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Review on Silk PLA Filament, SUNLU Neatly Wound Shiny PLA 3D Printer Filament 1.75Mm Dimensional Accuracy +/- 0.02Mm, Fit Most FDM 3D Printers, Good Vacuum Packaging, 1Kg Spool (2.2Lbs), 330 Meters, Silky Black by Jayme Newitt

Revainrating 3 out of 5

Be careful. Tricky filament to work with

First I need to state i am new to 3D printing. I recently purchased a Creality CR-10s Pro. Love the machine when it works. I have issues with my machine's X_Gantry sagging on the side with the X- stepper motor/filament extruder installed and need to zero it out before every print.This isn't a review of the machine. This is a review of the SUNLU PLA Silk Black Gray Filament. I am doing a large multi-unit job for work (each piece is 280mm x 280mm x 30mm) so needed a lot of filament. My original supplier was out, so I searched the interwebs and found this brand. I have been wanting to try Silk style PLAs, and since the price wasn't much more expensive, I decided to give it try and bought 3 spools. When it came in I decided to print one of the sample models included with my printer. It printed absolutely awesome. In fact one of my grandchildren still plays with it. Just before I started the job prints, my cooling fan shroud broke, so I printed a new one with this. It printed beautifully, but as I was installing it it came apart at a middle layer. Upon further inspection, I noticed it starting to have layer adhesion problems through the print. I ended up having three complete separations. I was able to glue them back together with CA glue, but what a pain in the @$$.I became nervous about success with the job prints. No surprise the first 6 attempts failed to even adhere to the build plate. I stopped using the SUNLU PLA Silk and returned to one of my personal standard PLS spools and it printed with minimal errors (any errors were mine, beginner remember). I tried it again with a different color standard PLA. Again same results, printed with minimum errors.I contacted SUNLU requesting guidance and they told me the print head temp and build plate temp () need to be higher than normal (210-230C and 60-80C respectively) for PLA SILK vs. standard PLA. Also the print bed NEEDS PVA glue to aid with adhesion. Finally, thinnest print height is required. They recommended .1mm layer height.I made the changes. First print had some very minor bed adhesion but the print was able to recover and finished the print very nicely. Print number 2. No Bueno!. First I noticed one corner not adhering to the print bed. At first it didn't appear to be bad and though the print would recover. Unfortunately after 24 hours I noticed several other locations lifting up as well. I stopped the print and removed the damaged print. The complete first layer wasn't even attached to the bottom of the print the lines just fell off in my hand. I checked all my settings and everything seemed fine. I decided to do a thorough cleaning of the build plate and make sure I had good PVA glue coverage before restarting. I decided if it didn't work this time I was going to return the 2 unopened spools for a refund. Third print finished this morning and looks absolutely amazing. Even better than the first large print with this filament.Lessons learned:1. Be sure to verify recommended print temperatures on the box. They're not printed on the spool's label like everyone else. My fault. Felt really stupid when I found them on the second box.2. Be sure everything is a trammed and level as you can possible get them.3. Be sure your built plate is as clean as you can possibly get it4. Use higher temperatures than normal PLA. My temperatures ended up being: a. Printhead: 215-220C (anything higher made the sheen of the SIlk appear dull). b. Build plate: 65-70C, (70 was required before I gave it a thorough cleaning and used PVA glue).5. Layer height: .12mm (one of the magic numbers of my machine. Look up magic numbers if you're not familiar with them. Make printing appear nicer.).Though I feel some of the errors with my first prints were my fault, I am giving a 3-Star review due to the overall difficulty I had with finally getting a usable print. Comment about the tolerances, the two spools I have used so far are within the stated tolerances.Would I recommend this filament? Sure but only with the caveat there are issues. Once these are overcome the prints looks fantastic.Sorry for such a long review and thanks for taking the time to read the entirety of this. I hope this helps you decide.Update 7/10/2020:All I can say is I am changing my mind about this filament. I just finished unit #4 and thought it looked amazing while it was still on the print bed. However, once I removed it, the first layer immediately started peeling from the print. I have followed all the recommendations of the company and experimented a little myself. 3D printing is supposed to be fun and exciting. This is not fun and exciting. Congratulations to all the users who have had good luck with this filament. I, myself, will not ever buy it again. Nor can I in good conscience recommend it to anyone. When it prints well it is beautiful. But I no longer feel there are any consistent methods to print this filament. Due to the size of the units I am printing for work, I only get 2 units/1kg spool. I have to go back to standard PLA. Good luck.

img 1 attached to Silk PLA Filament, SUNLU Neatly Wound Shiny PLA 3D Printer Filament 1.75Mm Dimensional Accuracy +/- 0.02Mm, Fit Most FDM 3D Printers, Good Vacuum Packaging, 1Kg Spool (2.2Lbs), 330 Meters, Silky Black review by Jayme Newitt



Pros
  • This is a good all-around filament…I highly recommend
Cons
  • Can be brittle and break easily