PLA Very Brittle Prints

[DerekMellott]

Everything I print using PLA is very brittle and easy to break. is
this a normal characteristic of PLA or is my filament crap or am I
doing something wrong. It is white PLA, source unknown.

Extruded at 210 HBP 60

[sto...@gmail.com]

I too have similar:
I just recently changed settings in SF and my printed filament traces are thin with little to no overlap. This causes my ABS prints to be brittle. I've not diagnosed the fix yet, but raise this to you for observation. Is your brittle condition due to construction as the threads are not being overlaped enough? This would cause loosely compacted parts?

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[James McCracken]

Brittle generally means you're printing at too high of a temperature, or you are badly calibrated.

210 is definitely too hot for PLA.  Back the temperature down to 180 - 190 and see how that gets you.  You want to print at the lowest temperature that gives you consistent extrusion.  Some people can print PLA at 160.

[Robert Hunt]

PLA is more like glass than plastic so you can expect it to be a lot
more brittle than ABS, this is a normal characteristic of the
material. I usually print PLA 4043D at 200C but depending on the type
of PLA and manufacturer this can differ.

[Mike Payson]

PLA is MORE brittle, it is not THAT brittle. 200c is borderline to hot, I print 4043D at between 175 and 190 depending on the color and the mood of the filament. I typically start a new roll at 180 and adjust up or down from there. Keep in mind, though, that there are a lot of variables involved, including print speed, hot end design, thermistor placement, ambient temperature, filament color, etc. I bet thermistor placement alone can account for as much as 10c or so variance in readings between bots.

[Luis E. Rodriguez]

What printer do you have? Where is your filament from? Which version of Skeinforge are you using? SF40 and above? I've used Ultimachine PLA at 225 in an Mk7 using S40, for example. I'm going to guess something like too little w/t values? So many variables it's hard to say but I've seen super strong PLA prints.

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Luis E. Rodriguez
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