High Temperature PLA?

[TobyGadd]

Has anyone tried this stuff: http://www.proto-pasta.com/shop/htpla

Expensive, but possibly with it for certain applications that require more heat resistance than regular PLA. It seems to extrude at the regular temperature, but then hardens after being soaked in hot water. Thoughts?

[Enginwiz]

If you soak a normal PLA part in water, that is hotter than the glass transition point around 60° Celsius,
the PLA part gets very soft. You can remodel the hot PLA part by hand like a piece of clay.
This is nice if you part is a little warped and you want to straighten it out.
I wonder wether the HPLA will keep its shape during the heat treatment after the print.

[Ziggy]

I to have this question.
after spending days working on a project just to see it turn to a Dali sculpture after sitting the the car on a hot day..
I did some testing and in a 150 degree oven PLA gets very soft..
So on a 98 degree day in your car it will warp badly given enough time..
I'm thinking of switching to ABS but it looks like MB is going away from ABS or they have something eles in mind.
Its really hard to see PLA being very usable with such a low melt point..
I get great prints from PLA and it works in most applications.. but this is a show stopper for many things I do..

I have ordered some of that HPLA and will see how it goes..
Many plastics like nylon temper much the same way..
that same site has Carbon fiber PLA too..

[TobyGadd]

Awesome, I am looking forward to hearing how your test goes. I may try some too.

[Jimc]

try the madesolid pet+. prints about as easy as pla with about the same warp factor but much higher temp resistance. not quite as high as abs but close. definitely more durable that pla.

[Enginwiz]

Makesolid PET+ looks very promising.

Did you print with the transparent PET+ or one of the opaque colored PET+ filaments?

What settings did you use for nozzle and HBP temperatures?

[Jimc]

i personally love the stuff. i have it in clear, white and black. they just came out with a few new colors. hbp is that of pla, retraction and ooze control settings is close to what you would use for nylon and everything else basically the same as abs. kinda a mix of everything as far a settings go. once you get the settings nailed down for it i find it very easy to print with....like pla. next to no warping. its very similar to t-glase but the extrusion is very consistent so you dont have the jamming issues.

[Enginwiz]

Would you be willing to post your print profiles for the PET+ filaments?

This would be very helpful for other users who want to follow your advice.

[Jimc]

that would be no problem but would also be of no use to most of you guys since i am running a maker of the gear type and not the bot type..lol  if you go on the madesolid website they have settings listed for different printers that were posted by customers and should get you very close. my profile is there for the M2,

[Enginwiz]

Makesolid recommends printing PET+ with a nozzle temperature of 250°C to 255°C on a Replicator 2.
This is too hot for the stock plastic X-carriage of the Replicator 2.

PET+ is a another promising filament that requires Carls Aluminium X-Carriage.

[Scottbee]

I print it at 255C all day on my R2X with a stock carriage (front door open).

Knock on wood... no carriage problems as of yet.

[Dave Regis]

I've printed PET+ on my stock Rep2 without issues at 250 and 255 (I saw best results at 250).  At the default PLA temp of 230, it had interlayer bonding issues... you could unravel parts of the prints.  The biggest challenge I've had is getting it to stick consistently to the build plate.  The height calibration seems to be less forgiving with this filament than with PLA.  It also seems to shrink more than PLA, and that will present its own problems with larger prints.

Reading feedback on other threads, I might fiddle a bit more and try slowing the print speed a bit.

Dave

[Ryan Carlyle]

It's possible that the R2x ceramic-shield hot end insulation and thru-carriage airflow causes less carriage heating than a Rep2. In fact, I'd be surprised if it didn't. But it's also possible Scott's carriage will warp after X thermal cycles. We DO know people have experienced carriage warping in the past when printing over 240C or so. Thermal warping of injection-molded parts can be very gradual.

Scott, let us know if your carriage breaks so we'll have a datapoint!  :-)

[Dave Regis]

hehe... if I detect any warping before I get the aluminum carriage I ordered, I will  :^D

[Scottbee]

Also keep in mind that I am not allowing my printing environment to "get hot".  Since shrinkage and warping aren't an issue for me with PET+ I can leave the front door open and the top cover off... running on a 50C HBP.  That will have a huge impact on the longevity of the carriage.

"Back in the day" I would always re-tram after running PET+.  Now, if there is any distortion I don't see it since I auto-tram at the beginning of every print.