Prusament refills
To anyone thinking of saving a 'few quid' by buying the Prusament refills instead of the conventional reels - think carefully about how you value your own time.
I thought I'd got a bargain when I bought a couple of refills of my 'go to' filament; Prusament Galaxy Black PETG. However after half a dozen failed prints due to tangled filament jamming on the re-fitted spools I had to spend a couple of hours rewinding the filament onto old spools, struggling to get the end of the filament to stick to the centre of the spool to get it started (I ended up jamming the filament through the holes in the side of the spool), carefully guiding the filament by hand to ensure a neat winding and swearing profusely when the filament jammed again multiple times coming off the re-fitted spool.
So, as well as the wasted filament in the failed prints, I wasted 2-3 hours rewinding the 1½ unused reels ... all for a 'saving' of 2x£3. Prusament is marketed at a premium price (+ significant postage if you have no requirement for accessories to bundle it with) and despite Prusa's assurance that:
"Every Prusament Refill we made is up to the high quality standards of our in-house made filaments and is well-secured for transport, so you don't have to worry about tangled spools".
It may well be 'high quality filament' but the winding isn't - I think ordering off Amazon is the way to go if you want to 'save a few quid'
RE: Prusament refills
I made that mistake... once... The few dollars I saved were not worth the frustration. Another issue I ran into was the spool coming apart due to the adhesive holding in the cardboard sleeve had weakened. But then I've had brand new spools tangle up. I pretty much use a filament clip now for all my spools.
RE: Prusament refills
I won't be making that mistake again either ... so far I've not had any issues with the 'neatly wound' ordinary spools - it's just difficult to plan ahead to ensure I've got enough of the right sort of filament - without a crystal ball I don't know what might break (requiring open scad design) or catch my eye on 'printables' (and trying to predict SWIMBO's (She Who Must Be Obeyed) requests is equally difficult 😄.
Amazon (Sunlu) is 'OK' for last minute supplies but, as I said, Galaxy Black is my favourite and that means Prusa
RE: Prusament refills
Months ago I ordered a refill spool of Prusament PLA. No entangling problems, but the cardboard core didn’t enter totally into the plastic side disks, so the assembled spool was wider than the normal ones and wouldn’t fit between the rollers of my Sunlu filament drier.
No big deal, but I won’t be ordering refilled filament from Prusa again, As you say, the meager savings aren’t worth the extra trouble.