When you have brittle filament, you gotta get creative. 
Right now, it’s architecture finals at the @University_of_Kentuc . My machines have been non-stop for 2 weeks now and ran out of my high durable nylon-infused PLA (highly recommend it if you haven’t tried @Breathe-3DP filament yet.) We sell this stuff so I won’t promote it more than that, great stuff though.
But the stuff I got from Amazon is good once printed but quite brittle in filament form so I’ll let gravity help extrusion on these spools. I always recommend elevating spools as a first step to figuring out extrusion issues.
Straightest path is usually the best!
@Fook_INGSOC yes with exception to rotational force sometimes pulling the filament in either direction if not balanced in the center. This is also why I prefer horizontal 9" lazy Susan’s over the wall mounts as the center hole of the spool is not a factor.
For brittle filament, I’ve always been a big fan of dual motor extrusion - paired steppers, one at the spool and, one at the printhead, with a Bowden tube between.
Make sure they are the same make, model, and preferably from the same batch!
Why would the steppers need to be similar beyond having compatible step counts?
@Matt_Harrington I would guess undulation/resonance like you get from a chain drive system. It might do something similar for a line of filament between two non-identical stepper motors.
Putting the filament on a cake plate is a pretty cool solution. I do that too. Do you have foam rubber underneath the spools? Good for anti slip.
@Daniel_Stauffer that’s a good idea but I only really use these when the spool is brand new and the line unfurls too easily.
That’s how it was introduced to me @Alex_Skoruppa by the owner. Its parent company is universal fibers and they specialize in nylon as well.
I’m happy to send samples to anyone in the states btw
I’ll look into it tomorrow but it has a bit of a higher print temp ideally. Normal PLA being 195-205 and this is better at 215+
Only thing I can find for now glimpsing into that secret sauce is this: https://www.breathe-3dp.com/tds.pdf
https://www.breathe-3dp.com/tds.pdf
In terms of HDT, I see it as more refined but that maybe my setup. Can’t say I’ve tested it but my print tolerances are usually set to my layer height for optimal results.
@Ben_Van_Den_Broeck I’d love to try it. What are your common temperature settings (bed and nozzle)?
215, 50-60 on the bed with buildtak. Shoot me a PM with your address @Daniel_Jackman
In my experience, brittle PLA is usually a sign of too much moisture in the filament. 15mins in an oven @150F usually solves the problem.
@Ralph_Schaffner certainly truth there but there wasn’t any popping or distortion of the extrusion so I doubt it. These were sealed up well. It was more brittle along the drive gear than the normal contortion act the line does in the regular spool holder for this machine.
