Is PLA actually STRONG??

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[StormBurnX]

This is brilliant! As other people have pointed out, the pigments used can greatly affect the strength. It's widely known that transparent/translucent PLA is terribly brittle, and also filaments with a bit of moisture (aka ones that have been owned for a few years without a drybox) will behave quite differently compared to brand-new ones!

[RyanHenrie]

It's refreshing seeing actual mechanical engineering commentary in this field. Many channels have broached this subject but very few actually do it right.

[MegabyteMike]

CNC Kitchen has gone through this very extensively, you might could collaborate on obtaining this data and making it available all in one place.

[amok]

this guy is high on my list of ¨favorite youtubers that post infrequently¨

[ukktor]

Visited the website. It is a good start. I wish the filament list was persistent when you changed tests. I have to reload new filaments everytime I switch tests. It doesn't remember the previous test setups either, which also could be fixed. Next, it would help if they all defaulted to the same perimeter/infill just to eliminate a step when adding data. Last, need a "Download result" or image, or something. Not complaining, just giving some feedback. Nice job!

[PattysLab]

The sheer dedication to do all of this testing, chappau!

[jameslmorehead]

I would love to have the printer settings used for each filament, along with color, finish, and humidity. The Carbon X1 sacrifices some strength for print speed because the melt zone in the hot end is smallish. To counter this, they use higher stock temps. The problem comes in the fact that thermoplastic is a poor conductor of heat. Therefore, the outside of the filament might get to 230C, the center might only hit 190C. At work, we use an X1 Carbon. At home I use a highly modified Ender 3 V2 Neo. The same print at work might take 30 minutes to print, but 5 hours at home. But the home print is much stronger with the exact same material, infill, and perimeters.

[garbonzoe]

So good. Minor thing on the website. Cost/Strength should be the cost of the printed part. The 2 walls vs 4 walls of the same material should have different cost to print. This will give insight into if the additional material usage is worth it.

[andresmonagas]

This is incredibly good, I've been looking for the hardest material (I mean, the one with the highest posible young module). But when you look into google, people never use the correct terminology. Having a web page with the tensile strength graphs is super helpful. That's a pure act of philanthropy. I really like your content. Keep doing videos like this. And BTW, I did like the part where you explained the testing rig, and i was not boring at all. I've would have loved if it were longer. Again, keep doing this amazing work.

[kylek]

I think if you did a slight redesign to the sample hold down clamps (standardized insert shape, a foot/shoe on one side, with a knob screw on the other), you could probably reduce it to 1 knob each side. 8 screws seems like a pain in the butt. It's one of those convenience things you don't really consider when designing, but you notice right away when you go to use it.

Another area you could test (would require a different module) would be to test the filament diameter consistency. I find if there's a high variance, it'll affect print quality a lot.

[cosmefulanito]

It never ceases to amaze me how expensive PLA is abroad. In Argentina the prices are between 6 and 12 dollars the most expensive.

[Vaasref]

My biggest issue with that kind of testing is that it completely forget that the pigment can have a huge impact on strength and printability.

The impact on strength is not necessarily direct though, some pigment are more keen on absorbing moisture.
I have two good quality PLA filament rolls from the same source one is coral pink and prints wonderfully the other is white and is a chore to print with always foaming and leaves a harsh almost gritty surface.

I think the issue with the white filament is that they put too much white pigment in it as it was noticeably more opaque than the pink one.


So my suggestion for your testing is to test different colors for each manufacturer and to test with "soaking" your filament in high moisture environment to compare moisture absorption and performance degradation.

For pigment testing a white and black should be easy to find for any manufacturer and deep blue and red are also probably available for most of them.
You could try to ask them directly to have samples for all of the colors from a manufacturer and make filament review video on their products ?

For moisture, having 3 points of data a high and low with a driest strongest and a low weak with the filament after days underwater and one after something like 5 hours in high humidity (a long print without dry box feeding). That way we could see which filament are the most affected by moisture as well as how fast they are affected thanks to where the 5h point would be between the two extremes.

Even if there is a lot of variable you will probably be able to reduce the number of tests if for example one filament only loses 10% of strength from being underwater, testing after 5h in high humidity is probably useless. For pigment you might see trends that some colors are problematic while others never cause any changes, or some manufacturer have big discrepancy as they focus on looks while other test their pigments to assure similar results for more engineered applications.

[g_rr_tt]

I wish I had time for these kind of projects, thanks for doing the leg work for us and making it free.

[natewilburn]

Very impressive! Your onshape CAD modeling is outstanding aswell!

[Tritone_b]

That looks really good, I never knew digital calipers have SPI.

[TheGaldiatus]

When you do durability testing it is best to compare the same color filaments or filaments without any dye in them. CNC Kitchen has a video showcasing how different color materials perform differently.

[Alx]

Please test strength with multiple samples from the same filament printed at different temperatures. I noticed when I print petg too hot it gets fragile. Please verify hot end temp when printing.

[cohnodonnell]

I swear by Hatchbox and Polymaker, but I am also graced with a Microcenter very near by. I thought the Inland brand was cheap junk until I tried a spool while on sale. Man, best PLA I've used yet (regular PLA so far, need to try PLA+, Matte, Pro, and Silk). Thanks for the data!

[MCsCreations]

Fantastic job, Michael! Thanks a bunch for all the testing! 😃
Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

[seleniumshutter]

Some time back I was working on a website to help a small group improve data management. I used a library called Streamlit and was really happy with how good is was for getting a website up and running quickly, especially where there's data involved. I think it will make it easier for you to scale the current website in future! Also, I came across another project called pynecone that looked really interesting but I haven't had the chance to try it out.