Oh, and I also find that esun PLA is more resistant to jamming in all-metal hot ends than other brands. Not sure why, though I have several hypotheses.
INTSERVO (http://www.intservo.com) is the Amazon reseller I bought from. As the order was filled through Amazon, not sure if I will get the free sample with my roll or not. Paid $19.99 on Friday for a spool of white PLA.
HobbyKing (http://www.hobbyking.com) is where I was originally planning on picking up some rolls of ESUN filament since it was on sale for the 4th.
@Whosa_whatsis Thank you for the detailed description. The bit about the opaque white was extremely helpful considering that was one of the colors in my cart.
You mentioned Inland also comes from eSUN; would you recommend buying generic eSUN from Amazon over Inland from Micro Center? Or does it not matter in your opinion?
@Evan_Nguyen Have you used Inland PLA or just the ABS? I’m sure one is as consistant as the other but just wondering.
I’ve only gone through about 4 rolls of their PLA so I can’t say for certain how good it is. They print fine at 190C and I have not had any issues with it so far. I know PLA tends to absorb moisture and becomes brittle over time, but I have not kept a spool exposed for more than a week before using it all.
@Evan_Nguyen Alright thanks. I’m buying the components I need for a nearly airtight filament stroage system when I buy the filament so I’m not too worried about resisitance to exposure.
I’ve never bought the un-rebranded esun filament PLA, though I have a spool of their PETG. It looks like the esun-branded filament comes on clear spools, if you’re into that, but there doesn’t seem to be any other difference.
@Evan_Nguyen I have had two rolls of the inland pla. I am bad with my filament as I leave it out in the open on a shelf all of the time (and in Georgia the humidity is pretty rough). That being said the two jams that I have had with the filament occurred just days after opening the filament so I dont think it is from the moisture in my house.
I don’t understand how people have massive issues with filaments absorbing moisture though. I live in an area where I would think the issues would be the worst, but I just pulled out my very first spool of pla that I bought a year ago next month and it prints like new. Like I said its just been sitting on my shelf…
@Griffin_Paquette Hmm. I’ll post a new topic on this page about filament storage and if its necessary. Don’t want to spend $45 on tubing if I dont have to. I’ll tag you.
@Adam_Steinmark sounds great
@Whosa_whatsis The Esun filament I’ve got is not on clear spools but on black ones.
@Whosa_whatsis So you bought the Inland rebranding of the eSUN filament?
I thought the change to clear spools was a recent (within last year maybe?) change to eSUN’s spools.
I’ve mostly used toybuilder, but I bought a spool of Inland because I was at Microcenter anyway and wanted to verify that it was the same stuff, which it seems to be.
@Whosa_whatsis Toybuilder/Prototype Supply is double the price of Inland, I find it hard to believe it’s the same but I have no experiance with either so I’ll take your word for it.
Loss leader.
Microcenter seems to sell a lot of things at cost if not at a loss, presumably hoping you’ll buy higher-margin items while you’re there. They also sell their own rebranded version of a flashforge for 2/3 of what you can get them for directly from the manufacturer.
@Whosa_whatsis I mean it works. Why buy Prototype Supply when I can buy 2 Inland rolls for the same price at the same quality. Might still go for original eSUN in the middle for $20-$22 for free Prime shipping.
@Adam_Steinmark We’ve all got different purchasing priorities, but I buy ToyBuilder because the owner @Joseph_Chiu is an active member of the 3d printing community, gives great customer service, and is super responsive with issues/complaints. The Microcenter stuff is apparently coming from the same factory in China, but personally I’d rather pay more for better service and to support “our kind of people.” Nothing wrong with either way you want to go on that one.
Last week I bought two spools of eSUN PLA, purchased from Intservo via Amazon. I had noticed that some of my Toybuilder/Protosupply spools said they were made by eSUN, so I thought it would be the same stuff. However, I’m not enjoying printing with these spools (yellow and purple) very much. Though they’re sold as opaque, they have a translucent aspect. That helps hide print artifacts on the outer perimeters, but for the job I’m doing, it’s not a positive quality. (And it makes it hard to judge the quality of the print. A print that looks great suddenly looks not so good when you spray primer on it). The purple periodically stops extruding well, resulting in broken strands in the print (and since it’s slightly translucent, you can see the bad sections no matter where they occur). I’m printing thin, flat objects, and I had problems getting the yellow to adhere well to the build platform, and not curl up before the print was done. I’ve never experienced that problem with PLA. The purple prints are warping after cooling and being taken off the platform (I’ve printed the same object with my other PLAs, and none of them have done that). Cleaning the platform after using the yellow results in a yellow paper towel – that’s not a problem, but I’ve never seen that before. Overall, I’m sorry I strayed from my usual brands. The $20 I saved on the two spools have wasted a lot of my time finding the right settings to get the eSUN to work, sort of, for this particular job.