Prusament PLA Blend.
During the last 2 years I’ve been printing some Prusament PLA blend colors (Royal Blue, Ohmygold, Pearl white). While I have no complaints about printability and finish compared to regular Prusament PLA, indeed those blend colors have different physical properties.
1- I found out that interlayer adhesion is rather poor. That figures with the data from Prusa documents (17 Mpa for regular PLA and just 6 Mpa for PLA Blend).
2- PLA blend has a tendency to contract very fast when cooled down. For instance, with regular PLA after the print is done, if I unload the filament and push a 1.5mm steel rod down the extruder, the remaining and still hot filament comes out as a long thin thread hanging from the tip of the nozzle. If you do the same with PLA blend, the filament contracts very fast as it comes out, making a sort of cocoon.
3- Probably as consequence of this behavior, PLA blend tends to warp more. I print often stencils ( basically flat large rectangular shapes). If I use PLA blend, even if the stencil comes perfectly flat when I remove the print from the plate, the day after it has warped a bit. That doesn’t happens with Prusament regular PLA ( or other PLA brands for that matter ).
4-Maybe it’s just an impression, but the seams are more visible with PLA blend.
As much as I like some of the colors, I think I’ll pass on PLA blend in the future. What do you think guys..do you have experiences/opinions on this matter ?.