Cheap filament: The case against

2 x 1kg spool of cheap grey filament for the price of 1? What could possibly go wrong here? Turns out, quite a lot...

I've been wanting some of the grey stuff for a while now and when the opportunity popped up via Ozbargain to grab two spools for the price of one, well I jumped at it. Because most models I've ever built have started off as grey (or white) plastic and after using the white stuff, I figured it would be worth a try. (Hilariously it was quicker for this stuff to arrive from overseas than the ones my wife ordered from across the country but that's Aus Post currently punching on with Covid more than anything else..)

WHAT IT DOES DO WELL 

Basic objects like these Stratego pieces although on occasion you still have to do a little filing to smooth things out like those weird strands hanging about on the left one there.

Scenery pieces like this mini Japanese lamp. A bit of filing and prep work and it paints up just fine.

THINGS IT DOES NOT DO WELL

Anything that requires fine detail as this is where things come a little unstuck.

This pre-supported Ork boss (via HumbleBundle) was one of the better prints with this cheap grey stuff but still required quite a lot of clean up in scraping, filing and getting rid of all the excess flakes that came with the print. 

What happened to his back??

During this years early Black Friday sale at MyMiniFactory, I picked up the Goblin Bolt Thrower Team that Duncan Shadow created (the guy behind my fav Gobbo models) for half price. Unfortunately they suffered from the cheap stuff too, coming out pretty rough with plenty of things to trim, whittle down and file away to get them looking even remotely human. 
I mean Goblin.

(As I write this I'm currently printing the 3rd Goblin of this set and the bolt thrower itself in white PLA+ to see how that goes in comparison.)

Finally the first time I printed this Axe Man (Humble Bundle) it was a complete disaster as you couldn't see where the pre supports ended and the actual model began. Not even willing to try and save it, it hit the bin instead and for round two, I printed him slightly bigger. This helped marginally but even on my best settings, he still came out rough.

It even snapped during one print. There was a crack, the printer use what was left in the pipe and then printed with nothing until I stopped it. Why it snapped I have no idea, possibly a bad batch? (I'm yet to try to second reel yet...)

I'M STILL WORKING ON SOLUTIONS

-Normally for my Tecor white PLA+ I have the heat set at 215 but I'm dialling it down for the grey stuff to trial 200. That's the lowest the sticker on the reel suggests so we'll start from there and increase by 5 to see if there's any improvement room in there.

BUT OTHERWISE I MAY JUST STICK TO THE NAME BRANDS..

Tecor has been great, eSun has worked well, CC DIY has been okay. But definately think twice before saving a couple of bucks on filament because you may just be causing yourself more headaches than anything else in the long run..