this time and at the same price of you or slightly cheaper and I got very good quality ABS and PLA. At the moment I tested only PLA and I was quite happy of the quality. Seems beeter and cheapper compare what I can find in Italy
I got at RerRapworld.com
this black color filament is probably made by chopped scrap plastic and this is why it’s so brite, there is no way adhesive tape to make chemical reaction with the filament :)))
Ouch.
Someone from Octave told me that they had to throw away $40k worth of filament because of that problem. I wonder if it was the same manufacturer.
Had the same problem with white ABS from a supposedly “reputable” supplier. Had to bin several metres of filament. Evidently heat shrink wrapping is not a great idea for filament, should be vacuum sealed if anything.
In the newspapers today…China complains to Wal-Mart about their stuff being crap and Wal-Mart tells them they made it. Evidently, China manufacturers have not accountability. If your stuff was made in China, keep in mind that the manufacturer evidently has no accountability by their law and so only the person/company making the sale is responsible for quality control. Seriously…that news cracked me up.
I had same issue with some, but it was not supposed to super cheap filament. Whole role was brittle too, the supplier shipped me a new roll of the filament, but was exactly the same issue.
Cheap filament…a good reason for a nozzle just for infills. I Really want to try that! 0.7-1mm or so too! Why 0.7-1mm? Because printing it thicker will probably mean that it is going to be more reliable.
Wasn’t there something out there relating to a filament seeing low temps and humidity becoming brittle? If the filament was air transported wonder if this was the case?
On this filament, only the outer layer (first 120g) was brittle - and i mean, really brittle. It would fall apart even if you simply tried to un-spool it. The rest of the filament is fine, though, and i’ve printed about 100g so far without incidents. That is, after i cranked the temperature to 260C (E3D v5 with the standard 0.4mm nozzle).
I could not use either of the spools I had with the same issue. It won’t bend, just breaks or won’t un-spool and extruder grinds groove into filaments.
I have filament that is over 1yr old but has not been kept at dry condtions ( read in a room next to the bathroom) and it has becomen brittle as wel.
I concluded that keeping your filament moisture free is the key to long cointainment.
anybody else can confirm this?
@Kristof_Deruyttere that will depend on the type of filament and also on other details, like the exact colorant used and so on. Usually, it can be restored by baking it for a bit - 35-40C for PLA, ~50C for ABS.
As @Thomas_Sanladerer has mentioned, you can bake filament to dry it out and restore it some.
The ABS filament that I buy all seems to come shrink wrapped in plastic with little bags of silica pellets to absorb humidity. If yours does not come like that, I suggest the first thing you do is bake it. Luckily, I have never had to bake any filament.