I've been using Elegoo PLA a lot since its been the most consistent and cheap PLA I've used. They're making a lot of new colours recently aswell and they do free shipping above a certain price so if i ever need extra material, they're usually my go to

Everytime I printed with Overture PLA it would just come out like butter on my Prusa Mini+ and looked fantastic. I can't recommend it enough.

Love the coverage of filaments. So glad I've been unknowingly using the same!!!

Since I have a Bambu printer, I have used alot of bambu filament. I've also had good luck with Creative filament. Another good one is Geeetech. I've had nothing but great luck with it and it's on sale for around 9 buck's a roll. Just got in 8 rolls of it and it is printing fine.

Been using SUNLU silk and I love it. My P1S already had the settings dialed in and have not even needed any post processing.

I love the videos you’re putting out thanks! Also thanks for all the videos you’re posting so quickly. 😃

So glad you said we can use pla for cosplay. Could you do a video on “cosplay” settings wall thickness infill etc. just starting a full build but worried about prints being too stiff etc

If you live near a Micro Center i highly recommend the inland (micro centers "house" brand) pla+ and tough pla. ive never had an issue with either of them. ive used a couple silks and they were ok but that was years ago so im sure theyve updated the formula by now. Plus they frequently run sales for a few bucks off a roll. Also the workers in the 3d printer section have gotten better and better and tend to shoot pretty straight on recommendations. (your mileage may vary)

Just the video I needed! Good job.

Crazy you made this when I was thinking about this topic a lot recently. Thanks Frank!!!

Overture is my new go to, print what works for you. Thx for the video

Helpful information as usual. Thanks, Frank

Just pre-ordered an A1 mini so this video is well needed for me as I make my entry to the 3D printing world

Hello there! You helped me find my first 3D printer about a year ago. An Elegoo Neptune 3 Plus. Never had issues using the gray Elegoo PLA and just bought 10 rolls to prepare for a comiccon in 2025! I'm literally on layer 4 of Slade's helmet from Teen Titans right now. Thank you so much for all your support and advice!

Does anyone else just get stuck in their ways? I've been into the hobby about a year now and I've only really used PLA and PLA+. My goal is to start using PETG, ABS and TPU filaments just to try stuff out! Oh, and great video as always Frank!!!! 🔥🔥

Hey Frank, thanks for the great info!

Ha, was so happy to see you did a video on filaments. Your channel was one of the first I subscribed to when I got my 3D printer when I seen your Iron man costumes. What is your next big project?

Frank. I've done a thing 😮 After watching a lot of your videos I have finally jumped into the 3D printing rabbit hole and I've bought an Elegoo Neptune 4 Pro 😬 I did buy a whole bunch of filaments from them too with a few different silks and a silver one which I'm excited to try! I know it's a big first printer, but I'm wanting to build Destiny related cosplay outfits so hopefully I can get along with it straight away! 😅

Great video, very helpful to us beginners.

I like trying new filaments on occasion when I see a deal. I also try and get filament from US based manufacturers whenever possible, sometimed with great results, sometimes not so great. I recently tried iiid max filament, and it worked great, at first, then I ran into serious jamming issues that turned out to be spots where the filament was just too thick. Another that I tried and LOVED, was 3D_Fuel Refuel filament, their recycled filament. I got bulk order fo that two years ago and it printed so great and was this nice metalic gray that I love. Unfortunately they have never had it in stock since. My current goto filaments is elegoo grey for the model kits of the fighter from my books that I print up for sale.

ESun has been my go to since I started 2 years ago. Prints come out smooth so I’m happy with it. If I leave it out too long it does get brittle and snap so I try to use it up before that happens.

Great topical video Frank. I admit I’ve been sticking mostly with bambu lab filaments for my P1P and probably paying too much. But their prices have come down and buying in bulk can get prices down to around $13 a roll (without a spool). But after this video I feel more confident with getting less expensive brands on Amazon. Cheers mate!

Awesome video! Have ever done a resin printing video? Like what you use it for? I'm just getting into and like the way you deliver content and think it will be great! Keep up the great content!

My go-to is ESUN PLA+. Great for just about anything, especially firearm frames

Always been a fan of your videos. I learned a trick from a fellow printer I met in my local farmers market. He has the Prusa XL with the 5 print heads. I was curious how his overhangs were extremely clean. He prints in PLA but the supports are PETG. Since they don’t stick together, it leaves no marks from the support and since his printer has multiple print heads that attach magnetically, there is no material waste like an AMS. This could be a huge step towards less sanding and with the printer, being so large, larger print pieces.

My go to has always been black pla because I love painting what I've printed

Your so amazing at what you do!

Needed this video about a month ago when I bulk ordered 175 kgs lol

Was about to fall asleep... i can make room for oneee more videoo

Great vid. I recently printed out a Death Trooper in PLA Plus, and its awesome. Yet, being down here in Texas and due to the heat, for this Stormtrooper kit I'm about to start people have told me to use PETG. So will give it a shot. If not and I stick to PLA it's been recommended to me to coat the kit with a resin to protect it from heat.

Living in Arizona for any armor type props I’ve gone with ABS. On my P1S I’ve always gone with the Bambu ABS. Works beautifully with zero fiddling, just select the profile and let it do its thing.

I've used quite a few filaments and my go to now is Duramic pla plus. It's just been working so well on my cr10's and my new Bambu A1, i've also started getting elegoo filaments for the multicolor prints!

You gotta make a video on that Hoshina sword! Im currently working on a Hoshina outfit for NYCC!

I have bought almost every single type of pla on Amazon here in Canada. Probably a few hundred rolls. I will say some of the cheaper no-name brands surprised me. Elegoo is always great, Esun is great, kexcelled is good, sunlu is not bad, gratKit is good, Jamghe is surprisingly good, sovol is just OK, polymaker is amazing, iboss is good, overture is great, CC3D is meh, IMEI is good, Ereyone is usually very good, Anycubic is meh, Voxelab is good, kingroon pla is meh, Giantarm is usually good, Creality ender is meh, Jayo is pretty good, JustMaker is not bad. Isanghu I do have a few rolls but have not tried it yet. I am probably forgetting some but like I said I have tried many many and the best are sometimes, the no-name brands. It is getting hard to find a bad PLA these days. And I like the look of the mate pla's as of late. ELEGOO is one of those I like as even regular pla comes out a bit mate

Sunlu is shockingly good for what it costs. My argument for ABS/ASA would be it sands like a dream. And I have a fully enclosed printer

For cosplay i would look into the revo nozzle for the x1c you can switch between 0.15(just use 0.2 Profile) and a 0.8 for big parts in 30 seconds and the higher flow is also nice addition

Living in AK, it is hard to buy straight from some manufacturers. I have to go through Amazon for almost everything. I was using Hatchbox but have switched to Overture and they have worked wonders for me. Including the Silk PLAs.

I use elegoo, tronxy and sunlu filaments. I've used cruelity, ender (yep, there's and ender branded filament), eSun, polimaker and a lot other "expensive" brands, but they all printed the same so there's no point on wasting extra money.

I have been using Duramic and Overture because they have been reliable and consistent for me on my heavily modified ender 5+. I agree with you that the silks are becoming a great go to these days. I too am getting really cool looking finishes and zero post processing. I don’t feel I can get away with it for every kind of print but definitely works great for props and fun stuff like toys. Have you thought about doing another big build project? I think it would be cool to do a voting process on your next big project to pick something that your fans can literally follow along with you in the build process making it too. You could do shorts vids for printing all the pieces and post processing and then do live stream for things like paint prep and actually painting the pieces. I’m not sure what kind of numbers that would bring from your audience but maybe you can pole your fans? I would find the content entertaining even if i had to watch the recording from the live stream because I missed it live. Anyways… when is your next build? Lol

I typically max the build volume of my Bambu A1s (non mini) for most of my prints and with the 0.8mm nozzle, Bambu lab black basic pla and a full build plate it never goes well. Change the colour of the pla and everything goes back to flawless. Change the material or brand of black pla and it’s also flawless. Reduce the size of the print by 3mm and suddenly Bambu’s black basic pla is flawless. A very odd specific to one filament type and colour kind of problem 😂

I usually stick with Hatchbox, I usually have pretty good success on all the printers I’ve owned

Ive had my shitty stock Ender 3 V2 for like 6 years and ran most filaments at it and got away with most things with a fair amount of adjustments. Hackerbox and Sunlu have been my tried and true filaments forever now. Great PLA and PLA+ for my printer. Great coverage of filaments in this review, super helpful. I've barely used any silk brands but thinking I should maybe try them for my own small items and props!

The Kaiju #8 Axe looks amazing, ✨️ 🎉 great work Bro.

Great video Frank! Very helpful. Glad to know i dont need to worry about drying filament. I would live to see a video about setting e step and flow rate. Do you even mess with that? I haven't heard you mention any of that in your intro to 3d printing.

Love your videos, I use Sunlu, ELEGOO, GIANTARM, Eryone

I use a lot of SUNLU PLA+ as well, works great all the time. If you need a big amount of filament at once, you can save a lot of money by buying it directly on their website instead of amazon. Another brand I love is Das Filament from Germany, mainly because they produce only about 100km from where I live and so their shipping is almost faster than amazon.

I've used the generic PLA+ from microcenter and Sunlu PLA+ for Iron Man suits.

I use sunlu for both filament and resin. Sunlu Toughness is IMO the best resin for minis. If I'm not using Sunlu filament I use Elegoo but the cardboard rolls are a PITA.

Great video! Loved it!

Now I need to know this one.

i love my sunlu filaments! i've even bought their recycled pla filament and only had 2 clogs which resulted because my extruder was too tight and was pinching the pla while it pushed it thru.

i havent seen this guy in forever, might have even been over a year, glad to see hes got 1mil now edit: looks way more professional now, it was before but still

Hey Frank, please read this. So I’m trying to make a helmet. The printer I’m working with is at a library. I need a little advice to get started and I don’t really have much skill or knowledge about this stuff. I know the basics but I need a personal boost. 😅

Weird you say that I had anycubic filament and it worked fine. Stuck it in my dryer for a few hours just to see and it totaled my old ender 3 v2 I was using when my Bambu was doing long prints. It worked great till I dried it than it clogged. Cleared the clog and resumed the print only to come home to another clog that exploded out the hotend so much so that when it got to the next print (print by object was on) it shoved the bed down so hard it shattered the glass and broke rollers off the bottom of the bed, Broke the bl touch, destroyed the extruded/ shroud. Wasn't worth fixing so replaced it with a A1 Mini for my back up printer. Haven't dried filament since and I'm in Maryland it's humid all summer no issues. My go to filament now is hatchbox though it is like $25 1kg but it prints awesome

Totally agree. The whole "keep your filament dry' thing is just internet hype. I'm no e pert but I talked with the owners of a 3D printer company, guys who were building printers from scratch long ago and they said it's all basically BS. I live in Florida and do nothing but have m6 filament on my printer in a typical air conditioned house and after over 3800 hrs of printing the last 3 years I've had exactly zero issues from "filament that is not dry" ...

I like reprapper strong pla. I've used hatchbox and its good as well. I just got some tangled pla that I haven't tried yet.

Wow my brother from another mother, your comments are exactly my view. Sunlu is 100% king in my book too it’s just so consistent. As for silks I do a lot of silk here in the UK and I live the rainbows. The king of rainbow for me over the last years has been Eryone their Candy universe and forest and lately the new mountain sunset but it’s very hard to find now always sold out. I’ve just received 20 of Sunlu newer rainbow 8m change so I’ll report back in due course. Another good one is Yousu tri colour and dual very consistent stuff. Great Stuff Frank keep it up

You need to try Elegoo’s Rapid PETG. Prints like PLA

My main filament has been anycubics standard pla with the occasional use of their Pla Plus

awesome video definitely helpful my experience with PLA+ and such is limited but base PLA from elegoo creality and sunlu are all working wonders for all my random little projects

I’ve always used creality filament it works the best for me. I tried the sunlu pla plus and no matter what settings I changed I couldn’t get it to stop stringing. I will always suggest and use creality filament

Awesome video! I have had struggles with red PLA and red silks with my Ender 3, mostly feed problems with the Boden tube. I have since gotten a direct drive and it works much better.

I personally like using ABS because it is a dream to finish and it is so easy to weld if you have to split prints (acetone). But, and this is a really big but, this stuff is highly toxic to print and you absolutely need to either print it outside or use an enclosure with a high quality activated carbon filter. It's also an absolute pain to get your temperatures and cooling just right, and some things will actually require cooling with ABS, but once you get it dialed in, it is a dream.

i like PrintBed filament, Sunlu, Matterhacker, a few others

Love sunlu. It runs great in my bambu, it’s plastic spool gives me less issue than Polymaker cardboard. Which makes me sad cause I love Polymaker it’s my personal favorite, but I can’t beat the price of $15 for a roll and $25 for two.

Recently I’ve found 10+ years old PLA roll from my old printer and tested it on K1C with hyper pla profile😅 worked great!

Just got a A1 and been using sunlu pla with no issues

I've done 3D printing for 5 years now! I now have a few different 3D printers, and I also been trying many branded and un-branded filaments. The ones most of the time work well are the PLA + by Sun Lu just as you said they really print well, but you have to tune in the heat and speed etc. to get a good result? I like PETG, yes it can be a pain sometimes? But I do usable prints which need the extra strength, I do use Carbon Fiber PLA as well now! It really is great for printing with and has a bit more toughness while being able to print like normal PLA, Just need a hardened nozzle and the 0.6 mm nozzles are better for this type of filament. I use TPU and now using ABS & ABS + and just a couple of weeks back started using ASA, as I have the Qidi X-Plus-3 so that inbuilt chamber heating and enclosed build area really helps with these high temperature filaments? I just got the Elegoo Neptune 4 Plus last week and it is printing a useful desk top Item for someone at work and I designed it. and yes they have said they will be paying for the work so that's good. The Brands of filament I seem to have found best are as you said some of the cheap ones! Odd but it is true if you find one that works, Then you keep using it. I do have trouble with any silk filament though? I tried so many different brands and all just won't print right? They often just won't stick to the bed even with glue stick on there, Also the seem more able to clog up the nozzles too? Even when I use the working settings for a silk I do manged to print on any of the silks that did not print right, it still was the case the silk just either clogs or comes off the bed just as the printed 1st layer was fine and ends up wrapping around the nozzle in the blob of death. Yes so Sun Lu and Elegoo and Flashforge and Amazon Basics and Eono and Eryone filaments are my choices too! One odd thing I found is, Every filament has to have it's own temps and speeds and flow etc. on One 3D printer to work. But those filament all have to have different temps etc. on every other printer too? Even if say I print on the Elegoo 3 that filament used has it's own settings & temps etc. Then if I use the same filament on say the Elegoo Neptune 3 Max, the settings of temps etc. have to be different again! Same goes for the new Elegoo Neptune 4 Plus I got last week, or the Qidi X-Plus-3 or the FL Sun QQ-S Pro Delta. I live in the UK, so the moisture here is a few levels higher than where you are in the US, So I have to filament dry in the Sun Lu 4 spool dryer I got last month then the spools will be put in the filament bags and a big bag of desiccant and I suck out the air with a electric air pump for storing! I do write the needed heat and flow and such for that filament on the original box or stick a note on the ones that I can't write on? That way I can stick the filament on the printer listed on the box for that one and print without worrying if the settings are wrong? I just have so much filament now it is a big problem storing it all and the 5 FDM printers I now have all also are taking up more limited room I have? The Elegoo Saturn 2 resin Printer I not really using as the water waste issue here is a problem to deal with sadly? My 1st 3D printer 5 years ago was the Tronxy X5SA that one was a pain to level even after buying the pricey new Tronxy all surface detecting Black Coloured Advanced Bed Probe which I replaced the original Blue probe with as it did not work well? So in the end to free up space for the better printers I dismantled the printer and it is back in the box. The 2nd printer I brought 4 years ago the Aquila ( G32 chip ) I upgraded that like mad and it just would not level right either so that be dismantled asap! Just trying to work out how to do Klipper control on the Elegoo printers ( Neptune 3 & 3 Max ) using the BTT Pad 7 now, klipper coding and set up is a bit above me sadly? None of the help videos have helped either, it is very complex if your not a expert in the codes!

I am in the same situation. As long as it is PLA, I can basically use any brand and have great results. My brother in law, leaves 200 km away from me and has to get this brand, dehumidified and the printer enclosed to get somewhat satisfactory prints...

Esun pla + was grate then they changed to cardboard spools and the quality of the filament has just nosed dived. Its brittle right out of the sealed pack. I keep having to cook it. Where as the old version of Esun pla+ i still have on the plastic spools still works fantastic. Even after being opened for 6+ odd months. I used to use Sunlu that seemed pritty good and think im gona try it again. I have also been very impressed with Ziro Filaments. Good prices, prints fantastic, interesting colors as well and comes with some extras like zip bag, filament cleaner and a free filament sample.

Thanks!

I really love matte PLAs. I'm specifically partial to Overture because they have so many color options. I drive into some silk PLA for certain colors. I'm also not a fan of PETG, it seems difficult, and has much less forgiveness in print settings. I did just get an elegoo filament as a replacement for a gizmo dorks color that was clogging my printer. I don't same and paint my prints, so color is typically important

Polymaker is my daily driver and my preference if they have the color I need. I've used CosPLA B a number of times in the past and had no problem with it on a heavily modified Ender 3 but at the same time i live where I have to keep my filament in sealed cereal containers with desiccant or they will explode so 🤷‍♂

I've mainly used elegoo. I've tried anycubic and it wasn't as smooth of a finish I'll try sunlu now I think just to see. I've only printed cosplay in black or grey as well, never thought about trying red. Black and grey seem to always be the cheapest. I'm using Bambu as well but I think elegoo looks the same. I just tear off the cardboard sides and stick on Bambu spool and they print like butter.

I print all my props in sunlu pla+ or kingroon pla+ I can leave a roll on my printer for months in Georgia and have never had a problem with moisture.

I’ve just been using the filament they sell at micro center

So far the only recommendation I have is Hatchbox PLA and their matte PLA. I've had some good luck with that brand of filament. Recently I've had to tighten my belt, so because of that, I ordered a roll of Sunlu PLA, but once I tried it, my Ender 3 did NOT like it and I had to replace my bowden tube (which may have been on its way out anyway) and my nozzle to clear things up. Other filaments I've tried are Hatchbox TPU which I liked but I'll admit it would probably print better on a direct drive printer and Giantarm Silk PLA which I've had mixed results with. I have to play with the temperatures a bit to get a good print out of that, and unless it's just my inexperience with silk filaments, I think it has a lot of difficulty printing stuff that doesn't have a high surface area and isn't printing flat on the build plate.

Been using PLA most of the time but summer in the Caribbean isn't a good match for it. Had a print I was gonna paint warp less than an hour outside and I gotta redo a sign I made for a friend's house since it's also warped over time. Gonna start experimenting with PETG and see how that goes

Classic PLA-wise, I tend to use 3DActive, Tarfuse. Recently started trying Kingroon, but their PLA needs to be dried for about 12 hours and that costs. Tarfuse is always in a vacuum bag that's in another vacuum bag.

I don't use PLA for anything that I'm putting work into. I live in the Detroit area where we only get about 75 days of sun per year and I've had pieces melt and warp just waiting on spot putty or bondo to cure.

I learned the hard way to not use wight fillament after printing multiple swords. Including my largest prop so far which is Guts's raiders sword that I'm working on as practice for his Dragonslayer sword.

I've used Atomic PLA and PETG and have had a good experience with their filaments always

4:55 - 5:02 same! and i have a cheap ender 3 v3 SE and i buy the filament off TEMU

I am using Bambu Lab filament, no issues so far. It's great

Frank is getting ripped! 💪

Bambu Labs has some great bulk rates, and their matte pla is so easy to use!

Giantarm is fantastic silk filament

Hey Frank! I've been a fan of the channel for a while and I just had a quick question regarding filaments here. I own a K1 Max and I love it, and throughout its lifespan I've pretty consistently used the official Creality Hyper PLA filament, as it's what they've always recommended for its high speed. I was just curious, is there any other filament you would specifically recommend for the K1? Like, does the SUNLU PLA+ play well with it or will it just break at the high speeds? Thanks so much again, you have been the biggest inspiration for me getting into 3D printing and I love all of your content! Keep up the great work man, and best wishes!

Numaker is a brand I have seen a lot lately it’s cheap than some but I think it would be worth looking in to

Ive been using sunlu pla+ since the beginning and i was scared as hell by silks since they caused a clog on my ender 3 max neo that cost me a whole hotend, granted i was a beginner and messed stuff up. With my p1p now i like to use bambu mattes and silks for raw prints, yk the printer alwys prints better with its own filaments, but for cosplay i stay loyal to the good ol’ grey pla+.

Overture and elegoo atr great filaments for cheap but I will say they are not spooled great and have given me a lot of tangles in my ams. Elegoo sometimes has a sale on their website for 4 black 2 white 2 blue 2 red for $115 which means $11.50/kg which is an insane deal.

Sunlu is amazing for me!

I had a lot of problems with kingroon. You definitely get what you don't pay for sometimes

I've been using a lot of Eryone silks, as well as Geeetech and Duramic silks and mattes. I've tried Sunlu black silk, and it clogged constantly, but I may give it another shot.

I tried Fremover and all of my Bambu printers hate it. It will not feed or extrude at all. I took the same filament and tried it on my Flashforge 5M printers and my Elegoo printers and it does the same thing. I try to stick with mainly IIIDMAX and Hatchbox. All of my printers print those great no matter what. I am in Colorado and also don't store my filament in anything. Just leave it in it's box and that's it. I have 2 dryers just in case but have only really used them for the rare PETG I have used. Like you I mainly stick to PLA or PLA+ as I mainly print figures and busts and then paint them.

Stay awesome Frank

currently testing out some VoxelPla and it prints real nice out of the pack on my X1 and if I set it to Outer wall first I can barely see the layer lines

Been using Hatchbox exclusively but might try the SUnLU as I'm about to embark on a Halo MC build and will need some serious amounts of filament so saving $5/roll will add up

Quick question how did you attach the back of your mk39 helmet on the main piece

This is a great video, helped me out a lot. I've been getting a variety testing out which works best. I'll weigh what I've picked against your suggestions. Question though: What are your thoughts on the cardboard spools vs plastic? any noticeable difference?