Octave Now Selling Official Up! Filament

[JuliaDee]

And now 3D Printing Systems, from Down Under:

http://store.3dprintingsystems.com/inde ... ry&path=60

Of particular interest are "Crystal Clear" and "Starburst"; the latter has "tiny sparkles that reflect light". The lime green looks really nice too. Now I'm the one who's going to be paying outrageous shipping costs for filament from halfway around the world for a change!

[ata0921]

http://www.octave.com/ABS-Filament-Up!- ... index.html

Damn! That option wasn't available when I ordered a couple weeks ago. I would be interested to see if it still has the same characteristics as the Official stuff. I've got the official red ABS from Octave on the way, I'll be sure to post results here as soon as I get some prints going.

[teamcarlisle]

Just a heads up, I bought a spool of the officially formulated for up! black abs from octave.com and have had nothing but bad prints from it. the product was "OSI 3D Printer ABS Filament Formulated for Up! and Afinia, Black 1.75mm 1kg (2.2lbs) Spool" (copied directly from my invoice) The first thing I noticed after opening the package is that the filament feels "tacky" or slightly sticky to the touch. I thought that a little odd, but tried printing a few things. I think it might have been a film of sticky from the shrink wrap they covered the filament in.

This plastic is horrible, it is definitely NOT made for the Up! The plastic bubbles horribly, infill droops on most layer settings (I have not tried the 0.2mm setting) and its causing the motor in the extruder head to skip. I went back to their site, and noticed they no longer sell this particular spool. I just sent them an email inquiring if it was a bad batch or had known issues, will post if they reply. I was a little bummed to see that they are now charging more for less I paid $35 + $8.50 for shipping for a total of $43.50 for 1kg, now they only sell 700g spools for $41.50 with the cheapest shipping option at $11.18 for a total of $52.68. So far I have purchased a spool of "Natural ABS", "Blue ABS", and "Black ABS formulated for Up!) and the Natural ABS has been the only good plastic I got from them for this printer.

Is anyone else having problems with their plastic, or am I just having bad luck?

I attached a pic of an example of the black plastic causing skipping. Those holes in the flat part appeared every time I heard the motor skip. I have tried other plastics since and the prints were fine, even dissasembled the extruder to check for debris that might cause a skip, but it was all clean inside.

[teamcarlisle]

I might have posted my last post too soon. I unrolled probably 15ish feet of the filament until there wasnt anymore of that tacky feeling and cut it off. Now I'm not seeing any bubbling or skipping so far. I think the saranwrap that they covered the spool in was a bad idea and contaminated the outer layer of the filament on the spool. That was also the first time I ever got a spool that wasnt in a bad with desicant, it was just in a box, with saran wrap (plastic cling wrap) around the outer edge of the spool.

[goopyplastic]

ABS that has moisture in it will not print properly, although it should have been sealed. The good news is that it should be reversible once the moisture is removed.

It is suggested that you keep your filament in an air tight container with some sort of desiccant etc.. when not in use. I keep mine in a sterlite tub with one of these: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003QZ6PZ0/ when it is used up I can recharge it in the oven for a few hours, I prefer the cobalt free formulations because they are less toxic.

Glad to hear it is working better for you now!

[teamcarlisle]

I know about the moisture issue, but that wasnt the problem, it was that the plastic cling wrap they wrapped the spool in left a residue on the filament that made it sticky, I emailed Octave about it, this is what I got back from them this morning:

"Thank you for the information. We did discover the issue and have temporarily removed the product from our websites. Our president is currently in China to address this issue with the factory. We do not have this issue with the Octave brand of filament and have had tremendous success with this filament in the UP! Printers. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks!"

That statement partially doesnt make sense becasue the filament I bought was "Octave Brand" But who knows. Explains why its not sold on their website anymore.

[wackojacko]

If the spool is identical to the white that your printer came with then that is pp3dp filament

www.3DPrintingSystems.com

[twocycler]

This sounds exactly like the problem I had with Octave white filament. It arrived in a plastic bag with plastic cling wrap holding the filament tight on the spool. I initially had LOTS of skipping issues that gradually went away as the spool got used. I think you have discovered a real cause of the problem here. Thanks!

[teamcarlisle]

If the spool is identical to the white that your printer came with then that is pp3dp filament

http://www.3DPrintingSystems.com

Its not the same, Its wider (1kg spool instead of 700g, but its not the smaller spool like the original octave plastic) and the spool itself is actually two pieces screwed together (I'm actually looking forward to using up the plastic so I can use to spool for some of my older plastics that didnt come on a spool) Like I mentioned in my earlier post, this was their ABS that said it was specifically formulated for the Afinia and the Up! I bought it when it first became available, so I think their first run had issues.

[JuliaDee]

Octave has been "experimenting" with some new formulations. I tried some of their new "formulated for Up!" stuff - I don't like it, and told them so. Looks greasy and prints lousy, as teamcarlisle reports. The colors are weird too - the black looks greenish under certain light.

The original Octave filament is still great stuff, and they still sell it (although lighter colors usually give better results than darker, with black being the worst). I've been assured that they are not changing the original filament, and as long as they don't change it I'll keep buying it.

I do think they're also selling official pp3dp filament, and I've ordered a spool of black from them. Hopefully it will be the real deal; it'll be the first official pp3dp filament I've tried apart from the white that came with the printer.

[eyUP]

Hopefully it will be the real deal; it'll be the first official pp3dp filament I've tried apart from the white that came with the printer.

I was pleasantly surprised by the offical pp3dp black. It looks more matt than the other black prints I've seen which tend to look a bit "melted"..

[jmorro]

Tried the OSI brand of ABS filament for the UP! and found the product did not surpass or even meet the performance of Octave's regular ABS filament. The Octave brand of filament has worked well for me and it is at the best price point. I am going to stick with that!!

PS: Just got a message from Octave Systems saying they pulled the OSI filament off the market and they have some exciting new filament products that they will be announcing shortly. I am looking forward to that. Octave seems to be at the forefront of this ABS filament thing.

[Marcus]

So heres the grammophone printed at 0.2mm and 0.4mm both at normal speed. (I have not printed this before, but knew it would be a challenging print.) The 0.2mm actually looks like it will look good after being cleaned up. The 0.4mm just looks like crap. Long story short, the Octave Natural ABS seems like a good buy to me, as long as you arent trying to speed print anything at the 0.4mm setting. As for my previous mention of the Blue abs, I put it in a bad with a lot of dessicant packs after I posted about it, and will try again this weekend, and hope that it was just moisture in the plastic.

Thank you for trying to print my model, I just saw it in this thread Please consider using very low support settings, as elsewise it is impossible to remove the structure... I hope it works !

[teamcarlisle]

So heres the grammophone printed at 0.2mm and 0.4mm both at normal speed. (I have not printed this before, but knew it would be a challenging print.) The 0.2mm actually looks like it will look good after being cleaned up. The 0.4mm just looks like crap. Long story short, the Octave Natural ABS seems like a good buy to me, as long as you arent trying to speed print anything at the 0.4mm setting. As for my previous mention of the Blue abs, I put it in a bad with a lot of dessicant packs after I posted about it, and will try again this weekend, and hope that it was just moisture in the plastic.

Thank you for trying to print my model, I just saw it in this thread Please consider using very low support settings, as elsewise it is impossible to remove the structure... I hope it works !

Thankyou for uploading that to thingiverse by the way. I hope you didn't think I was trying to say its not a good object, its awesome, I was just using it as a benchmark for what I had thought was abs made for the up! (which I realized later was not) and the better of the two prints in that picture actually cleaned up ok, but I did break one or two parts in the process. I should probably point out it was only my second week since I got the printer. I'll remember the support tip for that file if I print it again though, thanks

[Fairly]

I just went from using pure UP! White to some Octave Fluorescent Yellow last night and it did not go well at all.

http://www.octave.com/p1173433104/Octav ... _info.html

It seems that about halfway through the print the machine just stops extruding. I'm assuming the filament feeder is slipping due to too-high temps?

I'm back to OEM white for the time being, I wasted many hours last night experimenting with the yellow...

[DrewPetitclerc]

It seems that about halfway through the print the machine just stops extruding. I'm assuming the filament feeder is slipping due to too-high temps?

After designing this I never have slippage or premelt problems, I have over 40 spools of ABS from almost every supplier and my printer never fails anymore.
You should try it.
http://pp3dp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f= ... 1d25#p5473

[Marcus]

Thankyou for uploading that to thingiverse by the way. I hope you didn't think I was trying to say its not a good object, its awesome, I was just using it as a benchmark for what I had thought was abs made for the up! (which I realized later was not) and the better of the two prints in that picture actually cleaned up ok, but I did break one or two parts in the process. I should probably point out it was only my second week since I got the printer. I'll remember the support tip for that file if I print it again though, thanks

Thanks I did not believe you where criticizing me, I can understand when models not printing right drives one nuts.
I think I have been lucky, my UP works without any modifications and without much maintenance necessary.
Most of my models are rather sloppy though, especially the daily-earring stuff. They usualy have design flaws and only print with the "print unsolid model" checkbox activated.
Also I think many of the models are close to the limits of the UP and FDM in general, as they have small and thin parts.