What's the latest on 3rd party plastic and filament holders?

[UPUPandAway]

I've been incredibly happy with my UP! prints using the PP3DP plastic, but I can't help but notice how much cheaper the stuff on eBay, etc. is. Has the quality gone up in the past few months since I've last ventured out into the web? Is it worth grabbing a 2.2 lb or even 5 lb chunk of plastic to save some money or does it just lead to more failed prints and print problems? Quality is the #1 priority for me, no filament is worth prints with errors or that fail altogether, but if the plastic out there (especially in different colors, dying to print in black) is good, I'd like to try it. As an added note, what is the most common/best methods of holding these super-sized filament spools since they won't fit on the stock spool holder?

[superace]

Me too! Super happy with the UP! About super-sized rolls the easy answer is "Raid your kitchen"! Get a big plastic box, something round and strong plus a knife and 3 minutes later you have a perfect holder. Or you could print one but nah a kitchen raid is easier. I bet if you find a big enough box you could store the ABS in it permanently and just bring out whatever box you need for printing. I will try this when I get my boxes.

Now what can you put in your holder? Well, officially UP! plastic of course.... Or second source for 15USD/kg. I am located in the land of ABS so I do not suffer from shipping costs. The only problem I have seen so far is that the non-UP plastic seems to print best at a slightly lower temp. How can I tell? Well the supports made when printing are kind of hard to remove. And the print sticks almost too good to the base. Warping? Sure it is ABS but not too bad. Smell? Not much at all, not more than the UP! ABS. On the good side most of my things are engineering parts that I use is products and the layers stick very well so little risk of de-lamination. The V7 wind thingy seems better while using non-official plastic because it cools the print better. In V8 the flow is much smaller because of the flap. The flap is covering the fan even when fully open. At least that's what I think. Best would be a wind part that did not use cooling while printing raft and base and then cooling for the print. This would make the raft stick better to the perf or glass. I understand from other postings that quality differs from supplier to supplier when it comes to diameter. These are 1.75 -+0.1 and I see no feeding problems so far with the standard printer setup.

The rolls on the table are all ABS. The Green and Super Yellow are UV flourescent, all others are normal but the orange is also UV reactive. I tried to get glow-in-the-dark also but they were fresh out of that one.

[eyUP]

The only problem I have seen so far is that the non-UP plastic seems to print best at a slightly lower temp

That's what I've found with other coloured ABS. The main problem being that you can't separate the model from the bottom interface, apart from that the prints came out fine.
I've found that some coloured ABS is far better than others, some just grind away the filament.
If UP! could add a nozzle temperature setting (eg, 230/240/250/260 oC) then it would greatly help with coloured / other ABS - whether they'd really want to is another matter!
It's worth noting that coloured prints show up small flaws much more than white, so lower your expectations slightly.

[wackojacko]

The majority of coloured filament are not exactly 1.75mm like the pp3dp white, therefore the 3D printed models are not as good quality as the white.

www.3dprintingsystems.com

[superace]

I can not see much difference in the print quality of UP! White ABS and my other colors. Yes they look a bit different (of course the do because of color) and you might think they are more "lined". From my tests I think this is more an optical illusion and from other experiences I can tell plastic parts made from dark colors are more likely to high-light defects. Light colors like white and yellow are more forgiving.

It is also clear that the color pigment makes the ABS behave a bit different from color to color. I am not yet sure if that is a good or bad thing.

So far I am really happy with my UP! and even more happy now when I can get many colors for a reasonable price.

[JuliaDee]

I messed with a number of different spool holder schemes before settling on this. It's from an allegedly "parametric" design posted on Thingiverse but I found that it only worked with the author's parameters, so I just designed my own with fixed dimensions for the Octave spools and some bearings I had laying around.

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