colorfabb nGen tips?

I'm trying out colorfabb nGen copoly on R2. I use Cura as my slicer. I was wondering if there were any general tips someone might have for this filament. I've noticed it seems to stick harder than PLA and is very brittle. When using a raft and removing it via a print removal tool generally just a piece of the raft will break off instead of the entire structure. Will a glue stick help this?

I'm printing it with these settings (most are consistent with colorfabbs reccomendations)

230 C/ 75C

Fan: 50%

Retraction 2mm
Retraction speed: 45

Print speed: 50

I'm wondering if this is an oozier filament and I should modify the flow rate? Any tips someone might have would be appreciated.

 

Funny you should ask. I just dropped by to mention that I think I'm falling in love with this stuff.

I'm using a hardened .40mm nozzle, 240 C/80 C printing on a BuildTak FlexPlate and using hair spray as a release agent. Between the flex plate and the hair spray, it's a pretty easy release. No rafts; just using a skirt to get the extruder started at the beginning of the print. So far, the biggest issue I have is waiting for my plate to heat to 80 C.

It's not as oozy as straight up PETG.

I'm not pretending that I have it fully dialed in yet, but:

Retraction 1.2 mm, speed 30

Currently printing at 50mm/sec, .20 thickness for transparent, and whatever works for opaque. First layer height/width 120%, and might drop to 100%

I have had some pretty severe problems with PETG with oozing and first layer density and adhesion, and even tore my factory BuildTak sheet trying to remove a PETG print when I forgot the hair spray. I have had no such problems with nGen, which so far, has been almost as easy to print as PLA.

The printed articles have quite the bounce to them, so I think they're a bit more flexible/less brittle than PLA. I haven't done much overhang printing with it beyond a tree frog or Benchy, but so far those look great, and the surfaces on my test coins have been great.

The other big problem (aside from heating the bed) is the price: ca $40/750g, which makes it cost over twice what Hatchbox PLA or ABS would cost. But as a go-to filament that doesn't share PLA's downsides, this is looking pretty good to me so far. Everyone says PETG, which again is cheaper, but I've been having such good luck with nGen that I think it'll be my go to.

Although I've got about a quarter kg of XT samples and a few more of HT, so I'll report back on how those go if anyone's interested.

 

I think the reason I'm printing hotter than the base colorFabb recommendations is that someone told me to reduce stringing on PETG, to INCREASE the extruder temp (contrary to others), and since nGen is in the same family, I figured it couldn't hurt.