Thanks for the tests, thurough as always! I would love to see how each filament stacks up against each other on the environmental/recyclability scale. Can we just throw the scraps in the recycling bin, or is this one of those burn-only blends?
Thank you very much for this review. I stumbled the other day over the fiberlogy pctg and was very interested in the performance. I think you need to also test PEN-PET from Inkrayon. I have printed all my Voron 0 parts in PEN-PET including the bed mount and cooling fan ducts and I am very impressed with the mechanical and thermal performance. Normally I am printing only with DASFILAMENT PETG but the thermal properties of PEN-PET are really neat and it prints as good as PETG. I am in germany so if you are interested I can send you a spool (unfortunatly I have only opened spools left)
You’re the Project Farm of 3D printing: a real service to the community. These tests are really valuable. It’s really great to be able to compare your tests across materials, especially because you use a consistent method from material to material.
Gonna have to disagree, project farms testing methodology is sometimes inconsistent and unhelpful. I would argue that he is closer to Gamers Nexus in that they revise their testing methodology when tests aren't accurate or useful. Or the fact his methods are strong and consistent from the start.
@@CNCKitchen Summer is upon us in Arizona and I have some ApolloX (ASA type) filament coming so I can print a phone holder for my wife and for bike parts. I left my bike helmet with my nifty PLA (black) printed visor outside this weekend and the sun warped it significantly. So it will get remade with ApolloX as well. Maybe I'll make some parts and give them 3-4 months of Arizona sun and see what happens.
so.... a marginal performance increase from regular petg, at double the price ? yeah, no thanks. very thankful Stefan is here to bring real data into the mix, instead of us all having to rely on the manufacturer's claims.
Exactly. This filament has all the drawbacks PETG does ( moisture sensitivity, stringing, increased difficulty in printing compared to PLA ) and nothing about it is a substantial improvement over regular PETG, ( you even have to print this stuff at 270c, but it still has a glass temp of 80c... WHAT ?? ) which can be purchased for half the price from just about anywhere that sells filament. Honestly it's just ridiculous that they think they can charge as much as they are for this - it's effectively PETG with a higher print temp, nothing more, and in some ways less.
@@oddspaghetti4287Uh, it's not double the layer strength, and 8 times more impact strength ? LOL. from the website article: "Next we get to impact strength which is a property many are not aware, that is kind of bad for PETG. PCTG was able to really shine here and the notched samples were able to absorb around 24 kJ/m² which puts it way above PLA and PETG and on a similar level as for example ABS. Unfortunately, the samples printed standing performed way worse and had an impact strength of only 1.5 kJ/m² on average." you sound just like whoever wrote the manufacturer's claims for this filament, technically true but actually misleading. does it have great impact strength ? sure, as long as you only print things that are flat. anything else will perform no different than petg, which is my point. it's no different than any petg in a real world application. and in many ways worse - it's so moisture sensitive that it has to be stored in a mylar bag, and it has to be printed way hotter than petg with no additional increase in glass temp. I never said it was a "bad" filament to use, but at 2-3 times the price of petg, it makes no sense to buy it.
@@adrianstachowski9422 maybe the price will go down "soon". and maybe the company will go out of business in 6 months because no one is buying their overpriced filament. my point is that this filament is not much better than petg, and the price they're charging for it is ridiculous. it's modified petg, nothing more, and it doesn't perform much better than petg, with several additional drawbacks.
I made some (thin) cookie cutters and regular PETG just wasn't tough enough for the job. So I ordered some PC Max as well as some PCTG from Fibrology after finding out about it here. And , WOW, this stuff is really strong - I did some testing and it really seemed almost isotropic: thin walls don't break between the layers, IF they break at all and not just deform. I think this will be my preferred material for small engineering jobs or delicate things.
A test that checks for degradation during repeated lateral loading would be very useful. That is, back and forth stresses like a finished part may encounter during regular use. I have had PETG crack perpendicular to the layer lines despite it having been strong enough to support the load. That constant back and forth lateral load caused it to crack.
I bought some PCTG recently to print a fuel cap for a vintage motorcycle. It apparently has good resistance to petroleum in addition to its desirable mechanical properties.
My favorite filament! if anyone is curious, filalab has very afforable rolls available in EU. pretty much same price as most PLA or PETG. not affiliated, just want to spread love for this filament type. Closer to ABS, with printability much more like PLA. any printer can print it as long as nozzle can to 230 Celsius and bed 80. no warping.
Seems plausible to me. The glycol modified (PETG) means that ethylene glycol is replaced with another monomer. Ususally this monomer is cyclohexanedimethanol, which is the C in PCTG. So this means that PCTG and PETG are fairly similar. Likely the difference between them can be found in the content of cyclohexanedimethanol/ethylene glycol. Funny how you can play around with names :)
Sticking with PETG since I don't need to change to an all-metal hotend to print that (with newer PETG spools, at least), and this doesn't seem to give any significant improvements for my needs.
I have been waiting for this video. These results were very interesting. I was able to print PCTG with the same exact profile I used with PETG on my modified Ender 3, but changing the temperature to 255C. the filament printed great and seem to have great layer adhesion.
Thank you Stefan for your diligent work and open sharing of it. I support very few people through Patreon just due to fiscal limitations but you certainly earn it more than anyone else. Danke, dass du so inspirierend bist!
Seems like I found this video as the first one while I was browsing through the playlists... :) Just noticed a thumbnail I couldn't remember. Guess I know now why...
Great timing, I have two rolls from Fiberlogy arriving in a few days 👍. Hoping it can replace ABS for me for functional prints. Just hoping they come up with more colors soon.
Another great video. The issue for PCTG is the very high temp requirements. I imagine a lot of beginners would struggle especially if the printer can't handle ABS. For outdoor uses, how PCTG handles sun and rain?
10:09 @CNC Kitchen What is the brand/reference used for your annealed PLA? Most "Tough PLA" that can be annealed in an oven are in fact INGEO 3D850 or 3D870 invented by NatureWorks LLC (3D870 as higher impact resistance than 3D850), that are then sold under various names according to filament makers. But the NatureWorks charts show that these two special annealed PLA once semi-crystalline has still a heat deflection temperature that is roughly 10 °C LOWER (HDT-B = 85 °C) than that of standard ABS (HDT-B = 96 °C). So what gives? How is your chart and test possible?
Hi Stefan, Good video. I was wondering if this stuff would be a good binder for a fiber-filled material. Given that the Polymers most frequently user for such applications are on the softer, but more resilient side. The good layer-adhesion would play very well with a fiber filler, imho. What do you think?
I love your filament test videos! I know that some of your tests are printed on different printers etc, but having a spreadsheet of all your test results on different materials/ brands (and now colours!) Would be an incredibly useful addition to your website. I apologise if this is something that exists on your patreon already, it just looked like it hadn't been updated since 2019
Thank you for doing all these awsome tests. I will probably try pctg. I print mostly functional parts for prototypes. The the most important things for me is impact strength and heat resistance. I like petg but its only just good enough in the heat resistance and mediocre in the impact strength. I have been printing with priline carbon fiber petg lately. And the impact strenght seems pretty good qualitatively. I have tried other filled petg filaments but they were brittle. It might be worth doing a comparison of cf/ glass filled filaments some time.
I bought one spool from Fiberlogy and it is really intresting. Printing is really easy, just modified profile for Fiberlogy PETG in PrusaSlicer. It is not that stiff as PETG but is more like pure Nylon. Also, Fiberlogy has a great number of colors, with samples I have like 5, and they have 6 or 7 in total
Interesting material, though the sloppy stiffness could be an issue, petg is already a bit to soft sometimes for my use. Im really looking forward to the PC blend test, i find it very easy to print with the default settings, and have been waiting for the pc-cf. Good price for the specifications you've get, for example high temp.
I print PCTG in a heated chamber at 70C. To answer your question, I think you're right. Essentium claims this material anneals around the glass transition temp (see 2:05 at th-cam.com/video/D_Yz_awswLk/w-d-xo.html). I print a series of test bars for all materials I use and then I do a ghetto 3-point bend test using a belt tension tester. Prior to PCTG the strongest z-axis strength/adhesion I tested was for polycarbonate, but PCTG beats it. In my experience, if you have to load the z-axis then PCTG > Polycarbonate > ABS/ASA.
I use the same temperature tower, good choice! I've only used it for temperature though, I hadn't thought about doing one for fan speed though, that's a great idea.
excelent test using the boxes at 100% on supports. its the true test of correct extrusion. ultimate version would be a longer strip as it will allow the printer to reach max flow for a longer time.
If you test carbon fiber PC it would be really good to check for carbon fibers potentially getting airborne and possibly spreading on surfaces like asbestos. Last time I checked certain experiences with carbon filaments were quite divided in that regard (sometimes with picture evidence of fibers) and this could be a serious health hazard if true.
I've noticed wildly different properties from different vendors' PETG offerings--I've had the most consistent high strength results with Hatchbox's, with Sunlu rolls doing pretty well but not entirely consistent from color to color. I've also adopted printing PETG in a different manner--generally only printing with .6, .8mm nozzles or larger, with 4, 5 or more walls, 8 or more tops and bottoms and above 50% infill but generally 100%. It becomes difficult to control warping with it when printed both hot and at such high density without really good ambient air control, but layer adhesion is excellent at these parameters. Parts or features that aren't too thin have near injection mold level properties. Destructively analyzing parts by taking side cutters to layer intersections and comparing to the force required to cut into parts perpendicular to layers shows no great differential. Slicing high or full density parts in half or in sections of interest generally have shown full crystallization and forming instead of apparent layer lapping and lines. It isn't the easiest to work into mechanically appropriate parts, but yields excellent results so far in my recent findings. Granted, some post processing and failed, warped prints are to be anticipated without the perfect setup or proper filament+nozzle+layer height pre-print optimization completed before getting started. Generally, my best results have been with clear or white hatchbox PETG at temps between 255-270 (changed thermistors between print jobs--never trust your printer's reported temperature), with my vanadium nozzle giving me reliably consistent results at 260, and layer heights between .28 and .52 depending on the part and nozzle size. Uncharacteristically, I've not needed to worry nearly as much about filament moisture either out of the box or even after leaving it out for a week in between prints, with no noticeable differences in printing or end result. At these higher temperatures, I've been able (and need to) run about a 45% cooling fan (single, 5015, custom shroud) on average. For bed prep, I use the smooth side of my glass E5+ bed sheet and run temps around 88-90 and liberally, but evenly, apply "extra strong hold" hairspray during heat-up (hairspray that lists copolymers, vinyl-acrylate, etc.). If you read all this (@CNC Kitchen), I encourage you to take a second look at PETG and reevaluate it for benchmarking. I think its worthwhile since PETG is so readily available and for such a low price of entry--and is, generally, one of the safest to be exposed to when printing. I think its worth making more content about it since it's also difficult to get right, and with more content from people like you, people who buy it and fail might not feel burned by their purchase or fail to troubleshoot proper printing parameters, setup or expectations. I'd like to see if, with a fresh approach, your results differ at all from what you've already measured. Although, I'm not sure if with the standard .4mm nozzle setup and other standardized printing parameters it'll do any better than it already has.
ugh i wish i found this earlier, i just bought 5 rolls of petg, and dialled it in to work almost perfectly on the x1c. I might try and find some of this.
I wonder if Fillamentum CPE HG100 is the same material, it certainly behaves the same and needs the same kinds of temperatures and fan speeds, its also ridiculously strong.
I use this material for 2 years now and it's one of the coolest in my portfolio. Manufacturer I buy it from makes it in RGB, and few transparent colors apart from the standard white, black and natural.
What extrusion width did you print with? Thanks to your earlier video, I've been printing a lot at 0.6mm on a 0.4mm nozzle recently. I haven't done any comparative strength testing, but I'm very grateful for the reduction in print times on the very large prints I've been doing.
@@Dkizzle16 I don't think you'll be able to print at all with a 0.04mm nozzle 😂, but yes, you can print wider than the nozzle aperture. See Stefan's earlier video on the topic: th-cam.com/video/9YaJ0wSKKHA/w-d-xo.html
Hi Stefan. Thanks for another great video. Did you ever test cpe hg100 from filamentum? To me this is the best performing material when looking at layer adhesion and strength plus ease of printing and impact strength. I would love to see you test this filament in similar fashion. Stay safe, regards Roy
Fully agree, still in use. Anyway filamentum recommends also up to 270 °C printing temperature, but still prints fine below. At least the best layer adhesion of many filaments I've tried out in the past. Ideal if you play around with single wall prints.
Nice filament!!! I’d like to test it here in Brasil, but I will wait many many many many many time to see this kind of material here! And I would love to get CF-PC...
I actually ended up with a small spool of this from M3D late 2019. I bought a mystery box from them, and this included. I have honestly never known what to do with it!
good one Stefan, thnaks for runnning the tests, now if you can put a benchy in yor car on the dash bard and notince what happens to it as days go by... Looking forward to see the PC tests, I got 4 reels myslef, never had the tme to test them, but it will be done by me too soon. Now changing all my prnters on my new design water cooling system, to cope with higher temps requirements better.
We use Essentium's PCTG (and HTN-CF25) all the time at work, we use a glass bed with several layers of glue stick for adhesion. PCTG is a good go--to for general printing. Their HTN-CF25 is a whole new level of strength though, it's super easy to print and the strength and stiffness rivals aluminum. It's incredibly expensive but much cheaper than getting a machine shop to machine out aluminum fixtures.
Hey, can you make a summary video of all your findings for dos and don'ts for strong 3D prints (layer height, print temperature, material, extrusion width, infill %, outlines etc)?
Hi, I would not expect isotropic properties from any printed material as we can expect the polymer molecules to orient during printing, they are extruded through the nozzle and during this process they will align at least in some degree. So even if you have perfect layer adhesion the material properties will vary based on the printing direction.
Abt a month ago I've bought Fiberology Clear PCTG for my FPV #3Printed wing design. I've printed it but not maidened yet. Printed with no cooling. I am really happy how it came out comparing it to previous prototypes from PETG or PLA.
The general print settings tuning section was really interesting-do you have video/article/links that goes in depth on how you run tests and tune settings for new materials? Thanks!
Honestly, I first had it computer-voiced as a joke, because I feared trying to pronounce it. Though in the end I did it on the first try. 😅 Though as an easteregg, check the last 10s of the video.
Looking forward to your CF PC tests. I have PRILINE CF PC, and it prints at lower temps and sticks to the bed so well that I have wondered if they're blending PETG in it,...or maybe this stuff. It pulled the coating off of my glass bed in a few places. Now I use the magigoo PC glue "stick",.....and it's still pretty tough to get off. I print at the max my printer can do which is 260C/115C and I use 30% fan. Just bending and breaking some temp towers, it seems to have good layer adhesion. But I only have PLA to compare that to.
9:43 Do you have a graph of how this compares to the other filaments? You showed this for Z layer adhesion, but not impact Z strength. I believe the ratio for PC for example is much better, maybe also ABS with heated chamber.
How does PCTG print compared to PETG? I use PETG regularly but it does gum up or, as I heard a TH-camr once say, "PETG boogers up" I'm very intersted in this material if it prints better that PETG.
Late but might still be interesting: I mainly use PETG but have now tried PCTG (working through my first spool of extrudr transparent PCTG). Overall, PCTG seems to print cleaner and more easily. It still has issues with stringing but far less so than PETG and I see basically no boogers. Boogers and completely gummed up nozzles were something I could never quite get rid of with PETG, but as said, it's been no issue so far with PCTG. Bed adhesion on textured PEI sheets is also better and far more consistent than PETG. Aside from the higher print temperatures being a hassle, PCTG seems to really only be a slight upgrade performance wise to PETG (aside from impact strength, which is far better - purely subjective, but the printed parts feel almost indestructible in my hands, at least noticably more so than the same parts printed with PETG), but with the enormous draw of being easier to print. It's been far less of a mess so far and that alone makes it a candidate for straight up replacing PETG for me.
To pay a price premium vs PLA or PETG, the PCTG must offer substantive advantages, which is does in some ways so to the customer where those advances add value it will surely sell, to everyone else (YMMV)
Stefan, you're not helping me avoid an all-metal hotend upgrade. I bought a 3d printer to make useful parts with it, and I've made a lot with various flavors of PETG. I'll have to give this material a try next!
Where I live pla is okay for temperature is only 140 Fahrenheit we're lucky to get to 90 Fahrenheit where I live but then we also get 40 below zero weather in the winter
I think layer adhesion is more a property of our 3D printers than the filament. You just can't beat a temperature controlled chamber for layer bonding. This filament seems to work by having a high print temp and low glass temp. A reasonable compromise I guess.
@@CNCKitchen agree. But we don't really have the machines to adequately control the process. And given the trend for copycat, every printer is an Ender 3, I don't see it changing.
I run the 2.5 kg spools in a heated chamber at 70C and extrude at 250C (no cooling fan on my printer). I haven’t tested the isotropy specifically, but I’ve never had a piece break solely along the layer lines (and I’ve broken many while stress testing). FWIW Essentium states that the pieces can be annealed to increase HDT, though I've not tried. They’ll also say it’s UV resistant over the phone, but they don't state that on the TDS, so who knows? It’s a great filament overall, it’s one of my go to materials. Sticks to build tak with no adhesive, and is compatible with SR-30 as a support.
Should try the heated chamber at some point! Where did you get the information on annealing PCTG? I would have suspected that is a purely amorphous polymer due to the glycol modification.
It might be interesting to do a series on different colours in the same product. I have seen a huge difference in print characteristics but dont know about strength and modulus of elasticity.
I could see using this for printing chunky parts, that have a lot of layer area for adhesion. Anything that I don't mind if it looks rough. A bit pricey, though. (then again, new material. Maybe once demand and production pick up, it will come down a bit)
I know this video is old, but I'm new to 3d printing. I am HIGHLY cautious with the VOC and UFP issues related to 3d printing. I bought a flashforge 5m pro just cause it is enclosed and has a filter. I have only ben using PLA since it seems well documented that PLA is pretty harmless, especially with the filtering my printer has. I need a material that can survive outside with high temps and UV...but ASA and ABS scare me cause of the fumes. Does there appear to be ANY documentation on the safety of PCTG in terms of VOC and UFP compared to PLA or PETG? If PLA could handle temps in my tropical climate (100F during the summer is common) and UV I would not even bother looking for a different material as so far it meets my other needs.
probably people tried this but here is my shower thought on different topic (i can't find anything online) stuff can be smoothed and "glued" with acetone or isopropyl how about you create a fine-mist env while priting so every new layer is softened by the solvent and makes it tacky.. sure at 200C or whatever lots of solvent will evaporate but some should accually dissolve with/into the material i would love getting this tested also, don't blow yourself up while trying ! DCM would be perfect for this... except destroying env and the printer
PCTG nutze ich für 95% meiner Drucke. Nur wenn ich eine höhere Temperaturfestigleit brauche nutze ich ein anderes Filament. Es ist das beste Filament was ich gefunden habe. Druckt ein 1mm starkes Rohr. Wenn das bricht druckt ihr zu kalt oder mit zuviel Kühlung. Ich hatte zuerst Probleme mit sprödigkeit in den ersten 5mm. Nach ausschalten der Kühlung in diesem Bereich ist alles super.
@CNC Kitchen I'd like to see you use PVD-F which is a material that at work I see a lot, always machined from bars, but I really don't know how and if would be interesting to use with a 3d printer. that's a really tough material, chemically untouchable from acids and tough as hell. more is self-lubricating so it means has a good mechanical resistance
You have to test a PPA Filament like the LUVOCOM 3F PAHT® 9825 NT (also produced by W2-Filaments). It should has better impact and temperature resistance than PC and is very stiff! It is comparable with POM...
PETG or PCTG, what's your filament of choice?
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pctg if it doesnt stick to glass as well as petg
I default to PETG for most things but this looks like it may be a better choice for many of my projects. Great content!!!
Thanks for the tests, thurough as always! I would love to see how each filament stacks up against each other on the environmental/recyclability scale. Can we just throw the scraps in the recycling bin, or is this one of those burn-only blends?
Thank you very much for this review. I stumbled the other day over the fiberlogy pctg and was very interested in the performance. I think you need to also test PEN-PET from Inkrayon. I have printed all my Voron 0 parts in PEN-PET including the bed mount and cooling fan ducts and I am very impressed with the mechanical and thermal performance. Normally I am printing only with DASFILAMENT PETG but the thermal properties of PEN-PET are really neat and it prints as good as PETG. I am in germany so if you are interested I can send you a spool (unfortunatly I have only opened spools left)
Just got my first roll of PETG, however it is yet to be opened and used. So it must be PETG that's my choice, lacking PCTG availability ;ø)
You’re the Project Farm of 3D printing: a real service to the community. These tests are really valuable. It’s really great to be able to compare your tests across materials, especially because you use a consistent method from material to material.
Hahaha accurate!
Gonna have to disagree, project farms testing methodology is sometimes inconsistent and unhelpful. I would argue that he is closer to Gamers Nexus in that they revise their testing methodology when tests aren't accurate or useful. Or the fact his methods are strong and consistent from the start.
@@DoubsGaming how dare you talk crap on Project Farm
I, personally, would also like to see how they're properties change after long exposure to UV. Thanks for the awesome videos!
Great suggestion! I bought the equipment to do that a year ago but never went through with it.
@@CNCKitchen Summer is upon us in Arizona and I have some ApolloX (ASA type) filament coming so I can print a phone holder for my wife and for bike parts. I left my bike helmet with my nifty PLA (black) printed visor outside this weekend and the sun warped it significantly. So it will get remade with ApolloX as well. Maybe I'll make some parts and give them 3-4 months of Arizona sun and see what happens.
their*
@@Rozumusicmediator2733You understood what they meant.
so.... a marginal performance increase from regular petg, at double the price ? yeah, no thanks. very thankful Stefan is here to bring real data into the mix, instead of us all having to rely on the manufacturer's claims.
Exactly. This filament has all the drawbacks PETG does ( moisture sensitivity, stringing, increased difficulty in printing compared to PLA ) and nothing about it is a substantial improvement over regular PETG, ( you even have to print this stuff at 270c, but it still has a glass temp of 80c... WHAT ?? ) which can be purchased for half the price from just about anywhere that sells filament. Honestly it's just ridiculous that they think they can charge as much as they are for this - it's effectively PETG with a higher print temp, nothing more, and in some ways less.
It's almost double in layer strength compared to regular PETG and has like eight time more impact strength, those are pretty significant upgrades.
since it's a new material, it will go down soon
@@oddspaghetti4287Uh, it's not double the layer strength, and 8 times more impact strength ? LOL. from the website article:
"Next we get to impact strength which is a property many are not aware, that is kind of bad for PETG. PCTG was able to really shine here and the notched samples were able to absorb around 24 kJ/m² which puts it way above PLA and PETG and on a similar level as for example ABS. Unfortunately, the samples printed standing performed way worse and had an impact strength of only 1.5 kJ/m² on average."
you sound just like whoever wrote the manufacturer's claims for this filament, technically true but actually misleading. does it have great impact strength ? sure, as long as you only print things that are flat. anything else will perform no different than petg, which is my point. it's no different than any petg in a real world application. and in many ways worse - it's so moisture sensitive that it has to be stored in a mylar bag, and it has to be printed way hotter than petg with no additional increase in glass temp. I never said it was a "bad" filament to use, but at 2-3 times the price of petg, it makes no sense to buy it.
@@adrianstachowski9422 maybe the price will go down "soon". and maybe the company will go out of business in 6 months because no one is buying their overpriced filament. my point is that this filament is not much better than petg, and the price they're charging for it is ridiculous. it's modified petg, nothing more, and it doesn't perform much better than petg, with several additional drawbacks.
that’s a pretty interesting filament and thanks a lot for your time spent to do all the tests, they’re very valuable 🙌😌
Love your videos marsgizmo simple short and entertaining
@@MamasFunkyMonkey thanks 😊
PCTG or Poly blablablablablablabla glycol-modified.
So it should be called P7BG, right?
I made some (thin) cookie cutters and regular PETG just wasn't tough enough for the job. So I ordered some PC Max as well as some PCTG from Fibrology after finding out about it here. And , WOW, this stuff is really strong - I did some testing and it really seemed almost isotropic: thin walls don't break between the layers, IF they break at all and not just deform. I think this will be my preferred material for small engineering jobs or delicate things.
A test that checks for degradation during repeated lateral loading would be very useful. That is, back and forth stresses like a finished part may encounter during regular use. I have had PETG crack perpendicular to the layer lines despite it having been strong enough to support the load. That constant back and forth lateral load caused it to crack.
As always, putting in the hard work to the benefit of us all.
You're welcome!
I bought some PCTG recently to print a fuel cap for a vintage motorcycle. It apparently has good resistance to petroleum in addition to its desirable mechanical properties.
My favorite filament! if anyone is curious, filalab has very afforable rolls available in EU. pretty much same price as most PLA or PETG. not affiliated, just want to spread love for this filament type.
Closer to ABS, with printability much more like PLA. any printer can print it as long as nozzle can to 230 Celsius and bed 80. no warping.
On the last Polymaker live, they revealed that Polymax PETG is actually PCTG 🤔 interesting huh?
Oh, thats interesting. That thought went through my head today as well!
Well, I guess that explains why I had to raise the temperature a lot to make it usable. Their recommended values are way too low.
I would really like to see a review for PolyMax PETG as a comparison to Essentium PCTG. Just finished watching TCT Asia from Polymaker.
Seems plausible to me. The glycol modified (PETG) means that ethylene glycol is replaced with another monomer. Ususally this monomer is cyclohexanedimethanol, which is the C in PCTG. So this means that PCTG and PETG are fairly similar. Likely the difference between them can be found in the content of cyclohexanedimethanol/ethylene glycol. Funny how you can play around with names :)
They sold one polymer as a different polymer? That's just begging for a lawsuit 🤔
Looks like if impact resistance is what your parts require this material is excellent assuming you can print them horizontal.
Sticking with PETG since I don't need to change to an all-metal hotend to print that (with newer PETG spools, at least), and this doesn't seem to give any significant improvements for my needs.
I wanna see a clarity comparison among all clear/transparent filament available
I think it would be intresting to see what tempature and print speed would do to clarity as well
I have been waiting for this video. These results were very interesting. I was able to print PCTG with the same exact profile I used with PETG on my modified Ender 3, but changing the temperature to 255C. the filament printed great and seem to have great layer adhesion.
The layer adhesion of this filament seems to me that it would make it a good candidate for carbon fiber infusion.
would be interesting if you tested out fillamentum's new bio-PLa stuff, seems to have some unique properties
+1 for NonOilen tests , can't find a valid 3rd party review of it. Helps us Stefan, you're our only hope! :D
Thank you Stefan for your diligent work and open sharing of it. I support very few people through Patreon just due to fiscal limitations but you certainly earn it more than anyone else. Danke, dass du so inspirierend bist!
I had preproduction sample from Fiberlogy. I have printed it @H270/B110. It's amazing filament and will replace my PETG.
Seems like I found this video as the first one while I was browsing through the playlists... :)
Just noticed a thumbnail I couldn't remember. Guess I know now why...
That's a TH-cam "bug". If video are not released, yet, you are already able to find them in playlists.
I've been hoping you would cover this for a few months, sweet!
Great timing, I have two rolls from Fiberlogy arriving in a few days 👍. Hoping it can replace ABS for me for functional prints. Just hoping they come up with more colors soon.
Absolutely love your channel! As a beginner in 3D printing I have a lot to learn and you definitely provide a lot of that knowledge!
Another great video. The issue for PCTG is the very high temp requirements. I imagine a lot of beginners would struggle especially if the printer can't handle ABS. For outdoor uses, how PCTG handles sun and rain?
10:09 @CNC Kitchen What is the brand/reference used for your annealed PLA? Most "Tough PLA" that can be annealed in an oven are in fact INGEO 3D850 or 3D870 invented by NatureWorks LLC (3D870 as higher impact resistance than 3D850), that are then sold under various names according to filament makers. But the NatureWorks charts show that these two special annealed PLA once semi-crystalline has still a heat deflection temperature that is roughly 10 °C LOWER (HDT-B = 85 °C) than that of standard ABS (HDT-B = 96 °C). So what gives? How is your chart and test possible?
Yes! Been waiting to see these tests after hearing about PCTG! Glad you were able to acquire it in your region.
Yes! I’ve been waiting for a good review of this stuff for a while! :D thanks so much!
You're welcome!
Danke Stefan für deine Tests. Das hilft schon gut bei der Auswahl des richtigen Materials
Hi Stefan,
Good video. I was wondering if this stuff would be a good binder for a fiber-filled material. Given that the Polymers most frequently user for such applications are on the softer, but more resilient side. The good layer-adhesion would play very well with a fiber filler, imho.
What do you think?
great video. PCTG seems a nice filament for more complex loaded parts. Giving some freedome in design in regard of print orientation.
I love your filament test videos! I know that some of your tests are printed on different printers etc, but having a spreadsheet of all your test results on different materials/ brands (and now colours!) Would be an incredibly useful addition to your website. I apologise if this is something that exists on your patreon already, it just looked like it hadn't been updated since 2019
Hey Stefan, habe lange kein Video mehr von dir gesehen, aber freue mich zu hören dass du deinen Namen jetzt wieder richtig aussprichst 😊👍🏼
Congrats. Your video is complet, you show printer quality, printer configuration and mechanic characters. Very good
Thank you very much!
3 years later I finally bought my first 1kg spool and am looking forward to printing a few functional parts! 😁
Thank you for doing all these awsome tests. I will probably try pctg. I print mostly functional parts for prototypes. The the most important things for me is impact strength and heat resistance. I like petg but its only just good enough in the heat resistance and mediocre in the impact strength. I have been printing with priline carbon fiber petg lately. And the impact strenght seems pretty good qualitatively. I have tried other filled petg filaments but they were brittle. It might be worth doing a comparison of cf/ glass filled filaments some time.
I bought one spool from Fiberlogy and it is really intresting. Printing is really easy, just modified profile for Fiberlogy PETG in PrusaSlicer. It is not that stiff as PETG but is more like pure Nylon. Also, Fiberlogy has a great number of colors, with samples I have like 5, and they have 6 or 7 in total
Interesting material, though the sloppy stiffness could be an issue, petg is already a bit to soft sometimes for my use. Im really looking forward to the PC blend test, i find it very easy to print with the default settings, and have been waiting for the pc-cf. Good price for the specifications you've get, for example high temp.
i wonder if a heated chamber increases the strength. it does for some other materials.
I print PCTG in a heated chamber at 70C. To answer your question, I think you're right. Essentium claims this material anneals around the glass transition temp (see 2:05 at th-cam.com/video/D_Yz_awswLk/w-d-xo.html). I print a series of test bars for all materials I use and then I do a ghetto 3-point bend test using a belt tension tester. Prior to PCTG the strongest z-axis strength/adhesion I tested was for polycarbonate, but PCTG beats it. In my experience, if you have to load the z-axis then PCTG > Polycarbonate > ABS/ASA.
I use the same temperature tower, good choice! I've only used it for temperature though, I hadn't thought about doing one for fan speed though, that's a great idea.
excelent test using the boxes at 100% on supports. its the true test of correct extrusion. ultimate version would be a longer strip as it will allow the printer to reach max flow for a longer time.
If you test carbon fiber PC it would be really good to check for carbon fibers potentially getting airborne and possibly spreading on surfaces like asbestos. Last time I checked certain experiences with carbon filaments were quite divided in that regard (sometimes with picture evidence of fibers) and this could be a serious health hazard if true.
I've noticed wildly different properties from different vendors' PETG offerings--I've had the most consistent high strength results with Hatchbox's, with Sunlu rolls doing pretty well but not entirely consistent from color to color.
I've also adopted printing PETG in a different manner--generally only printing with .6, .8mm nozzles or larger, with 4, 5 or more walls, 8 or more tops and bottoms and above 50% infill but generally 100%. It becomes difficult to control warping with it when printed both hot and at such high density without really good ambient air control, but layer adhesion is excellent at these parameters. Parts or features that aren't too thin have near injection mold level properties. Destructively analyzing parts by taking side cutters to layer intersections and comparing to the force required to cut into parts perpendicular to layers shows no great differential. Slicing high or full density parts in half or in sections of interest generally have shown full crystallization and forming instead of apparent layer lapping and lines.
It isn't the easiest to work into mechanically appropriate parts, but yields excellent results so far in my recent findings. Granted, some post processing and failed, warped prints are to be anticipated without the perfect setup or proper filament+nozzle+layer height pre-print optimization completed before getting started.
Generally, my best results have been with clear or white hatchbox PETG at temps between 255-270 (changed thermistors between print jobs--never trust your printer's reported temperature), with my vanadium nozzle giving me reliably consistent results at 260, and layer heights between .28 and .52 depending on the part and nozzle size. Uncharacteristically, I've not needed to worry nearly as much about filament moisture either out of the box or even after leaving it out for a week in between prints, with no noticeable differences in printing or end result. At these higher temperatures, I've been able (and need to) run about a 45% cooling fan (single, 5015, custom shroud) on average. For bed prep, I use the smooth side of my glass E5+ bed sheet and run temps around 88-90 and liberally, but evenly, apply "extra strong hold" hairspray during heat-up (hairspray that lists copolymers, vinyl-acrylate, etc.).
If you read all this (@CNC Kitchen), I encourage you to take a second look at PETG and reevaluate it for benchmarking. I think its worthwhile since PETG is so readily available and for such a low price of entry--and is, generally, one of the safest to be exposed to when printing. I think its worth making more content about it since it's also difficult to get right, and with more content from people like you, people who buy it and fail might not feel burned by their purchase or fail to troubleshoot proper printing parameters, setup or expectations. I'd like to see if, with a fresh approach, your results differ at all from what you've already measured. Although, I'm not sure if with the standard .4mm nozzle setup and other standardized printing parameters it'll do any better than it already has.
ugh i wish i found this earlier, i just bought 5 rolls of petg, and dialled it in to work almost perfectly on the x1c. I might try and find some of this.
I need to see some PBT+ (PBT + Glass fibres) testing next! Very interesting material, at least for thermal resistance and printability.
I wonder if Fillamentum CPE HG100 is the same material, it certainly behaves the same and needs the same kinds of temperatures and fan speeds, its also ridiculously strong.
I use this material for 2 years now and it's one of the coolest in my portfolio.
Manufacturer I buy it from makes it in RGB, and few transparent colors apart from the standard white, black and natural.
Any experience how it handles outdoors?
Wo findet man deine Setting-Tests? Würde mich sehr interessieren, wie du deinen Drucker auf neue Filamente einfährst...
What extrusion width did you print with? Thanks to your earlier video, I've been printing a lot at 0.6mm on a 0.4mm nozzle recently. I haven't done any comparative strength testing, but I'm very grateful for the reduction in print times on the very large prints I've been doing.
Wait you can print .06mm from a .04mm nozzle??.
@@Dkizzle16 I don't think you'll be able to print at all with a 0.04mm nozzle 😂, but yes, you can print wider than the nozzle aperture. See Stefan's earlier video on the topic: th-cam.com/video/9YaJ0wSKKHA/w-d-xo.html
Good point. All done with a 0.4mm nozzle at 0.44mm extrusion width.
Thank you so much for your professional videos! Scientificaly awesome! Keep up the great work!
I've been waiting for you to try this stuff!
Makes me wonder how they did their internal testing to get the isotropic test results
Probably inside a heated chamber
Extrudr has a very large PCTG selection.. and they are in Austria. Easily the best materials I have used...
Hi Stefan. Thanks for another great video. Did you ever test cpe hg100 from filamentum? To me this is the best performing material when looking at layer adhesion and strength plus ease of printing and impact strength. I would love to see you test this filament in similar fashion. Stay safe, regards Roy
Fully agree, still in use. Anyway filamentum recommends also up to 270 °C printing temperature, but still prints fine below. At least the best layer adhesion of many filaments I've tried out in the past. Ideal if you play around with single wall prints.
This orange dry box looks really interesting. Any more info? Why not a video about it?
Yes. I would like info on this as well.
To expensive, you can got the same if you buy some Ikea 365 und Fittings... for less than 15$ instead of paying 360$+
Thanks Stephan. I learn a lot watching your videos !
Thanks a lot for the great amount of work you did, you're the best material reviewer
Nice filament!!! I’d like to test it here in Brasil, but I will wait many many many many many time to see this kind of material here!
And I would love to get CF-PC...
I would love to see a video about different filament splicer/ welder tools respectively filament splicing/ welding methods and how well they work.
I actually ended up with a small spool of this from M3D late 2019. I bought a mystery box from them, and this included. I have honestly never known what to do with it!
good one Stefan, thnaks for runnning the tests, now if you can put a benchy in yor car on the dash bard and notince what happens to it as days go by...
Looking forward to see the PC tests, I got 4 reels myslef, never had the tme to test them, but it will be done by me too soon. Now changing all my prnters on my new design water cooling system, to cope with higher temps requirements better.
Awesome. I’ve been wanting to try this stuff for ages but I was really hoping you’d do a video on it before I bought it
Excellent evaluation as always Stefan!
Thanks!
How does it stick to a glass bed? Does it have the same love/hate relationship with glass as PETG, i.e. that it tends to chip of parts of the bed?
As far as I've read similar to PETG and will rip a hole in it, so use a separation layer.
If you haven't gotten a flex PEI bed yet, what are you even doing with your life?
We use Essentium's PCTG (and HTN-CF25) all the time at work, we use a glass bed with several layers of glue stick for adhesion. PCTG is a good go--to for general printing. Their HTN-CF25 is a whole new level of strength though, it's super easy to print and the strength and stiffness rivals aluminum. It's incredibly expensive but much cheaper than getting a machine shop to machine out aluminum fixtures.
@@fwiffo Wow.
Hey, can you make a summary video of all your findings for dos and don'ts for strong 3D prints (layer height, print temperature, material, extrusion width, infill %, outlines etc)?
Oooh it's a patreon thing, got it.
Hi, I would not expect isotropic properties from any printed material as we can expect the polymer molecules to orient during printing, they are extruded through the nozzle and during this process they will align at least in some degree. So even if you have perfect layer adhesion the material properties will vary based on the printing direction.
Abt a month ago I've bought Fiberology Clear PCTG for my FPV #3Printed wing design. I've printed it but not maidened yet. Printed with no cooling. I am really happy how it came out comparing it to previous prototypes from PETG or PLA.
Very interesting! Did you have any issues with warping?
@@CNCKitchen maybe a little bit. It behaves very similarly to PETG. Flat surfaces tend to buckle. I try to print on relatively cold bed (
Honestly, the thing that surprises me most, is how good the PLA is, do you know how the impact resistance changes after annealing?
I would love to see how this material performs with printer settings to make it transparent, just like you did for PETG.
The general print settings tuning section was really interesting-do you have video/article/links that goes in depth on how you run tests and tune settings for new materials? Thanks!
How many times did you have to try before saying the full name right?
Honestly, I first had it computer-voiced as a joke, because I feared trying to pronounce it. Though in the end I did it on the first try. 😅 Though as an easteregg, check the last 10s of the video.
Looking forward to your CF PC tests. I have PRILINE CF PC, and it prints at lower temps and sticks to the bed so well that I have wondered if they're blending PETG in it,...or maybe this stuff. It pulled the coating off of my glass bed in a few places. Now I use the magigoo PC glue "stick",.....and it's still pretty tough to get off. I print at the max my printer can do which is 260C/115C and I use 30% fan. Just bending and breaking some temp towers, it seems to have good layer adhesion. But I only have PLA to compare that to.
9:43 Do you have a graph of how this compares to the other filaments? You showed this for Z layer adhesion, but not impact Z strength. I believe the ratio for PC for example is much better, maybe also ABS with heated chamber.
All of them are a mouthful, boy am I glad we have acronyms 😅
How does PCTG print compared to PETG? I use PETG regularly but it does gum up or, as I heard a TH-camr once say, "PETG boogers up" I'm very intersted in this material if it prints better that PETG.
Late but might still be interesting: I mainly use PETG but have now tried PCTG (working through my first spool of extrudr transparent PCTG). Overall, PCTG seems to print cleaner and more easily. It still has issues with stringing but far less so than PETG and I see basically no boogers. Boogers and completely gummed up nozzles were something I could never quite get rid of with PETG, but as said, it's been no issue so far with PCTG. Bed adhesion on textured PEI sheets is also better and far more consistent than PETG.
Aside from the higher print temperatures being a hassle, PCTG seems to really only be a slight upgrade performance wise to PETG (aside from impact strength, which is far better - purely subjective, but the printed parts feel almost indestructible in my hands, at least noticably more so than the same parts printed with PETG), but with the enormous draw of being easier to print. It's been far less of a mess so far and that alone makes it a candidate for straight up replacing PETG for me.
To pay a price premium vs PLA or PETG, the PCTG must offer substantive advantages, which is does in some ways so to the customer where those advances add value it will surely sell, to everyone else (YMMV)
Thank you for your testing it really helps me understand these filaments. Have you tested any HIPS filaments??
Is the bending test measured in lagers? 😏
The Fiber Three dry box looks great, but I just looked it up and was shocked by the cost!
I wonder how PVDF would compare on these tests
Thanks for all this work as always!
Looking forward to the Prusament PC review!
Stefan, you're not helping me avoid an all-metal hotend upgrade.
I bought a 3d printer to make useful parts with it, and I've made a lot with various flavors of PETG. I'll have to give this material a try next!
Where I live pla is okay for temperature is only 140 Fahrenheit we're lucky to get to 90 Fahrenheit where I live but then we also get 40 below zero weather in the winter
I think layer adhesion is more a property of our 3D printers than the filament. You just can't beat a temperature controlled chamber for layer bonding. This filament seems to work by having a high print temp and low glass temp. A reasonable compromise I guess.
It's both, material and process need to be tuned to achieve the optimum.
@@CNCKitchen agree. But we don't really have the machines to adequately control the process. And given the trend for copycat, every printer is an Ender 3, I don't see it changing.
I run the 2.5 kg spools in a heated chamber at 70C and extrude at 250C (no cooling fan on my printer). I haven’t tested the isotropy specifically, but I’ve never had a piece break solely along the layer lines (and I’ve broken many while stress testing). FWIW Essentium states that the pieces can be annealed to increase HDT, though I've not tried. They’ll also say it’s UV resistant over the phone, but they don't state that on the TDS, so who knows? It’s a great filament overall, it’s one of my go to materials. Sticks to build tak with no adhesive, and is compatible with SR-30 as a support.
Should try the heated chamber at some point! Where did you get the information on annealing PCTG? I would have suspected that is a purely amorphous polymer due to the glycol modification.
@@CNCKitchen Skip to about 2:05 in th-cam.com/video/D_Yz_awswLk/w-d-xo.html Based on the 450x time lapse, they anneal for approximately 45 minutes.
It might be interesting to do a series on different colours in the same product. I have seen a huge difference in print characteristics but dont know about strength and modulus of elasticity.
I could see using this for printing chunky parts, that have a lot of layer area for adhesion. Anything that I don't mind if it looks rough. A bit pricey, though. (then again, new material. Maybe once demand and production pick up, it will come down a bit)
is PCTG just another name of CPE? Or are those different materials. If different, I'd love to see some CPE tests :)
CPE (co-polyester I'm assuming) would be the general class of these polymers that PET, PETG, PCTG fall into.
@@hathzorz well, some companies sell their "improved" PETG under that name exactly.
PCTG prints great with no cooling fan, except for bridges, but you can turn fan on just for bridges. It's thermal shrinkage is extremely low.
Man that benchy print made me jealous, that was looking super clean
So, how many takes to read that full name of the filament at the beginning of the video? :D
I know this video is old, but I'm new to 3d printing. I am HIGHLY cautious with the VOC and UFP issues related to 3d printing. I bought a flashforge 5m pro just cause it is enclosed and has a filter. I have only ben using PLA since it seems well documented that PLA is pretty harmless, especially with the filtering my printer has. I need a material that can survive outside with high temps and UV...but ASA and ABS scare me cause of the fumes. Does there appear to be ANY documentation on the safety of PCTG in terms of VOC and UFP compared to PLA or PETG? If PLA could handle temps in my tropical climate (100F during the summer is common) and UV I would not even bother looking for a different material as so far it meets my other needs.
probably people tried this but here is my shower thought on different topic (i can't find anything online)
stuff can be smoothed and "glued" with acetone or isopropyl
how about you create a fine-mist env while priting so every new layer is softened by the solvent and makes it tacky.. sure at 200C or whatever lots of solvent will evaporate but some should accually dissolve with/into the material
i would love getting this tested
also, don't blow yourself up while trying !
DCM would be perfect for this... except destroying env and the printer
Ordered Fiberlogy PCTG two days ago. Wait to try t self =)
PCTG nutze ich für 95% meiner Drucke. Nur wenn ich eine höhere Temperaturfestigleit brauche nutze ich ein anderes Filament. Es ist das beste Filament was ich gefunden habe. Druckt ein 1mm starkes Rohr. Wenn das bricht druckt ihr zu kalt oder mit zuviel Kühlung. Ich hatte zuerst Probleme mit sprödigkeit in den ersten 5mm. Nach ausschalten der Kühlung in diesem Bereich ist alles super.
Stefan, could you please cover/review PET as well? :-)
I love it, especially for crystallisation part.
@CNC Kitchen I'd like to see you use PVD-F which is a material that at work I see a lot, always machined from bars, but I really don't know how and if would be interesting to use with a 3d printer. that's a really tough material, chemically untouchable from acids and tough as hell. more is self-lubricating so it means has a good mechanical resistance
Was there any reply from the manufacturer as to how they tested it to have such perfect layer bonding?
I really love your videos and have learned so much! Great video, dropping the truth bombs.
Could you test glass filled PLA next?
You have to test a PPA Filament like the LUVOCOM 3F PAHT® 9825 NT (also produced by W2-Filaments). It should has better impact and temperature resistance than PC and is very stiff! It is comparable with POM...