An easy way to avoid these concerns is to swap over to an Olsson Ruby nozzle or a Nozzle X when you want to use these materials. Wood-filled PLA doesn't tend to abrade brass nozzles, but often a 0.6mm is necessary to prevent the wood particles from clogging the nozzle. Sparkly filament isn't abrasive despite having non-PLA material in it, but glow-in-the-dark filament is abrasive as the additive that glows will wear away at your nozzle before you're through even one spool. In general, PLA is non-abrasive, but once you start playing with additives it becomes a case-by-case basis. However, if your printer already has an all-metal hotend, don't worry as it's still perfectly compatible with PLA.
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With such a (relatively) low printing temperature, PLA does not require an all-metal hotend (a hotend that uses a thin walled heatbreak to keep heat in the heater block and away from the heatsink) and will work just fine with a PTFE-lined hotend (where the PTFE tube passes all the way through the heatsink and butts up against the nozzle).
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Essentially, start with 200☌ and play around with 5☌ higher or lower to find the ideal print quality for you. Some black or white filaments use additives that take a bit more heat to flow nicely and may need as much as 220☌ to print well. Wood-filled PLA tends to clog easier when you have the temperature too high, so dropping it even as low as 180☌ is a rational decision. On average, 200☌ is an excellent place to start printing PLA, but some brands and even colors may need you to adjust this hotter or cooler, depending on their individual makeup. At MatterHackers we generally use PLA filament for all our educational models, test-pieces, and quick-turnaround prototypes, as they aren't going to face any stressful scenarios, they just need to look beautiful.Īs PLA is a rather undemanding filament, there isn't a lot you need to consider for your 3D printer to get it up and running and printing PLA. This is why you should avoid PLA when you have a design that will be exposed to heat, even as little as the heat inside a car on a summer day. PLA plastic becomes soft as low as 50☌ and will deform rather quickly in this rather limited heat. The other important consideration when printing parts with PLA filament is knowing what sorts of temperatures the part will be subjected to. The thing to consider is that being stiffer and harder also means that it is more brittle if the part you're printing will be used where it might receive a lot of sudden impacts or sharp collisions, PLA has a tendency to shatter during failure. PLA is less thermally contractive which means it hardly ever warps and is very dimensionally stable, making it much easier to print big parts with and rely on the print being as close to the 3D model's dimensions as possible. PLA filament is an attractive material for newcomers as it's tough, available in a huge variety of colors, and be easy to print on basically an 3D printer.
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A majority of 3D printer users will have experience with PLA in one way or another, from end-use products to general prototyping. When used as a 3D printing material, it is almost always the introductory material as its printing properties make it well suited for a complete beginner. PLA plastic is used in many industries from food packaging to biodegradable medical implants such as sutures, tissue screws, and tacks. It is important to point out that although PLA is compostable it is very robust when used in any normal application such as a 3D printed jig or a manufacturing prototype.
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One of the most attractive things about PLA plastic is that it is industrially compostable, which means it can be broken down back into its base elements through industrial means, and not through a ten thousand year lifespan (note, composting in a compost bin is not the same as industrially compostable). It is commonly derived from renewable resources, such as corn starch, tapioca roots or sugarcane. PLA or Polylactic acid is a thermoplastic polyester.