Going to do some trimmer line testing,

Going to do some trimmer line testing, this pile is about 60 bucks from homedepot. I tried the purple which is less than 1.75mm and seemed to initially work but had trouble feeding through (i have parts to upgrade the stepstruder with a spring pinch clamp today. The green which was i think 2 to 2.2mm didn’t seem to load at all into the hot end (using a makerbot rep2x so not sure how big the “hole” is on the upper portion of the hot end yet as i’ve not disassembled the stepstruder yet. Anyone else have success with a particular brand? What were there software/settings you used to obtain those results and did you have to modified your stock hardware to do so?

I look forward to seeing your results.

This is what informal materials research in manufacturing looks like.

Don’t these have carbon fiber in them? I thought this was the main problem with the weedwacker line.

i think all of the other lines are too large for my hot end. I think the largets is the ruby colored one that is 3.9mm, and as I mentioned not even the green filament would melt when fed and caught by the feed mech, so i’m not sure how large of entry the rep2x has for its hot end. The purple feed was less than 1.75mm and was flowing fine but would get caught up/jam in the hot end, which was the same issue i was having with pla, clogged head and or half prints. Anyone know how large the opening in the hot end is for the rep2x? Maybe i could make up a device with a razor blade to split a filament in two? Could maybe use it to "combine two halves of filament for some interesting color combos :smiley:

my understanding is some can have fiberglass (not carbon fiber) which means you need to raise the temp pretty high to get it to print.

Most of the ones I picked up are from the rhino line or trimmer from jared applied materials. If someone could find the white paper on those products would be awesome.

Vent well, these could be toxic. They are made from a mixed bag of plastics and leftovers.

Not to dissuade you or anyone else – but if you think about what it’s used for, you know that these are not made with any particular care for quality, precision, or even consistency. You might get lucky and get one particular spool that works, but don’t be surprised if the next time you try to get the same item, it turns out to be made differently than the last one. Also, the plastic isn’t being selected for its remelting/adhesion characteristics, so any successful find could well be a lucky accident that may or may not be repeatable. It’s a bit like overclocking - just because you find one batch that is successful, doesn’t mean that it’s always going to turn out that way.

so looks like the only two that will work is the purple which i think is like 2.0mm and a clear spool (not pictured here but was very expensive so why bother) the nozzle’s opening JUST fits on the rep2x. so looks like I’ll have to return a bunch of these… glad i kept the receipt :wink: the purple kind of worked. printing out the new stepstruder portion tonight in black abs hopefully using the new one with a better pinch mechism will feed the filament in better and not clog as much.

what’s the eliminating factor for the other rolls? Too wide?

yep they won’t even feed into the hot end. I just took apart my step
struder last night and saw that the bare hole wasn’t much bigger than the
filament so its might be around 1.90 or even 2.0 mm (when i take it apart
again for the upgrade i can use my calipers and check again. The purple I
think when i measured the thickness was around 1.95 to 2.0 mm the green
which i tried but didn’t go in at all was i believe listed as 2.0 mm but
when i measured it was more like 2.1 to 2.2 mm. Sad really as I was hoping
for some really day-glowy type of prints with this cheap filament you can
get practically anywhere. I’ll still likely use the purple as its both
cheap and readily available, that is as long as it doesn’t clog with the
new feed mechanism. Then again usually when its been failing is when i’ve
been trying to print out at 100 microns, so it might be fine for 200 to 300
microns for just basic pieces that don’t need much detail.