I’m sure this topic has been covered but my super quick search didn’t bring anything up.
I’ve been a Hatchbox PLA user from the start. No real reason other than it has 4.5ish rating on Amazon with a very high count.
I have friends who use polymaker for the same reason and similar price as hatchbox.
I see ovature at a good price and some decent reviews.
Curious what you all use and why. Especially if it is less cost and still good.
I have printed many, many spools of Inland PLA. Why? Because there’s a MicroCenter near me, and that’s their house brand. Mostly good results, with an ocasional stinker. I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite- but I would say it’s been consistently decent.
Hatchbox is great filament. But its pricy. For that reason I went out looking for cheaper options. For a long time I printed nothing but overture and it always did me good. But they seem to push the pro/plus stuff more than regular PLA, and for V1 Machines you want regular PLA. About a year ago I started getting Elegoo and it has been great! If you buy in 10 spool quantiles you can get it real cheap from their website. And for stuff like white or black you can usually get it for $10-11 a spool in a 4 pack on amazon. So far I have only had trouble with 1 spool that had a tangle in it about 3/4 of the way into the spool. I sent them an email about it not expecting anything, just wanted to give a heads up. I let them know I was able to fix it and keep printing out the rest of the spool. They still sent me a free replacement spool for that. I was very impressed by their customer service.
Also recently I have been trying out Bambu Filament as well. Its not much more expensive and prints really well. They have more/better color options if that is important to you as well. The only downside to their filament is their stock isn’t steady and it can take a little while to get to you. Until recently if you bought 4 spools you got $5 a spool off, 8 spools you got $7 a spool off. Now its just 4 or more you get $5 off. Still much much cheaper than Hatchbox at $26 a spool on amazon.
I’m currently mucking around with some Elegoo PLA because it’s damn near impossible to get plain PLA here in New Zealand anymore it seems.
So far it seems good, prints nicely, good finish, seems decently strong, best results were right-on their recommended printing temperature, default flow rate was pretty much dead on where it needed to be etc.
Same, and it was also recommended by several users here when I was first starting out.
This is too true. In some cases it is twice the price of Amazon branded filament. But I’ve seldom had problems, and the one time that I did receive a package that wasn’t vacuum sealed, Amazon refunded my money right away.
I also like the colours, very bright and vibrant (IMO)
I am either ordering from a German manufacturer, dasfilament.de or I am using Prusament, often getting the 2kg spools in black and red.
I have a couple of el cheapo (Maxxishop PLA) made locally for churning out prototypes, but having tried a lot of brands I stick with Prusament.
Mostly I print stuff that’s a finished object, and the stuff is super tuned to the Prusa machines (or it’s very good) - mostly it produces absolutely flawless prints and the extra cost, given the amount I use in a year is not significant.
I’ve just been playing with a spool of Prusa’s “Buddy” budget line, and it’s splendid - I’ve just printed a switch plate which most would be hard pressed to tell from a production fitting although macro lenses do it no favours! 
I am an Elegoo convertee. Sylyarted with Hatchbox, some overture, zyltech amd then found Elegio. Super cheap amd prints like a dream.
I bounce around brands for PLA. I’ve gotten really good results from most of the rolls selling in the $10-$12 range that I don’t see a reason to spend more. Deeplee, kingaroon etc. It seems that many folks I know that ONLY use XXX (expensive) brand have also never tried anything else. I know there has to be some garbage out there, I just haven’t come across it yet.
Actually, change that. Sunlee or Sun something… probably sunlu. I got my first ender 3v2 for next to nothing because the people who bought it new, plus 4 rolls of that crap couldn’t get it to print. They were absolutely new, thought it was a push button and walk away hobby. They thought the machine was crap (and hopefully felt bad that they took $50 from me)I got 4 rolls, 3 unopened.
I set up the machine, printed using their filament and OMG it would not print. No adhesion, left massive amounts of slimy coating to everything it touched, stringing like no tomorrow. Every failed print required a break down and CLEANING because of whatever coating it left. It was like the blob, just working it’s way up the toolhead.
Swapped in literally any other roll in my box, and it prints like a dream.
I donated the rest to my makerspace, along with a note telling anyone that took it that it was garbage. Dave took it, still came to me to complain :laugh:
I’m almost in that boat - though I have used many spools of cheap stuff. For me the time spent dialling it in, getting modest results and even warped prints in some cases just takes away from the joy of getting a perfect result every time.
I am much happier not tinkering, just getting super great results and the reality is that all of the “good” brands are similarly priced (in Aus) the cheap brands are great for schools and volume stuff, I wouldn’t knock them at all, but the cost difference over a year is only a few tens of dollars for me.
My first (lousy) printer worked best with Hatchbox and I still have little to no problems with it.
I have done a Polymaker Polysonic buy for the LR4 parts, based on high recommendations. We’ll see. the Core is printing now!
I also bought a bunch of Elegoo filament and it runs great on my Neptune 4 Pro (it better!)
I’ve tried a bunch or Overture and had good parts.
Amolen seems to work most of the time, but I get layer separation on some parts.
I have two rolls of Fiberon PET-CF that I’m itching to try after I install and tune my Ruby 0.6 extruder nozzle.
Never a dull moment!
Mike
I bought and tried 2 spools of that my self. Printed REALLY well and parts looked great! But I hate that its only a .5kg spool. I bought some QidiTech PET-CF and printed with it some and the parts looked just as good, and it comes in a 1kg spool.
I’ve used both Fiberon and Siraya Tech PET-CF and find both similar in quality and they’re close in price. I print them with the same profile. I’ve bought more Siraya tech since they ship a 1kg spool but I see the appeal of only buying 500g for a specific project. My YZ plates were printed with Fiberon so I would print one plate and I think about two braces with each 500g roll. I printed my core with Siraya because, if memory serves, it took something like 600g.
I was only using SirayaTech for a long time but the quality went down hill fast. The fibers are much larger and it caused the prints to look real rough. They also only put 10% CF where Fiberon and Qidi both use 15% I believe.
Interesting. I bought my first roll of both Fiberon and Siraya in October. Using the same settings (I used polymaker’s recommended settings for my P1S) the Fiberon definitely feels and looks smoother. I measured the youngs modulus of both along with some other filaments and found the Siraya to be stiffer. My super un-calibrated measurements were 5150 MPa for Fiberon and 5800MPa for the Siraya tech. I only tested youngs modulus and nothing else like layer adhesion or impact strength. I bought another roll of the Siraya tech about a month ago and it behaves similarly to my October roll. But if I was printing something I was going to touch a lot I’d definitely use Fiberon though.
Printing just for me the Siryatech is great. But when printing for customers I try to have it be better looking if possible. The cost on the Qidi is only a few $ more if I buy 4 rolls at a time.