2025-03-02 - filament quality does matter

when i started my 3D printing adventure, i went through a number of filament manufacturers. many were just unusable (mostly the cheaper ones). eventually i've settled down on using Devil Design filament. they are made locally in Poland, thus are easy to obtain and i generally have a good experience with them, as they have a decent balance between quality and price (~20EUR/kg for: PLA, PET-G, ASA). additionally they have a wide range of colors to choose from. i use it for years now. the only time i found their filament unusable was then i had a spool of TPU, that was just unprintable and i had to return it. otherwise – mostly good.

however i usually do technical / CAD stuff. often 100% infill. recently i had a bit of a hassle with a ~easy print for my son. the part was very organic-shaped, thus there were a lot of retractions and travels between “islands”. i had issues with occasional jams of the filament. usually removing it, cutting the end and re-priming with 10-20mm of filament was enough to get printer back and running for some time. i have a filament run-out sensor, so interruptions were annoying, but not breaking the whole print. however it made me thinking…

after running many experiments and getting ~out of options how to proceed with just slicing settings, i've decided to give Prusament a shot (i.e. filament from Prusa). i've heard a good opinions about them before, but never used one. the price also suggested it might be higher quality (~30EUR/kg for: PLA, PET-G, ASA). i've ordered a batch of transparent / natural filaments for testing… and it was perfect. all the issues i've seen before were gone - no jams, not issues, barely any stringing.

the tolerances for filament (on Prusament you get a report for each spool, showing consistency) were just amazing! they promised to be within +/-0.02mm, but in practice my spools are nearly twice as good – i.e. ~0.01mm. i think that is what my previous issues originated from, on some of the prints. on top of that Prusament is boxed in paper for shipping, and spool itself is shaped with octagons, minimizing mount of plastic used for manufacturing. i think i have a new, favorite filament brand, for quality prints. :)