Experimentation and adhesion issues
Hi everyone,
I've gained interest in PHA a few months ago after watching a YouTube video, bought a few rolls of Colorfabb's ALLPHA, and had great difficulty printing it. It was put aside before discovering this sub around a week ago, and been looking around to glean tips and tricks.
So the last week I've been experimenting again with varying degrees of success, scaling up my prints in size and complexity.
I've been using 210 degrees for a first layer, 190 for subsequent layers, to decent effect with fidget things and small household items. Speeds are set between 40 and 100 mm/s depending. Using 3DLAC has been a must on my bambulab engineering plate (running without heat) for anything bigger than a benchy.
I finally got around to printing something bigger, a dice box for a game I play. Total size perhaps 200x200 mm. Took over 10 hours to print. Adhesion was almost perfect, 2 corners lifted by maybe 0.5mm. Problem now is when I tried to lift it off the plate it stuck too tight. Flexing the plate made the bottom layers start to tear off, using water to dissolve the glue helped but it still took a good 15 minutes, and the print is discoloured.
I like the general idea of PHA, but it is already easily 3 times more expensive than PLA. Taking into account that at least half of my prints fail, it is not a winning proposition for most of the things I want to make. My goal is to scale up to print cosplay armor, but for now that seems far out of reach.
I've attached some pictures of recent successes and failures. Any and all tips for printing with this stuff are welcome! I really want this to be my go-to material!