Source of good quality lightweight PLA, please?

[Allan Bennett]

I've done quite a bit of printing with my Ender 3 since getting it at Christmas, using Creality's own standard PLA filament.  I'm now interested in getting some lightweight stuff, but Creality don't advertise it on their UK site.  What brands have a good reputation among forumites, please?  I'm particularly looking for red or yellow, and there doesn't seem to be much around according to my internet search.

 

I suppose I could go for white, and paint it . . . . . . . 

[leccyflyer]

I haven't had much success in finding coloured PLA-LW, my usual sources just have the natural in stock, with black the only other choice I've seen. I deally I would have liked to get silver PLA-LW, but haven't found it.

[Ron Gray]

The last reel of PLA LW I bought was eSun from Amazon here

Edited April 15, 2023 by Ron Gray

[GBG]

3dlabprint.com do LW-PLA in various colours, they are currently showing red in stock. Postage is about £18 to the UK and delivery is about a week.

[kevin b]

Painting would probably make it heavier than standard coloured PLA.

[PDB]

I get what is in my experience the best brand colorFabb LW PLA in various colours  from https://www.3djake.uk/search?keyword=Lw+pla although note the delivery takes about 7-10 days.

Edited April 15, 2023 by PDB
.

[EvilC57]

I’d suggest colorFabb too. I built a Planeprint Jetwing EDF from it during the winter. As Ron mentioned above, there is also eSun LW-PLA which is available from Amazon, but doesn’t seem to get such good reviews generally in YouTube videos I’ve seen, although is a bit cheaper. Their so-called ‘natural’ colour also seems to come out somewhat more yellow than colorFabb’s.

 

I bought my colorFabb LW-PLA from iDig3Dprinting here (I found it easiest to search for ‘LW-PLA’ on the site). Although they’re only showing grey/silver (note leccyflyer), red, natural and black in stock at the moment.

 

My wing section test print .stl samples downloaded from Planeprint, when printed with Colorfabb PL-PLA came out at around 65% of the weight of the same piece printed using normal PLA.

 

The Jetwing model below was printed using colorFabb natural LW-PLA. When it foams and expands in the hot end nozzle during printing, the natural (ivory/cream) coloured LW-PLA becomes somewhat more white in appearance because of all the bubbles trapped in it.

 

The colours on the model were painted with artist’s acrylics, which seemed to take well to the rough LW-PLA surface.

 

Edited April 16, 2023 by EvilC57

[leccyflyer]

Thanks very much for that - I'll be trying some of that silver-grey Colorfabb LW-PLA. I have an unopened pack of the e-Sun Natural LW-PLA, which I will also trial. It was never my intention to fully 3D print a whole airframe, since I started with the printer just to print scale details, but you have to at least give it a chance and there's a project which I have in mind.

[EvilC57]

1 hour ago, leccyflyer said:

Thanks very much for that - I'll be trying some of that silver-grey Colorfabb LW-PLA. I have an unopened pack of the e-Sun Natural LW-PLA, which I will also trial. It was never my intention to fully 3D print a whole airframe, since I started with the printer just to print scale details, but you have to at least give it a chance and there's a project which I have in mind.

👍

I found with the LW-PLA that you have to print at about 230 - 240°C, otherwise it doesn’t foam sufficiently. I was reluctant to do too many test prints with the colorFabb as it’s quite expensive, and by the time I’d printed the parts for the Jetwing as well, I only had around 150g of the original 750g reel left. In fact towards the end I was getting quite nervous that it would run out and I’d have to by another reel just to finish the last couple of parts.

 

Despite being supposedly ’light weight’ PLA, the model has turned out quite heavy, so I’m convinced it’s not as light as balsa.

[leccyflyer]

It certainly is a bit expensive, but I thought the instructions on the site about calibrating temperature and flow rate were quite encouraging and made sense. My main concern is bed adhesion, as the parts for 3D printed whole aeroplanes are pretty big, thin walled and are tall. I've had a few printing failures recently where even quite small objects which are taller than broad have fallen over towards the end of the print, ending up with a ball of capellini pasta!

[Graham Bowers]

18 minutes ago, leccyflyer said:

It certainly is a bit expensive, but I thought the instructions on the site about calibrating temperature and flow rate were quite encouraging and made sense. My main concern is bed adhesion, as the parts for 3D printed whole aeroplanes are pretty big, thin walled and are tall. I've had a few printing failures recently where even quite small objects which are taller than broad have fallen over towards the end of the print, ending up with a ball of capellini pasta!

I use Colorfabb LW-PLA on a Prusa MK3+ and find using a brim, and making sure the bed is de-greased allow tall wing sections to print fine. I use the G-codes supplied by Eclipson and sometimes vibration causes the surface finish to be a bit rough however not so much I've had to intervene and slow things down.

[EvilC57]

1 hour ago, Graham Bowers said:

I use Colorfabb LW-PLA on a Prusa MK3+ and find using a brim, and making sure the bed is de-greased allow tall wing sections to print fine. I use the G-codes supplied by Eclipson and sometimes vibration causes the surface finish to be a bit rough however not so much I've had to intervene and slow things down.

Yep, I always use a brim with LW-PLA, which if find doesn’t stick to the bed as strongly as normal PLA. Doing this though, I’ve never had a failure even with tall thin wing parts.

 

The printing instructions and Cura profiles supplied by Planeprint here are very comprehensive, and need following closely. In fact it took me several hours of settling up and saving the multiple profiles before I could even think of starting to actually print anything.

Edited April 16, 2023 by EvilC57

[Allan Bennett]

Thanks for all those replies guys.  Looks like Colorfabb is the one for me too 🙂

[Graham Bowers]

7 hours ago, EvilC57 said:

Yep, I always use a brim with LW-PLA, which if find doesn’t stick to the bed as strongly as normal PLA. Doing this though, I’ve never had a failure even with tall thin wing parts.

 

The printing instructions and Cura profiles supplied by Planeprint here are very comprehensive, and need following closely. In fact it took me several hours of settling up and saving the multiple profiles before I could even think of starting to actually print anything.

I bought the files for the Planeprint Notos so need to get stuck into Cura and the profiles.

[leccyflyer]

Really not impressed with the iDig 3DPrinting service. Ordered two rolls of filament on the 16th April and since the initial order conformation haven't heard a dicky bird, despite two emails, filling in a contact form on their website and a telephone call which just went to an answerphone. No filament, no tracking number, no communications.

[EvilC57]

4 hours ago, leccyflyer said:

Really not impressed with the iDig 3DPrinting service. Ordered two rolls of filament on the 16th April and since the initial order conformation haven't heard a dicky bird, despite two emails, filling in a contact form on their website and a telephone call which just went to an answerphone. No filament, no tracking number, no communications.

Oh dear. I used them OK back in the winter. But I must admit I do seem to remember their communication with me was non-existent after the initial confirmation too.  I think my reel duly arrived after about 5 days though.

 

I guess all you can do if there’s still no arrival soon is to keep trying to ring them. Hopefully you paid by credit card, so you can get Section 75 protection if you need it.

 

I think I remember using iDig3D because 3DJake didn’t get very good reviews on TrustPilot. iDig3D are also based in Nailsworth in Gloucestershire which isn’t too far from me, whereas I think I read somewhere that 3DJake are in Holland.

 

Unfortunately it seems suppliers of colorFabb LW-PLA are few and far between in the UK.

 

 

Edited April 26, 2023 by EvilC57

[Allan Bennett]

I got a roll of red Colorfabb from Niceshops GMBH in Austria.  Been using it for a couple of weeks now without any issues other than it dribbles more than regular PLA does.  I guess that's true of all LW-PLA.

[Simon Chaddock]

Dribbling is a feature of foaming PLA. When not printing the residual heat causes the filament a bit further up the nozzle to expand and extrude.

 

On my printer by the time the head has fully cooled there is about 6" of extruded LW-PLA hanging from the nozzle!.  

[PDB]

3 hours ago, EvilC57 said:

Unfortunately it seems suppliers of colorFabb LW-PLA are few and far between in the UK.

 

 

I get all of my colorFabb LW-PLA from either https://www.3djake.uk/ or https://www.123-3d.co.uk/ depending on the current price and who has the colour in I need. I've not had a problem with either supplier however the delivery times can be long but are stated in the descriptions before you order. I've found some UK suppliers of LW-PLA but the prices are £10+ per spool higher so for me the wait is worth it.

 

As an aside I've been trying some ESUN and SUNLU PLA from Amazon which sometimes comes up in a flash sale at £15 per 1KG roll and so far I've noticed no difference with the 750G rolls of PLA from colorFabb.

Edited April 26, 2023 by PDB

[leccyflyer]

Don't know if it just coincidence with the posting on this forum, but have just come back to find a bunch of messages from DHL saying that my order of filament will be delivered by the end of the day. No explanation for the delay, no apology, no reply to my emails or phone call, but a standard form of notification from the supplier that my order has been completed and despatched today.

[leccyflyer]

Delivery of a roll of Colorfabb silver-grey LW-PLA and ordinary bog standard PLA finally arrived today, just over 10 days since I ordered it.  I'll be interested to give it a try.  A smaller box than I'd expected, I guess because it expands on printing. Their own brand standard PLA would need to be something spectacularly good to persuade me to reorder from the same place again. Communications matter in online retailing.

[PDB]

Test cubes helped me get LW-PLA dialed in https://colorfabb.com/how-to-print-with-lw-pla

[EvilC57]

3 hours ago, PDB said:

Test cubes helped me get LW-PLA dialed in https://colorfabb.com/how-to-print-with-lw-pla

I used Planeprint’s test parts as well. Go to Planeprint and download their Wingtest and Calibration Tool.

 

colorFabb’s LW-PLA reels are only 750g rather than the usual 1Kg, so presumably that’s why the reels are narrower then usual.

Edited April 27, 2023 by EvilC57

[leccyflyer]

Thanks gents - as a completely new material, I'll certainly be printing those test cubes. I bought the silver LW-PLA because I saw what looked like a nice set of files for a Chipmunk. In the meantime I've acquired a much larger Denis Bryant Chipmunk which  I know to be a superb flyer and scratches that itch.

[leccyflyer]

On 27/04/2023 at 18:34, leccyflyer said:

Delivery of a roll of Colorfabb silver-grey LW-PLA and ordinary bog standard PLA finally arrived today, just over 10 days since I ordered it.  I'll be interested to give it a try.  A smaller box than I'd expected, I guess because it expands on printing. Their own brand standard PLA would need to be something spectacularly good to persuade me to reorder from the same place again. Communications matter in online retailing.

I haven't tried the LW-PLA yet, but I have to say that their ordinary PLA is, in fact, the best PLA I've ever printed with, so I might have to grit my teeth and put up with the appalling communications and delay in delivery at some point in the future.

 

This is the biggest print I've made to date and it printed beautifully. It's a mould for fabricating a fibreglass cowl for a fair sized Sbach - just too large to fit on the build plate in one go, I split the print down the middle and the builder will join the two halves and make good the seam.

 

 

If the model were destined to be electric he could have just joined the two halves, with a reinforcing strip, just like the ABS cowls of old, but it's going to have a petrol engine, so he's concerned about how hot it will get in there and prefers the fibreglass option.