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From where can I buy cheap and best quality of raw material

Discussion in 'Off Topic' started by sam007, Sep 4, 2014.

  1. sam007

    sam007 New Member

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    Hi!

    I am looking for the material suppliers, so can you people guide me out from where can I get cheap and best quality of material for 3dprinting
     
    #1 sam007, Sep 4, 2014
  2. Mikethinks

    Mikethinks Active Member

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    Welcome to the forum, the best low cost filament I have found is Hatchbox PLA, at about $23US on Amazon.
     
    #2 Mikethinks, Sep 4, 2014
  3. Printed Solid

    Printed Solid Volunteer Admin
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    Are you looking for cheap or are you looking for the best quality? You're not going to get both.
     
    #3 Printed Solid, Sep 5, 2014
  4. Mikethinks

    Mikethinks Active Member

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    I beg to differ. For regular PLA/ABS I have found that SOME very inexpensive filament is just as good as the pricey stuff. There is some real crap filament out there to though. I have tried several brands and for PLA I found Hatchbox was superior, and ABS I had a very nice couple spools of IC3D. Both preformed just as well as my $40/spool stuff and had very consistent diameters. As with everything YMMV, but for a hobbyist looking to buy 10 rolls in different colors, the difference between spending >$400 and <$250 is a big deal.

    On the other hand for more exotic materials I tend to stay very name brand as you really need to be wary of the problems that wood and grit can cause from cheaper wood/stone filaments. Also I've never seen anything as pretty as the T-glase.

    The only really bad filaments Ive gotten were from Gizmodorks. The Ruby Red is orange (although otherwise prints fine) and the gold spool had more than a few nasty spots that had bubbles or blobs which would get caught in the feed hole and fail the print. It printed well otherwise, but was a real pain to have to babysit the printer.

    Most important thing is to buy just 1 spool from and new source, no point in learning the hard way after spending a pile O cash :)
     
    #4 Mikethinks, Sep 5, 2014
  5. Printed Solid

    Printed Solid Volunteer Admin
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    What you're typically paying for when you buy higher priced filament, outside of the specialty materials, is quality control and consistency. What does the supplier do when the extruder was acting a little odd during the run? Do they investigate the lot that was running or just keep on pushing through shipping everything until the machine dies. What happens when they find out they had some strange contamination in the lot? What do they do when they find that for this one batch, temperatures have to be turned up 10 degrees to extrude at the same rate? Do they ship anyways or hold on to and investigate to see if the quality is impacted. These are the choices that cost the manufacturer (and you by extension) extra money over the long term. I'd be willing to bet that you'll find plenty of people online who swear by Gizmodorks gold and say it was great because they happened to get some material during a time when the process happened to be running well.

    So, the answer here depends on what you're doing. If you really need the best filament,and can't tolerate the occasional junk roll or inconsistent coloring then you probably are not going to want to go to the cheapest supplier you can find on amazon or ebay. Stick with a supplier who prints with their own material and is active in the 3D Printing community where they will be called out if they're providing junk.

    The two I typically recommend for good quality standard PLA and ABS are toybuilderlabs (prototype supply on Amazon) and protoparadigm. However, protoparadigm recently changed things up and I have not used them since, so I can't comment.
     
    #5 Printed Solid, Sep 5, 2014
    2 people like this.
  6. Invertmast

    Invertmast Active Member

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    I just picked up four rolls of PLA from B3D on ebay, $90 shipped. Im only through the first roll of natural colored pla, but so far i like it. The guy said they have the most stringent requirements of diameter variation of +/-.003" (.076mm), but ive seen some places claiming .05mm, but $40+ per spool
     
    #6 Invertmast, Sep 7, 2014

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