Purchasing filament

Godzilla32

Hey guys i just ordered my first 3d printer. After alot of youtube viewing i settled on the A5. Looks like with a few basic tweaks it should be a good printer. Anyhow, im wondering what the best filament brand is for this printer? Are there any better options and also places to buy it? Im in qld australia. Thanks in advance!

Samuel Pinches

Hey @Godzilla32 , welcome!

i personally use filament from torwell.com.au (they have good bulk discounts, plus, for your first purchase load up your cart and put your email in checkout and then wait 1 day and they will email you a small discount to entice you back)

i also use filament from leoplas on aliexpress: http://sampin.ch/leoplas

Samuel Pinches

I’ve tried a few others like aurarum and found filament quality to be variable.

I’m in melb, if you’re ever down this way, please say hi

Godzilla32

I love how welcoming you guys are, its great! Im actually from melbourne but been up here for almost 13 years now. I still miss Melbourne, i havent been back for around 5 years so i plan to come down around Christmas time.
Thanks for the links and tips. I really liked the look of the A5 but after doing more research the reviews are quite mixed. Im wondering if they are shipping them with the firmware fixes now? Either way ill be almost immediately upgrading to yours. Ive got a tonne of questions but rather than bombard you in one hit i think ill probably ask along the way haha

Deren

Samuel Pinches

No worries Deren.  There's lots of other good options out there. If you can describe a little more about your goals, a breakdown of your tech skils (software, electrical and mechanical?), and the kind of experience you're looking for, I can probably provide some more specific 3D printer suggestions to consider. You said you already ordered the A5 - I'm sure we'll be able to help you get the most of it.
When you do you come down, please give me a hoy!

Cheers, 
Sam

Godzilla32

I own an automotive performance business. So eventually id like to be able to do some basic prototyping and even make basic parts for the industry. Im fairly handy with computers in general. Part of what i do is modify the cars computer hardware and rewrite the code with the help of specialized programs. Im an automotive mechanic by trade also. 
I know i really need a higher grade printer but this is my first one and i didnt want to spend a lot of money this time round. So im hoping just to get some kind of accuracy and decent surface finishes. I wanted a prusa mk3 but the extra cost was a bit too much for my first printer. Is there any reason the a5 couldnt get similar results with work?
Thanks once a again fir your help!

Deren

Samuel Pinches

I use my JGAurora Z-603S to get pretty good results. I’ve even printed off a few car parts:



I’ve seen people get great results out of the A5 too. My A5 has been out of order for several months now, due to a combination of waiting on parts from China, a personal lack of time, and lack of motivation due to having other working printers. So I won’t try to claim I have much experience with printing with the A5.

Plus, JGAurora keeps changing components on the A5 - so I don’t even really know what impact they have had on printing performance over time.

However, what I did find was that everything needs to be perfect in order to get great results. While the A5 is great value and has great capability, in my opinion there’s a lot of “weak points” on the A5, that are not robustly engineered, and if they go wrong they can negatively impact on print quality.

On my printer I’ve done several major quality improving mods.

One mod was replacing the long screws and springs on my printer with solid nylon spacers of the correct height for my bed. This significantly increased the rigidity of my print bed. Then, since I can no longer level my bed, I use mesh bed levelling to compensate for the error.

A major cause of print quality defects on the A5 comes from the long Bowden extruder. A direct drive extruder results in more accurate control of plastic extrusion, with less oozing and stringing.

The other mod I’ve done was unthreading the Bowden PTFE tubing out of the corrugated black plastic tubing, and running it direct from extruder motor to x-carriage. This is a shorter path, and this allowed me to cut off around 10cm from the length of the PTFE tubing. This improved my print results a little bit. But I still plan to convert my A7 to direct drive down the track - some people have already done some of the hard work to redesign the x-carriage to support this, with designs available on thingiverse.

Once you get your printer, check out the wiki guide for new owners. Print out some test pieces, and then post some photos here if you’d like suggestions and tips on what to do to improve print settings.

cheers,
Sam

Godzilla32

Ok awesome, thanks sam i will do. Is there any particular filament i should be using for the engine bay? Ive looked at what handles heat best and it seems that a properly annealed pla or high temp pla is the way to go. If you know of any other options that would be great. I was looking at the metal filament but unsure how good that would be. I think the extruder nozzle needs to be upgraded for it? 
Thanks again

Deren

Samuel Pinches

In a nutshell, you want the glass transition temperature of the plastic to be above the maximum temperature the part will experience. This is not the melting point, this is the point at which the plastic starts to soften.


See here for some examples:
http://www.misumi-techcentral.com/tt/en/mold/2011/12/106-glass-transition-temperature-tg-of-plastics.html

PLA: 60C
PETG: 88C
ABS: 105C

Engine bay temps get up to just under 100C at peak? So ABS is the best to use for car parts generally. Unfortunately, ABS warps when cooled, so it must be printed in a fully enclosed chamber where the ambient temperature is much higher, to prevent severe warping and distortion during printing. You can build an enclosure for the A5 pretty cheaply from MDF or something like some Ikea LACK tables - it just needs to keep heat in during printing.

P.S The glass transition temp is also usually the best temperature to maintain the print bed at while printing for those materials!

Samuel Pinches

I've heard about high temp PLA and annealed PLA,  but I haven't seen any amazing results.... I don't know enough about it.

For filaments with metal particles, this makes the filament very abrasive, so you need either a hardened steel nozzle, or a tungsten nozzle. You can also just replace the brass nozzle more frequently when it wears out too...

Printing at or above 260C requires much more serious ($$$) upgrades, to convert the hotend and heatbreak / throat to all metal design.

Godzilla32

Hey Sam. I was thinking the abs filament would be best but then i saw stefan from cnc kitchen testing the high temp pla and annealing various filaments. It was interesting to watch. I was thinking to use the lack design but wasnt sure if the a5 would fit in it?

Samuel Pinches

It does fit, you just need to stack one on top of an inverted one as it is higher than 1 lack high

See on the facebook group:

• https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10208760058119062&set=gm.897781877070255&type=3&permPage=1&ifg=1

Richy_T

ABS also carries advantages with being less brittle and being able to weld it with acetone or ABS paste. I recommend learning the ins-and-outs of both.

I'm also hoping I can get into TPE (ninjaflex) with my new A1. I tried it on my Printrbot but it just didn't work well. Though that may be because I just didn't wind the speed down enough.

Der_Muck

Go on and try ASA like ApolloX from FromFutura, its like ABS but without any problems. ABS is critical in conbination with sunlight, ASA is more resistant in that way.