Aldi PLA filament (Balco brand)
Has anyone here ever tried using Aldi's own brand Balco brand PLA filament? I've been given some for Christmas and the one roll I have opened so far (Black) is very brittle at times and is an absolute bugger to get to stick to the print bed. I've washed and carefully dried then cleaned the PEI sheet bed using 100% IPA and really mushed the first layer as deep as I dared go, but it still often comes off mid-print. Increasing the bed temp to 75C helps a little bit.
Also tried the Prusa textured bed, well cleaned with IPA and it sticks a little better, but I'm having to use a 6mm brim and bunch components together to stand a chance of this stuff sticking to the bed. Again, the first layer height is as low as I care go, even leaving a slight grey mark on the textured sheet when the PLA is removed, so I know the first layer is really mashed in deep.
Prusament PLA at the same first later height sticks like the proverbial to a blanket, so I really think it's a bad quality PLA I have here with the Aldi stuff. Got a Buildtak surface on order to try it out on as well. Got 6KG of this Aldi stuff to use up, so I hope Buildtak is stickier than PEI...
RE: Aldi PLA filament (Balco brand)
Well the Buildtak surface arrived and the Aldi PLA sticks perfectly to it. Must be something about their PLA blend that is not in other PLA I've used that makes it hard to stick to PEI beds.
As for the Buildtak offering - it's a really nice surface to print on as I remembered years ago. Always good to have some choice of surface finishes on prints 😀