Are you printing at the right temperature?

Do lower temperatures print cleaner and are hotter prints stronger? Let's settle this.

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[Syncopatientzero]

One aspect of temperature that you didn't cover in this video, but have in past ones: thermal expansion. The hotter you print, the more the plastic expands, and therefore contracts while cooling... This is one of the main factors in warping and necessitates a heated build chamber for certain materials. The low temps parts aren't shrinking as much and are tighter when put in the same hole as a part printed at a higher temp.

Also print speed is a huge factor in print temperature. The bottom line is heat transfer, how much heat is getting into the plastic, what that heat does, and how long it stays there. If I want stronger prints with better adhered layers, I print slower. If strength isn't a factor and I need a faster print, I turn up the temp with the speed.

[bowieinc]

For me, 10 ° under high number on filament spool has always worked well. Then bed pla 55 ° and Petg 85 °
Biggest fix I’ve learn for bed adhesion and avoiding fuzzy first lays with a PEI Flex sheet is just occasionally washing it in the sink under hot water with dawn dish detergent. Try this first when things go wrong all of the sudden. I learned this after days of settings chasing. Great video!

[prxrb]

Cold prints getting stuck in the impact test jig: parts printed at lower temperatures likely shrink less after printing, resulting in larger parts and a tighter fit.

[nocjef]

White PETG is always reliably bad for me, doesn’t matter the brand I’ve tried. Something about the pigment just makes it worse than every other color.

[SebastianTEC]

Thomas is getting more and more like Stefan. Won't be long before he CNC's a proper pull test jig.

[JohnDeaux]

honestly, temperature settings are something I set on a per-print basis. Things that I factor in are: Nozzle size, purpose of the print, room temperature, are there any large bridges etc.
I generally print PLA with 200-210 Celsius, a bit lower for 0.2 nozzle, about 220 with a 0.6/0.8 nozzle(those are mostly vasae mode prints where I want it to hold water and usually increase flow to about 110% ish)

[RomanoPRODUCTION]

Thank you Thomas for publishing a neat video in the middle of summer. So we can print at the right temperature. ❤❤❤❤❤

[Sawuasfoiythl]

11:40 "I should note that the default temperature for Prusament PETG, on PrusaSlicer on a Prusa MK3 is 250 Prusa-degrees"
I know Prusa have printers and slicers but I didn't know they had their own units 😂

[Vipcioo]

Thank you Thomas for a lot of work to do all these tests.

I'm glad you got back to the "old" tracks when you focused on the topic, not personal tours and sometimes strange opinions and comments.
There was a point where I saw too much irritation in your videos that pissed me off enough that I stopped following your channel.

Let's focus on the topic without intrusive private content. I appreciate you for that. And many others, probably too.
Regards.

[flyingfortress]

I got into printing a month ago by picking up an Ender 3 V2. Your high-quality videos have been immensely helpful. Keep up the great work!

[Zodliness]

Watching this makes me glad I can create project profiles directly on my old faithful Ultimaker S3 dual nozzle printer (with NFC filament recognition) (auto levelling & heating). Using preset profiles that I found can include all known and customisable settings, making it easy for novices like me, to start at commercial grade printing qualities, without the hassle of knowing in advance what's required, just splice and load to get projects completed quickly, with a professional finish that requires little to no post processing.

Thanks for sharing your invaluable information. 👍

[WereCatf]

I have also noticed PLA having a tendency of printing less glossy, more matte at lower temperatures, which is why I tend to lower the temperature somewhat for decorative items; matte items just tend to look better than glossy. I haven't bothered increasing temperatures and instead just adjust infill and/or shells, if I need stronger parts -- I haven't done any proper measurements, but I haven't seen any benefit in increased temps.

[jubb]

Thanks for the test! I do appreciate the time it takes to print all those test samples =)
I usually found that "glittery" PLA prints way smoother welds at 225 compared to 215 that i actually found works best for run of the mill single color PLA.

[jimbobbyrnes]

The strength being stronger at both ends of the temperature spectrum makes sense to me. To form the plastic bonds into aesthetically pleasing uniform shapes you need to weaken those bonds. We rely on those bonds for the part strength. The more we shape the plastic the more we weaken those bonds. At higher temperatures the bonds can shape themselves to form less uniform but stronger bonds. At the perfect temperature we shape the bonds in it's weak but pleasing shape. At lower temperatures we keep existing bonds while doing minimal shaping. Meaning the bonds we rely on at lower temperatures are bonds made when manufacturing the filament.

[robert]

Thanks for doing science! I've just been printing PLA at the default setting of 200C, except bumping up the first layer to 205C for better bed adhesion at the cost of more elephant's foot. Maybe I need to do some testing myself to see if slightly higher temps would be better for the subsequent layers.

[uhu]

9:30 My guess would be, that there's a higher pressure build up in the nozzle, when you print colder.
And because of that pressure, the filament will bloat up more, when leaving the nozzle.

[dementorlp]

thank you so much, i always have problems with dimensions of my parts and tried everything to fix it. I will now test higher temp bc i have always printed at 195°

[hefonthefjords]

The trouble is, each printer and each brand of filament is going to be slightly different, meaning that really we still need to do at least some calibration with our printers and filaments no matter how much information we have. This testing, and other testing like it, definitely gives us a helping hand to get closer with less testing, but the testing will still be needed.

[wturber]

I had to shake my head a bit about this test batch. Firstly, if I'm printing a part for which strength is a concern, you can darn well bet that I'm not going to print with two walls and 15% infill. That's the kind of setting I would use for generally non-functional parts that deal with little or no real stress. For strong parts, you really do often want your part to "pretend" that it is an injected molded part. Why? Because injection molding is expensive and sometimes you want a part to actually do useful work. I don't print my bike tire removal levers with two walls and 15% infill precisely because I'm going to subject them to high bending loads near the limits of the PETG material - much as your bending test does.

Secondly, you chose a matte PETG?!?!? Even if you didn't run into the semi predictable problems that you showed (I print a fair bit of matte black PETG because I really like the finish), I would never assume that a matte PETG filament would provide typical PETG results. In looking at matte PETG, it appears to have some kind of filler that gives it the matte finish. I don't know what that filler is, but I'm assuming that it does not increase structural strength and that it probably compromises it. I treat it as a different material than ordinary PETG. If I were to take this kind of time to do a test, I'd pick either ordinary colors that were the same for both materials, or neutral/no pigment colors. In this case, clear and "natural" for PETG and PLA respectively would be preferred. Doing this means you are testing the plastic and not the dyes or fillers.

I'm a fan of both Thomas and Stefan. But I found this test video a bit dumbfounding.

[Cheeky_Goose]

I found that my PETG and PLA prints were getting more and more matte the faster the printer was moving, and I wanted a more glossy and clean look so I increased the temperature as much as I could before the bridges started to sag and then I was able to reach much higher speeds without getting that matte finish. This I think means that the matte finish happens when your filament hasn't had enough time in the hot zone before getting pushed out, so I guess a volcano hotend would help if you print at lower temperatures at faster speeds.