Give us PLA already! (please)

I want to provide some evidence that PLA is by far the strongest material when layers are being stressed. I don't have a Zortrax yet - though I think it is my next printer. This was done on an M2.

 
I printed hexagonal rods and filled a bucket with water while supporting the bucket from the rods. When the rod broke, I turned off the water, and weighed it. The two strongest were the MakerGear PLA and the ColorFabb PLA-PHA. Both not only supported the bucket with 48 lbs of water in it, but I could even bounce it up and down. When doing so, the MakerGear broke. I was not able to break the PLA-PHA at all until I used pliers. I made up guesstimated weights for those, but the real value is probably higher for both. The lesson here is, if you want to print a part that will be stressed in a way that will try to separate layers, then PLA is king. If you want a part that pulls on the material - did that test also. PC is best, followed by PolyMax, then PLA-PHA, then PETG. I didn't test regular PLA for that though.
 
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Very cool.

But where is the jig you used to hold the 3D printed rods?

Holding 'em by hand would greatly scew the results dependent on how close your fingers were to the pressure-point.

Very cool.

But where is the jig you used to hold the 3D printed rods?

Holding 'em by hand would greatly scew the results dependent on how close your fingers were to the pressure-point.

I'm not going to question a guy that can hold a 48lb bucket of water with two finger like that!!!! lol

I did hold them with my fingers (not like in the photo, but two fingers on each side). A jig would be better, but I came to the conclusion that if I had to put any more time into it, it was not going to happen. Most YouTube videos that test strength just have some guy breaking the samples with pliers and describing how difficult it feels. This is way better than that. I don't think that a jig would change the ranking of the materials - all it would do is reduce the deviation from sample to sample. I would love for someone to do a larger and more perfect test.

This morning I redid the PETG at 255 and 260°C but at 60mm/sec, and the results were the same as the 250C test at 40mm/sec.  

On my previous pull test, I saw that PolyMax was stronger than PLA-PHA - though I am not sure by how much since it was a tug-o-war. But now I see that PLA-PHA has much better bonding, so it makes me think perhaps PLA-PHA is better than PolyMax. PolyMax forgot to put layer bonding on their chart that compares materials.

Perhaps Zortrax, not being too excited about PLA, can stomach it as a PLA-PHA. It has the layer bonding benefit of PLA, but without the brittleness. It doesn't warp or split. It doesn't smell when printing. The main weakness compared to ABS is less high-temp resistance, but for parts that won't be subjected to high heat, it is great stuff.

I want to retest the PC at 300 and 315°C to see if I can get it to rank higher for layer bonding.

Perhaps you could just 3D print a jig that you can then hold in your hands?

All you would need is something that holds the materials at the same gap, because when you only have a gap of... say 1", then if your fingers are only 0.1" off-target, you just changed the "gap" by 10% (which is likely a huge difference when testing breaking-strength). That being said, if your tests were w/ a gap of 6" and you didn't use a jig, that +/- 0.1" finger-fault wouldn't be nearly as big a deal.

I love that your'e doing this, just tryin' to help.

PLA is too temperature sensitive for my liking. It melts and deforms in a closed car on a sunny day while Z-ABS will not.

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The obvious response is "Don't use standard PLA for things that are going into hot environments", just as you don't use flexible material for things that need to be rigid. There are PLAs rated for higher temperatures, such as that made by ProtoPasta. Each material has its uses.

If you purchased the M200 on the promise of potential future functionality, I'm afraid you have to pay the price of early adoption sometimes. Buying into technology at this stage is a risk, and to believe otherwise is unrealistic. Sometimes you roll the dice and loose. However I don't think Zortrax should supply PLA because of a promise. It should either be supplied purely on technical/commercial merits, or not at all, but ultimately it is their decision to make. If they can see a commercial advantage of a development program to support PLA along with good technical benefits, then I guess they'll do it. If they don't, it's not going to happen. They should be free to change their mind about future decisions rather than being held to a promise they no longer feel is a direction they feel is right. Personally I agree with a previous poster about other more useful materials. I don't mind PLA being added, but not at the expense of materials that have significantly different mechanical properties.

I bought an Ultimaker 2 on the grounds it would print ABS, and it does, kind of. The infinite settings and variables make it hard to get good results without many failed prints first.  As an early adopter I have to chalk that one up to experience and move on, which I have done with the M200 which was primarily launched as an ABS printer with the intended future release of other materials. It seems that Zortrax have changed their minds about PLA. If you bought the M200 because of PLA, it looks like you backed the wrong horse.

You'd be better off keeping the M200 for ABS and whatever materials the Z-team does release and buying a different printer for PLA for which there are many to choose from, and none of which print ABS as well as the M200.

And if you want to sell because of no PLA then I will buy your V1 version for 500 bucks! hahah lol 

c'mon that was funny! lol

Careful of what you wish for. The machine works perfectly as is with ABS. I haven't seen a machine that works flawlessly and prints both PLA and ABS (and/or other composites). So if Zortrax changes the software and hardware to accommodate both, and you have more failed prints, well...

Well... Zortrax prints not only ABS. Ultrat, Z-Glass and Z-Hips aren't ABS. So, is PLA the villain?

Careful of what you wish for. The machine works perfectly as is with ABS. I haven't seen a machine that works flawlessly and prints both PLA and ABS (and/or other composites). So if Zortrax changes the software and hardware to accommodate both, and you have more failed prints, well...

Look at the forums. Z-Glass isn't successful. And it's not just a melt temperature issue. The code needs to accomodate for lots of variables differently.

I print PLA successfully here on the M200 on a daily basis. It has not affected how well the machine prints ABS :)

Careful of what you wish for. The machine works perfectly as is with ABS. I haven't seen a machine that works flawlessly and prints both PLA and ABS (and/or other composites). So if Zortrax changes the software and hardware to accommodate both, and you have more failed prints, well...

More ice-cream is sold during the summer and also more people go swimming in the summer. Conclusion? Swimming must make people want ice-cream.

The point: be careful not to mix correlation with causation. 

@Julia

You are printing PLA on the M200? What are your settings? Do you use standart PLA or somthing like PLA90?