PLA My first test with ESUN Filament

I am going to revive this older thread to add my thoughts. I love eSun filaments, they are all available with Amazon Prime and their PETG is just super easy to print with. PLA I was having a lot of trouble with, I sat down today and spent about two hours tweaking my slicer settings and finally figured out what I was doing wrong. I was using a a 210° extrusion temperature that was recommended in the forum here and I never got a good print. I finally started lowering the extrusion temperature little by little and I am now printing fairly well at 200°, but I think I am actually going to go lower. The PLA from eSun seems to have a range that favors the lower end of their suggestions. Anything over about 215° and it starts to crackle, at 230°, the max recommended,it is bubbling. I don't think I would recommend anyone print this particular filament over 205°C. Just for clarity I am using a E3Dv6 with a .4 nozzle.

 

@apwolf Just make sure yo do not over extrude, PETG loves to stick to itself and it will build around the nozzle, eventually burn, then deposit the small charred blob into your model in a very visible location. So keep an eye on the extrusion multiplier. Secondly, go slow, especially if making a lot of direction changes, PETG just doesn't like to turn (I am speaking mostly of support. It needs to extrude slow.

Build a test hollow box and edit the gcode so that every 5 mm or so in height the temp increases 5 degrees, you will see a point where the PETG starts to crystallize and cloud up, at that point your extrusion temperature is too high.The crystallization does not seem to harm the strength, but you loose all the clarity of the finished part, unless of course you like that crystallized look.

One more note, on solid objects it is much darker than you expect and a lot less translucent. For what it's worth on really small parts I get better clarity on 100% infill. Big parts once you are at three perimeters or more, you can forget about seeing the outline of the support structures. Also top and bottom over 2 layers and it is too opaque to see the support through it. At least that is my experience with the Red and Blue, the Natural can increase those by 1. I have not tried the Green or Orange, I have an Orange roll coming tomorrow. You can get away with these minimal perimeters if your part will be under compression with no shear forces acting on it.