So, in a way to try and support local economy, I tried Polar Filament out of Troy, MI here at MRRF 2023.
Man this is crap. In my bowden set up, it will not print. I even re–worked my extruder, and still not printing, changed temps, etc. I really wanted to love this filament, but dang it. I cannot. I see @jeffeb3 and @vicious1 promote PLA. I have been running esun pla+ and no problems at all. I really want to get to just pla though. What does everyone run? I guess also, why break a good thing, if esun works, just stay with it. I don’t like it coming from Amazon though!
Start here, this stuff has never let me down. I have used it for a very long time. Amazon.com : hatchbox pla Regular PLA, PLA+/pro/unicorn farts all has additives and you might as well just run PETG.
I tried Polar and unfortunately I also am have a tough time with it. The only way I can get it to stick is by printing the first layer very slow and the colors it prints are telling me the temps are wrong and I can’t seem to nail it. I am on my last roll of 20-30 I bought. The cardboard spools and price had me intrigued but I have never had a PLA like this, it just will not stick so I have only been printing large bottomed parts slowly with it.
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I personally always use overture pla+ (aka unicorn farts 
) and it has never given me a problem on any of my printers or any of my V1 machines. But in fairness to Ryan I have never printed an entire machine out of regular pla to see if there is a difference.
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that sucks, i am sorry, as I am probably the one who told you about it. I am very sorry!
I will give hatchbox a try. Thanks!
eSun has never let me down either, but to be honest, my prints when done still feel soft, or rubbery. hard to explain.
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Ryan (without his knowledge) “forced” me to use Inland, I still have some and that hasn’t failed me. Of course most of my first spools were Prusament, and it never lets me down. I recently tried Protopasta and I’m happy with it. Cardboard spools, I’m liking after printing plastic rings for the spools. I recently also got a 2kg spool of Prusament’s “recycled” PLA, which has worked well, for prototyping, painting or digging a nice olive/army green.
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It has been a while but I did print a parts with the same settings in PLA and PLA+. The + was substantially more flexible and the data sheet said you gain no heat resistance so it was a no go for me. The only way I am willing to give up rigidity is heat resistance.
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I need to build the deflection measurement deal that @jamiek came up with and see how much I’m getting with the PLA+. I’m about or order some filament to reprint some parts on my big LR3. Guess I should try out regular PLA and see if I notice a difference
The real disappointment comes when you find a filament that prints awesome, so you order more rolls, and each roll prints differently.
so in talking to said “Polar Filament” they said to steer clear of white. Whit is a really disgusting color, so they have to add a ton of pigment to get it white.
that would go with what I see. When I get a few bucks saved up, i will get the hatchbox and give a whirl! I really questioned that pla when it said 215, like the hatchbox pla says 190 to 210, that is what i expected. I am not really sure what Polar is, but it is not just pla
So looks like hatchbox direct does not charge shipping and @vicious1 looks like you may qualify for the wholesale program!
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Yup I have been wholesale for a while (they charge shipping on that side). For a while they took all wholesale away, I went to inland, and they brought it back.
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I am not American, so all I say is rather to be taken theoretically (or maybe someone from Germany can use it): I buy all my filament from www.dasfilament.de, they produce their own and it is very good. Have been using it exclusively (apart from the one spool of Prusament that came with the Mini). I sometimes contemplate to order more from Prusa directly because the Prusament I had was brilliant, but it gets more and more expensive). The TPU I have was bought from Overture because dasfilament was out. 
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Hatchbox was the first filament I bought for my wanhao duplicator i3 way back in the day. It worked great and my buddy who was slightly more into it at the time had a lot more trouble getting started. I think the hatchbox was a big part of that. The duplicator was also more reliable than the printer that he had bought (which was like an anet before there was an anet).
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+1 for Hatchbox. My LR2 was initially all Hatchbox and worked great. Big fan of Polymaker too.
Ahh yes… Hatchbox - $66.00 Australian including “free” delivery!
Prusament (5 spools) - $54.00 each (including delivery)
Prusament is not that bad!!!
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I’m totally new to 3D printing, and am trying to pick a brand for printing an LR3 (see New to 3D Printing - Advice for LR3 Print Settings) . I was originally going to go with the Esun PLA+ (Unicorn Fart Variant), but after reading this thread and doing some online research, I’m going to go with regular PLA for the rigidity.
I’ve been reading Amazon reviews for Hatchbox and Overture filaments, and the common negative issues for both is binding/tangling on the spool and brittle/broken filament (about 5-10% of the reviews)
Has anyone here experienced these problems with Hatchbox? I’m guessing the latter is probably a moisture issue, so if it does arrive brittle, will drying it out on the heated bed for several hours overcome this issue?
I have usually only done my big parts in HatchBox filament. I’ve used a few others as well with mostly good results.
I have had a few brittle problems if I leave a spool on the machine for several weeks, but it revives nicely in my heat box.
I’ve been helping a newby to get started in 3D printing and, upon my recommendation, he bought Hatchbox, that was the same Blue I’ve been using. However, he had trouble printing it. I ended up try his spool on my machine and I couldn’t get it to print well. he tried my spool and had no problems.
Finally we looked a the labels on the two spools and found the heat range was very different between the two filaments: Mine was 185-210 degrees C and his was labelled 195-230.
I’ll be watching that in the future as I don’t know what Hatchbox has done, but I don’t want the higher temp stuff!
Mike
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Thanks for that info. It seems that some people have had a brittle issue right out of the box, but it is helpful to know that drying it out will restore things okay.
That seems to match a few comments that I’ve seen on Amazon reviews. Strange that there would be different temperature ranges for supposedly the same product. Did the higher temperature stuff work okay when you increased the nozzle temp?
The new spools are wound almost as nice a Prusa’s and as long as you keep them bagged up when not in use for a few days they should stay for years.
This happened to me a few years ago, they seemed to have changed Material, I wonder if you got an old spool somehow. (black box?) new ones are white boxes.
Just be careful not to go too far back, and make sure the reviews are from hatchbox direct sold stuff. They have significantly upped their game in the last year or two. Not second hand old spools. Buy directly from the vendor. I have tried a ton of companies and never had any issues with hatchbox.
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