high temp PLA
This week a customer rented time on one of our machines. Using the customer supplied material PLA we printed with one of the four roll of PLA that he had on Tuesday using our normal PLA setting Temp 220. On Wed morning we started a new print about an hour long. Shortly into the print the extruder clogged. We raised the temp to 250 cleared the clog, lower the temp back to 220 but could not get the extruder to push out any material. Raised the temp back to 250 and it seemed to work fine. Finished the print at 250.
When to customers next print job. Temp back at 220 printed for about 2 hours just fine and finished this group of parts. Went on to the next part and it printed about 5mm high and pulled the part from the bed. We cleaned the bed, tried it again same results. When to next part, this time only gat two layers and it pulled the part from the bed. Spent the rest of the day trying to get it print but nothing worked.
This morning I was called in to see if I could figure out what was going on. Took a sample of the PLA to our lab and ran a couple of tests using viscosity machine and found that this stuff is way to stiff at 220 and temp needs to be at 250 to 260 to extrude correctly. Came back to print room and looked at the roll which did not have any information on other than PLA 255c. I called our customer and ask who made the PLA and he had no clue he had purchased from an ebay seller.
Just FYI, maybe it will save someone time.
Re: high temp PLA
Jay
Interesting. Maybe PLLA + PDLA compound?
Peter
Please note: I do not have any affiliation with Prusa Research. Any advices given are offered in good faith. It is your responsibility to ensure that by following my advice you do not suffer or cause injury, damage…
Re: high temp PLA
We had a talk at Prusa3D given by an engineer of a Czech printing filament manufacturer fillamentum.com
The high temp PLA is a PLA with an additive, which helps the PLA to crystalise. Once the PLA crystalises into a semi-crystalic form, it has qualitatively different properties than the amorphous PLA we all know. The semi-crystalline form is harder and is quite heat resistant. The trouble is, you have to cool the print down slowly to give the PLA time to crystalise and this does not work for a normal PLA as it does not contain the necessary additives (the crystalisation cores). If you print PLA with the cooling fan, the print will cool too quickly to crystalise. Therefore you have to heat up the print afterwards in an oven and let it cool down slowly to achieve the "high temp" effect of the material.
Vojtech
Re: high temp PLA
We had a talk at Prusa3D given by an engineer of a Czech printing filament manufacturer fillamentum.com
The high temp PLA is a PLA with an additive, which helps the PLA to crystalise. ...[info removed]... Therefore you have to heat up the print afterwards in an oven and let it cool down slowly to achieve the "high temp" effect of the material.
I've got a couple of spools of Raptor PLA from MakerGeeks. It is a high temp/high strength PLA. It is really easy to print, and the strength is definitely better and less brittle than regular PLA.