HD PLA Fiberlogy from Fiberlab – filament test

Fiberlogy appeared for the first time on 3D Printing Days in Kielce in 2016. The mysterious company gave their PLA filaments and ensured that they are revolutionary.  Is it a real revolution or just a boloney?

Why HD PLA is so unique? According to press release of the manufacturer the materials behaves like ABS, when you put your 3D prints into oven for 10-15 minutes and heat them in temperature of 80ºC. Besides its mechanic resistance, it should be resistant to temperatures up to 140ºC. 3D prints should also be easier to treat. I wanted to check it.

The filament is available in 17 colours:  white, grey, graphite, black, beige, red, blue, navy blue, yellow, burgundy, brown, purple, pink, green, light green, orange.  I received spools f white and red. To be honest, first I received a blue spool, but after some problems with printing during the trade, the manufacturer gave me another one.  It is normal, that you can purchase a faulty one, so I treated it like a standard mistake.  A control measurement of diameter is 1,71-1,78 mm.

A spool is really eye-catching. It looks like a GPS RTK transmitter. A 0,85-kilogram spool costs 33,15 € netto (till 31.05.2016 is available in a bonus price 26 € netto). It is relative high price, because 1 kg of the filament costs 39 €. This is rather an offer for a business customer, than for an enthusiast of 3D printing.

All of the tests were carried out with 3D Gence One, and data was prepared on software Simplify 3D. A temperature of print was set on 220ºC, and for workbed  60ºC .

On every box you can find a suggestion of adding of raft to each print, because it shrinks more than traditional PLA. One of the representatives of the company informed me, that your prints can have better quality, when you use adhesive stickers COROPad. I wanted to check it.

Did this ship set a right course?

I decided to verify its “adhesion” on 3DBenchy.  The first attempt resulted in failure. My 3D print peeled of the workbed. That is why I used some glue with PVP. This time everything was all right. Playing with glue is not a pleasant experience. The next try was carried out using COROPad. Effects were more than satisfactory. What is more, I had some problems with removing it.

Both of them have a good quality, but the white one looks a bit better.

Coffee or tea?

To carry out a test for thermic resistant I printed 3 coffie cups. Two of them were printed from white HD PLA and the third one from normal, cheap, white PLA. To be sure, none of them had a good quality but it may depend on model or parameters of print, because all of the faults look pretty same. It is the sign, that generally it is harder to print from a white filament.

Three is better than one

Next, I chose the red filament to print out a figurine of a pirate. This time effects were perfect and there is nothing to pick on.

Because of power cuts (3 times…) I received 3 figurines.

… and I couldn’t have refrained to paint one of them.

It’s time to cook!

I wanted also to check the most important “function” of the filament – heating it in the oven. To be sure, I almost resigned from this part of the test because I had problems with finding an industrial oven. Of course I’ve got an oven home, but I wasn’t convinced, if it would be proper to carry out this attempt. Thanks for Andrzej Pipala, an owner of photo camera’s service Fotoelektronik, I could have used a professional oven.

Test 1 – 3DBenchy

I put a red boat into oven. At first glance it looked like a white one. I decided to check their resistance for temperatures and test how to treat it.

As you can see (or not) treatment is easier in case of the model which was put into oven. After dipping them in boiling water it was easy to remove their funnels. The white boat was more plastic and the red model was tougher and I couldn’t have changed its structures.

Test 2 – coffee cups

As I mentioned before, I printed one cup from standard PLA and two from HD PLA. I put a standard one and one from HD into oven. The cup from HD PLA didn’t change after taking it out and from PLA was bigger and its diameter was bigger. The aim of the test was to pour some boiling water into them and leave it for one minute.

As you can see, both of them are plastic, but in my opinion HD PLA was tenderer. The biggest surprise was a cup made from HD PLA which I put into oven. It was a little bit deformed, but it was still more durable.

Test 3 – Where is a cross?

I printed crosses to measure a level of shrinkage depending on filling. Parameters are presented below.

Their shrinkage was that small, that measurement with normal callipers didn’t show any dependency. I decided to check how it would look like in case of crosses which wee put into oven. Models with bigger filling tended to bend.

Summary

I find the filament HD PLA quite positive. Models made from the red filament were better. The tests showed, that the filament has in fact better mechanic and thermic resistance, when you put it into oven. If you have an oven, which you don’t use to prepare dishes and you don’t care about the relative high price of the material, it is worth to buy.