PLA+ is BS. It means something different to every company. Therefore it means nothing at all.
PLA+ was originally meant to refer to Ingeo 850 which was a version of PLA that had been changed to allow it to be more heat resistant and annealable. It is good stuff.
But PLA+ today is not that. It is often just PLA (ingeo 4043) with some stuff in it. What does that stuff do? All kinds of things. They can improve flexibility, reduce melt temp, and increase glassification temp. But again you have no idea.
Tangled is supposed to create a supply chain that is consistent. Which means that it will be the same 5 years from now. You can't build a print farm feedstock and have it change like a dating app homepage.
So our PLA is Ingeo 4043. (DataSheet Attached). We do not alter it. We simply extrude it. That means that the filament is as close in material properties to the original raw material as possible.
What does that mean.
This is not high speed filament. It has not been softened or had the melt temp reduced. Print it at 200 to as high as 235C. And if you are going for high speed you will need to take the temp higher. More stuff to melt means you have to put more thermal energy into it.
It is Not PLA+. It is PLA. It is true, pure PLA. That means that it will not print like your PLA+ from...whoever.
Now we recognize that this is a point of confusion and a blog post does not fix that. It is also a bit hair-splitty to the normal consumer. Over time we will work to improve resouces around this. Including profiles for different machines. But we have to focus on reducing the cost of filament first.
Long term we will introduce other materials and variants of PLA. Today our PLA is optimized for cost and dimensional conistency. But we can guarantee that we will never make PLA+. It is dumb and misleading branding with no information about the material.
Enjoy our PLA. And as usual thank you for all of your support in working to bring the cost of good quality filament down to $10 per spool.
I print this filament at 215C nozzle, 60C bed, 50% max fan, & at 220mm/s. It prints great and with no issues. I have noticed that this filament does not like a hardened steel nozzle. I get better prints with a brass nozzle. I am using 2 different Creality CR-10 SEs. Thank you for taking on this challenge and bringing us along for the ride!
I agree with your points, but wasn't the first batch of black and clear you produced made from Ingeo 850? Or was that also just basic 4043?
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 So, much misinformation out there and the social media warriors just keep spouting it as fact because Bambu Labs told them so.
"Just" PLA... I don't think you are giving yourselves enough credit. This stuff is tops! It prints very well and it's CHEAP! I don't understand all the negativity. Customers are buying 3kg at a time, you would think they have enough material to figure out how to use it. Run a small test print and alter the settings until you get it right. I found ~227°C(+/-3°C) works well @ 100mm/s or higher.
Maybe a video on how to tune for filament since that's the biggest thing I see a lot of people doing wrong? I don't have any problems with your PLA...it prints exactly like PLA [[Shock]]. That's why I like it...