looking for a good 3d printer

[AlexDoran]

As an observation about - particularly PLA - and "sunlight", albeit here in the UK, I've read about PLA and the low temperature resilience, also its biodegradable nature. Three years ago, I printed in PLA a button stack - a barrel setting for a captive M4 nut to engage with a greenhouse tee-bolt (i.e. hot, humid environment) and an extended lug with a hole to take twine - so that many of these could be set into the framework of a greenhouse to suspend guide wires, etc, to support tomato and other heavy set plants. At the same time, this being an allotment setting, we were required to present plot numbers on gates, etc. Again, PLA plastic, printed numeric plates set onto gate posts. So, despite all the concerns about PLA, these have survived expose direct to the elements and in hot environments (admittedly not Spain) PLA has been surprisingly robust.

I agree, a lot people who report problems with PLA and its thermal performance seem to be over the pond in the states - phone holders printed for their cars melting in the summer heat etc. I use PLA for a lot of stuff, all of the components on my printer are done in PETG simply because i wanted it all the same colour, and parts on the Extruder Carriage needed to be PETG to survive the heat. I also bought a roll of "Reflect-A-Gold" tape from the states, off the top of my head it can reflect 80% of the heat upto ~500c. Good stuff and seems to work well, my old Blower Fan Shroud used to touch against the hotend, and this tape stopped it melting for well over a year.

Alex

[Boyan Silyavski]

PETG works for cars. This summer tested in Spain, i have printed a holder for the mobile.

I have a digital temp controller oven so i have found that yes, 75C is the temp that the PETG starts to lose rigidity and is able to be reshaped. But one very important thing to understand is that in an oven 75C means the whole piece is heated from all sides so there is no way to cool. While in a car it could be only partly heated or one side heated. So its not the same. In reality i expected a fail but that was the only material i had at hand at that moment
PETG will work also for printer parts inside enclosure, as the desired and achieved in reality temperature of the enclosure is around 40-45C, no more.

But PLA is definitely a fail in the car dashboard or directly hit by sunlight here in Spain. neither it works for printer parts in enclosure.

Hi Temp PLA is absolute crap. tried all the famous brands. Heat treated and so on. No, no and no. Very difficult material. Once you try to treat it it warps tremendously >5% so is unusable in real life.I have f%%d at least 50 pieces but to no avail. So i stopped using it.

So heating to certain temperature in an oven is not the same as in normal use. But FYI under the car hood is an oven so there only Nylon and at worse case ABS. maybe PEEk also.

[AlexDoran]

PETG works for cars. This summer tested in Spain, i have printed a holder for the mobile.

I have a digital temp controller oven so i have found that yes, 75C is the temp that the PETG starts to lose rigidity and is able to be reshaped. But one very important thing to understand is that in an oven 75C means the whole piece is heated from all sides so there is no way to cool. While in a car it could be only partly heated or one side heated. So its not the same. In reality i expected a fail but that was the only material i had at hand at that moment
PETG will work also for printer parts inside enclosure, as the desired and achieved in reality temperature of the enclosure is around 40-45C, no more.

But PLA is definitely a fail in the car dashboard or directly hit by sunlight here in Spain. neither it works for printer parts in enclosure.

Hi Temp PLA is absolute crap. tried all the famous brands. Heat treated and so on. No, no and no. Very difficult material. Once you try to treat it it warps tremendously >5% so is unusable in real life.I have f%%d at least 50 pieces but to no avail. So i stopped using it.

So heating to certain temperature in an oven is not the same as in normal use. But FYI under the car hood is an oven so there only Nylon and at worse case ABS. maybe PEEk also.

You could also try the Colorfabb HT, however i have found anything other than PLA from Colorfabb to be a nightmare to stop warping. I think PEEK might need hotend temps of 350+.

Typically i use Carbon Nylon for extreme stuff, its very expensive, but is very easy to print compared to traditional Nylon as the Carbon fibre makes it very stable and not very prone to warping. I was also sent a sample of a Polycarbonate filament, however it was TOXIC - and the print also de-laminated very quickly as it cooled down.

Alex