[Closed] Spontaneous filament breaking  

RE: Spontaneous filament breaking

@karl-herbert

I am nto worried about the price of filament.  I have tried hundreds of brands and have my favorites.  There are plenty of filaments both cheap and expensive that print reliability.  Some reliably good and some reliably bad.  

Price is not always a good predictor of good results.  

RE: Spontaneous filament breaking

Posted by: @karl-herbert

@charles-h13

Some people call me crazy because I buy 1kg PETG for 40 Euros. I've printed tons of faceshields with it without incident and the things are extremely stable. I have invested a lot of money in the printer and I don't want to save on these components (nozzles and filament). I like to compare this with car tires. Expensive car and cheap tires do not go together.
But as always, everyone has his own opinion.

I would not call you crazy! Rich maybe, but not crazy. 🙂 40 Euros works out to over 62 CAD. But whatever works for any individual at whatever price. The best PLA I found cost about 20 CAD and I got hundreds of hours of printing and never any issues. Sadly it has been discontinued. 😥 I agree, If you are happy with any filament, who gives a flying <> what others think.

RE: Spontaneous filament breaking

@charles-h13

That is truly true. The most expensive does not always have to be the best. Fortunately, I have had good experiences so far and usually buy my filaments from the manufacturer in my home town (Extrudr).
No advertising - but they make good products, which are also used by 3D printing service centers.

RE: Spontaneous filament breaking

Posted by: @karl-herbert

[...] I like to compare this with car tires. Expensive car and cheap tires do not go together.

100 times this! Particularly with nozzles. I'll never understand why someone will spend money on a quality printer, $40+ on a spool of specialty filament, dozens of hours on calibration, then insist that the poorly drilled nozzles off AliExpress are good enough.

RE: Spontaneous filament breaking

I am hoping they are as responsive the email I just sent off to them as they were to the last one. It is nice to have support from the manufacturer.

Kenn.

RE: Spontaneous filament breaking

I generally only use PLA. What I am about to describe occurs with many different sellers product (which may or may not originally come from the same place!) . 

Whether left on the printer or put away in a bag inside their box with or without a fresh crystal bag, after a while the filament goes brittle, always starting from the end. This does not seem to alter  much if its left as it comes off the printer, usually with a melted end as a "seal", or as an angled cut ready for next use.  Also price or name does NOT affect its likelihood.

In most cases flexing and so breaking a few short lengths off soon gets into the normal flexible state and then I trim there and use, and its fine in use till next left for a couple of weeks or so at minimum.

This works well for MY location, where 17C to 23C is usual, away from sunlight, but in a room with three fish tanks so likely above usual humidity.

Is this water ingestion?  Is it due to temp cycling but not being used then and there?  I don't know, and TBH I don't really care, as losing at most usually a few cm is not an issue, and I always test and clear before use,  as breakage on the printer inside the extruder, particularly a bowden fed one, is annoying and time consuming to remove and get clear running again, so I do not leave filament in the extruder unused for more than a day or so.

I have only ONCE had a filament be ready to break over most of its length, and that was on a cut sample that was clearly faulty.

RE: Spontaneous filament breaking

When ever possible, I prefer to support, in order, local companies Canadian companies, Canadian distributors.

I got a reply from the Canadian filament company and I was not impressed.

It started off by saying that they could not accept the filament back because it was purchased in December and had obviously absorbed moisture. I did not ask for a refund or compensation, but offered to send them what was left in case they needed it to analyze. Starting off by blaming a customer is not a good way to start a conversation.

After blaming me for mishandling the filament, he went on to says that they had completely reformulated the whole filament line and the product I bought was discontinued.

And in what I perceived as a afterthought to appease me, he added at the end:

“ Here is a gift card you can apply to your next order: a5dh f6e2 ae27 e3hh “

I had to wait a week to reply to him, where I explained that I was not asking for anything, but trying to provide information to them and how I was disappointed with the company's response.

I signed off with:

“In closing, I will say: It was nice doing business with...“

It is possible, in one short interaction, to send money to your competitors.

RE: Spontaneous filament breaking

Meine Beobachtung hierzu ist folgende:

Solange ein PLA-Filament ständig im Einsatz ist, tritt der Effekt nicht merkbar auf. Kommt ein Filament nur selten zum Einsatz kann es sein, dass in einer Länge bis zu 1m das Filament spröde wird. Es kommt bei sehr vielen unterschiedlichen Herstellern / Farben vor.

Meine Erklärung:

Durch die Erhitzung am Ende wird ein chemisch/physikalischer Prozess angeregt (Polimerisation?) der sich langsam am Filament entlang frisst und dazu führt, dass das Filament spröde wird.

Abhilfe:

Zumindest wenn das Filament für längere Zeit nicht genutzt wird, schneide ich 5cm direkt nach der Verwendung ab und habe keine Probleme mehr. Das ist bei MMU-Druckern sehr lästig.

RE: Spontaneous filament breaking

As a summary to the OP are we saying that too much moisture or too little moisture can cause breaking, assuming reasonable quality otherwise.

That seems unusual for a mechanical property to behave like that.

RE: Spontaneous filament breaking

@bob-h9

I think that sums it up, I wish there was a quick way to tell which one is the cause.  

RE: Spontaneous filament breaking

@totog

Sounds reasonable to me. I have noticed that sometimes when I go to use some PLA that was stored in a dry box for a while, It breaks about 15-30 cm from the end while I am taking it out of the spool's built in filament holder holes. I thought I was being to aggressive, but maybe it was an indicator of some thing that I did not know. Now, I just clip the first 15-30 cm off and then remove the end from the holder.

As for being rarely used, this spool was taken out of the sealed bag, placed on the printer and used right away. It only self destructed when a print job finished during the night and sat idle for up to 8 hours before the next print job.

@bob-h9

In my case above, I don't think moisture played any significant role in the filament breaking, but I am not an expert on material mechanical properties. I am leaning towards @totog's explanation where heat played a significant role.

@charles-h13

We wish.

RE: Spontaneous filament breaking

Here is a photo of the next section of filament after the spontaneous break where I tied it in a knot, bent it 180 degrees and flexed it to try and break it.

Please people, don't post about how filament can vary from spool to spool, how a sealed spool is no guarantee of moisture content, about dehumidifying filament, etc.

RE: Spontaneous filament breaking

Thank you for your replies and thoughts on the matter of something that I found 'unique' and baffling.