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Unanswered Brittle Filament

Discussion in 'Troubleshooting' started by TomerO, Jun 7, 2016.

  1. TomerO

    TomerO Member

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    Hey,

    It is nothing new, but I decided it is time to maybe address this issue.
    Some of my filament rolls (all eSun PLA) tend to break when sitting too long in the printer.
    This means I have to take the broken piece out and then re-insert the filament almost every day (that I use the printer).

    I understand the physical forces at play, but does anyway have a tips to how prevent or decrease this from happening?

    Thanks!

    P.S:
    The filament itself is pretty strong at most places, the only place that breaks is the part close to bolt after a while.
     
    #1 TomerO, Jun 7, 2016
  2. Geof

    Geof Volunteer Moderator
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    All my printers run everyday so i havnt encountered this issue.

    My only real suggestion would be to remove the filament from the hotend or try taking the tension off.
     
    #2 Geof, Jun 7, 2016
  3. TomerO

    TomerO Member

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    Removing will work obviously.
    I will try to align it after a print and see.
    Thinking about it, it might also related to the spring that holds the filament in place

    Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
     
    #3 TomerO, Jun 7, 2016
  4. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Your PLA is getting aged/wet (this makes it brittle).
    You can 'revive' it if you are so interested.
    You need to store it with desiccant (or dry it in an oven--I will not suggest that, but you can google it if you want).
    If you stick it in with some desiccant it will dry back out in a few days to a week.
     
    #4 mark tomlinson, Jun 7, 2016
  5. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Spools don't last/live long eh?

    :)
     
    #5 mark tomlinson, Jun 7, 2016
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  6. TomerO

    TomerO Member

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    If that was true why would it be stiff? Also, why would it happen only in bent places?

    Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
     
    #6 TomerO, Jun 7, 2016
  7. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    That is what happens to PLA when it absorbs water. It gets stiff and brittle.

    I have had a couple of spools like this myself. They got old and wet (I left them out). It took a a while :) but it can happen.
     
    #7 mark tomlinson, Jun 8, 2016
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  8. Geof

    Geof Volunteer Moderator
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    About as long as beer lasts lol. maybe a week if I'm lucky :D
     
    #8 Geof, Jun 8, 2016
  9. TomerO

    TomerO Member

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    Interesting. It's still printing fine so I'm not going to discard it.

    Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
     
    #9 TomerO, Jun 8, 2016
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  10. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Nah.It will print fine. It just may break on you. If it gets too bad you can revive it by drying it out.

    Wet filament will sometimes show tiny steam bubbles in it as it is extruded. It is just a visual impact if you can even see it*. It does not affect anything else on the print.





    *PLA. Nylon is different.Some of those will fail if they get really wet.
     
    #10 mark tomlinson, Jun 8, 2016
  11. TomerO

    TomerO Member

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    Thx. I guess that 60-90% humidity is a PLA killer =]

    Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
     
    #11 TomerO, Jun 8, 2016
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  12. JoeCarson

    JoeCarson New Member

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    I also have filament breaking. The humidity in Las Vegas is zip, nada, zero. Humidity in the house at max is 30%. The average is 10%.
    Also I have PLA pieces from the original spool that have been setting out a since Dec 2015. It are not brittle. Breakage can occur anywhere along the filament. Some short distances between breaks or days of printing then breaks. Does not sound like moisture. I've seen recycled plastic that becomes brittle. When I worked for Motorola in the 2-way radio group. we had a lot of front cover failure for scratches so some one got the idea to recycle the covers. We then had brittle covers that cracked when dropped. It turned out that too much recycled plastic would make the covers brittle, so we had to specify that no cycled plastic be used to be sure we got flexible covers. I suspect that this is a similar issue.
     
    #12 JoeCarson, Jun 11, 2016
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  13. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Sure, it could be, certainly where you are humidity is not the problem (us swamp folk get nosebleeds when we come out there we dry up so bad). :)

    Also the filament was manufactured before you got it (unless you did it yourself) so its age may be older. You might not know the exact provenance of the cheaper filaments (something like ColorFabb or another larger brand will certainly not be selling you lower quality stuff). I have run through a lot of cheap,non-branded PLA (over 100 spools) and generally speaking it works and holds up fine, but it does age.

    This is one of the downsides to PLA, it does tend to get brittle. Depending on what you are building in may (or may not) matter much structurally. Thin walls would be a problem. Nylon ages much better.* Still, plastic is not eternal.



    *https://books.google.com/books?id=x...HDAA#v=onepage&q=nylon filament aging&f=false
     
    #13 mark tomlinson, Jun 11, 2016
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