General Filament Chat

The S4 certainly handles PETG quite happily. It has settings for PLA, PETG, ABS & PC if I remember correctly. It definitely doesn't get to the "required" temp for some of those but I guess that lower temp for longer works too.
If you're going hotter, be aware the outside can get quite hot. I know there's a dual layer case on one of them (forget which but I think it was a Sunlu released annoyingly soon after I bought my S4) but it still gets quite toasty on the outside.
 
ZXSpectrum said:
Great price for a S4 but only really good for PLA as it only heats to 50Degrees by the look of it. PETG needs 60 and ABS needs 65. I have been looking for one but the one that seems to be shouting at me currently is either the Creality Space P1 or just go for a EIBOS 3D Filament Dryer Polyphemus.
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My Sovol SH02 goes to 70 degrees C. I was drying matte PETG in mine over the weekend and printing straight from the dryer. It's only £49 direct from Creality with free delivery at the moment.
 
If you're buying from Bambu, see what they offer you. You can pick up filament from various online shops cheaper than Bambu but if they're offering you a deal that would be rude to refuse...well, it'd be rude to refuse. Sunlu works for me otherwise and they're believed to make the filament on Bambu's spools anyway.
If you're starting out, PLA is going to be the easiest to start. PETG is a better filament for a lot of things and no harder or more expensive. You'll get a long way with a single spool unless you're printing very big things so it really comes down to what colours you want.

You might also want to read this post and the few that follow it so you can combine shipping if you want any of the bits: https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/general-filament-chat.19002116/post-38090350
 
The Sunlu S4 filament dryer is down to £100 now direct from Sunlu and, their FC01 filament connector is down to £29.60 (correct price shows when you add it to the basket). Is that filament connector any good? I have several part spools of filament that aren't really enough for a print so if I could join them together that would be better than throwing them away.
 
You don’t really need it to do that. You can just feed in all the part spools one by one, as they run out. The connector just means you don’t need to baby sit it every time it runs out.
 
I dont have to babysit my S1, I just tell it that whichever other ACE slot is a backup for whichever other slot, good for using those little 'ends' of spools..
 
pastymuncher said:
My Sovol SH02 goes to 70 degrees C. I was drying matte PETG in mine over the weekend and printing straight from the dryer. It's only £49 direct from Creality with free delivery at the moment.
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Hows your experience with the Sovol going mate? I keep staring at the Creality one right now and I certainly need to make a move on either as the winter weather is certainly causing humidity fluctuations at home and at work! I'll be using PLA variants and PETG for the most part.
 
I have used basic PLA, PLA+, PLA+ 2.0, PETG, Rapid PETG, PETG Matte in it and prints have improved a lot. No more "cobwebs" and the prints seem neater too, between layers look much smoother. Printing direct from it is simplicity itself although the PTFE tubing was a pain to fit in the hole. The controls are simple and easy to use and the screen is nice and clear. It was a good buy.

Almost forgot, you will need a couple of sachets of dessicant to go under the vented panels in the base.
 
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If you have a Bambu Lab AMS 1 then the Sunlu heater add on is £88 delivered from Sunlu with the 20% off code on ebay:

ebay.us

SUNLU AMS Heater Fits for Bambu Lab AMS Gen 1 with Smart RH Mode Touch Screen | eBay UK

This SUNLU AMS Heater is compatible with the Bambu Lab AMS - Automatic Material System. Simply replace the AMS top cover to upgrade your AMS into an active drying chamber. Note: This product includes only the AMS Heater; the AMS main unit is not included.
ebay.us

This isn't a recommendation as I've never used it, so read reviews before purchase, however it seems a good price.
 
I ended up buying the twin spool Creality Space Pi WTF BBQ in the end as I had some Amazon vouchers which let me get it for £52. It isn't a bad lump of plastic and does what it needs to do. The display is a liquidy type affair in that when you're jabbing at the buttons, you can see fluid around your finger. It is very crude. No real issues observed so far in my 2 days of using it.

It would be nice if half of that massive black front was clear so you could see what coloured reels are within a even the rear cover is smoked black so you need to open it in order to see.

On another note I've been using Sunlu PLA+ 2.0 a lot lately. I have done some medium sized prints (some modular drawers) using their Black and Grey and have had a colossal amounts of stringy like fluff. This is after the spools were 'dried' for about 8hrs overnight. A heatgun eliminated most of the fluff but the finish inside wasn't the best - not that anyone would see inside the frame of these drawers.

I switched to some old Bambu PLA spools that I had lying around in the open and I didn't get a single bit of fluff or stringing. Has anyone had similar experiences?

Edit: Switching to an eSun PLA profile in Bambu Studio that uses a lower volumetric rate than the Sunlu PLA+ 2.0 profile hasn't improved things either.

Here's a video of the issue (mute your sound), it's nothing most of us haven't seen before. https://photos.app.goo.gl/dcLy1UjBTc3Fo2m16
 
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I ended up buying the Sunlu FC2 filament joiner after all. I got fed up waiting to use the end of one spool before inserting a new one while printing so bought this instead. I gave it a go this morning as I had three part spools of PETG and two part spools of PLA 2.0+. It took a couple of goes to perfect but by attempt three I had got the hang of it and was getting a decent join. You need to cut the ends of the filament to be joined at right angles so you have more surface area then slide the two ends into a PTFE sleeve (200 supplied with the joiner). It's simple to use, just connect it to a USB socket or adaptor, turn on at the screen and select the material that you want to join and it has presets for the correct temp to use. Once it's up to temp it bleeps plus you can see the temp in the clear screen. You then place the PTFE tube with the two filament ends in it into the gadget and shut the lid to the fusing element, when done (about five seconds) it bleeps to let you know the two ends are fused so you unlock the lid and the tricky bit begins. The filament is extremely soft now and you have to remove it without bending or pulling apart/pushing together the filament or you will have a mess and need to start again (trust me I know)!! Once removed let it cool for a good few seconds then you need to place the filament with the tube in the cutting slot. Press both ends of the filament into the grove and shut the lid while pressing down firmly. This slits the tube so it can be peeled off the filament then you can roll it onto the preferred spool for which I really need to print off that winding tool. Overall I think it was worth buying and £29 isn't too bad for something that saves a lot of hassle waiting around for a spool to finish.

As I now had a load of empty spools I thought I would compare them. Out of the spools I have the new Sunlu reuseable spools are the thinnest but were also the second heaviest. The Deeplee plastic spools are the lightest which is no surpise really as they are quite flimsy but do the job well enough. The heaviest are the Tinmorry spools which are quite substantially built.

Deeplee plastic spool - 118g
Deeplee cardboard spool - 139g
Sunlu new reuseable spool - 168g
Tinmorry plastic spool - 185g

Something I have noticed this weekend is that Sunlu's prices are all over the place and seem to have increased over the past week. The daft thing is that their refill filaments are quite a bit more expensive than their normal spools which makes no sense at all.
 
Anybody looking at getting rid of some Bambu spools? Need some filament but only available in refills, thought I'd try my luck before paying full whack on BL:cry:
 
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