The filament has a diameter of 1.75mm and an ideal printing temperature of 210°C. In addition, the filament does not shrink during cooling and with this ultra-strong PLA you will hardly suffer from warping. For best results, print with a heated bed at a temperature between 60°C and 80°C. For example, Sunlu recommends printing their regular PLA with a speed of 40-100 mm/s, while capping their speed recommendation for their PLA+ filament at 80 mm/s. While there’s no one answer to this disparity, it’s likely because the higher printing temperature required for PLA+ limits the filament extrusion. To get the best from our filament, start at 195C and work from there. Our filament works well at a lower temperature than many others. You will need cooling to work with PLA, and to ensure bed adhesion, we would recommend heating it to 60C if you can along with a suitable spray or pen adhesive. First off, the additives used for PLA+ filament make the material’s melting temperature higher, so you’ll have to use a higher nozzle and bed temperature than standard PLA. Because of this, printing issues like under-extrusion, over-extrusion, and stringing tend to be more common with PLA+ filament.

However, if you’re printing any functional part and still want a very effortless printing experience, PLA+ is for you! This enhanced version of PLA boasts many improved mechanical properties, including higher thermal resistance, tensile strength, impact resistance, and dimensional accuracy. It even yields smoother prints! Metal - Stainless steel, copper, brass, iron, and conductive metal powders can be added to PLA to create a filament that can be sanded and buffed to create prints that are extremely similar to metal in appearance and characteristics. In the sections below I’ll cover the main differences, including their surface finish, dimensional accuracy, strength, heat resistance, and more. Surface FinishThere are many different PLA blends available, although adding materials to PLA can make 3D printing more difficult and even reduce the physical properties of PLA.

Most 3D printing enthusiasts don’t start out printing ABS because you need an enclosure, a high-temperature heated bed, and a fine-tuned slicer profile to print it well. But, for users that are comfortable dealing with print quality issues and troubleshooting, ABS is a terrific alternative to PLA+.The different mechanical properties of PLA and PLA+ mean each is better suited for very different applications. Dimensional accuracy is very important if you need your 3D prints to be a certain size to fit in, on, or around another part. Typically, the better the tolerance of a filament, the more dimensionally accurate the prints will be. Because PLA and PLA+ are sourced from most of the same raw materials, what post-processing techniques you can use are all the same. The only minor difference is that PLA+ prints tend to be smoother from the get-go than PLA parts, so the sanding process might take less time. But, regardless, I don’t recommend using PLA for any flexible prints, as it is nowhere near as flexible as TPU and Nylon. Environmental Friendliness