Hey, a US-Brand PLA, that’s what quite a few have been asking for, right?
This is Matterhackers PRO series PLA, their premium line of PLA filaments. The color I have here is translucent neon green, which I believe was a limited edition and it’s incredibly hard to film. It really is a bright, bright, green, which I like. I’ve also got a black spool that I could have tested, but that’s kinda boring.
The converted retail price is 43€ per kilogram, which is not dirt cheap, but reasonable, especially for what you’re getting. It prints just like any other PLA and your printer’s stock settings are going to work perfectly. Ease of use – not an issue at all. I tried temperatures from 190 to 220°C. which is the officially recommended range, and to be honest, the 3DBenchies just look identical. I did increase the extrusion multiplier to 110°C, as that gives nice, solid parts that give up their milky texture and turn translucent. Print quality is fantastic, it’s pretty much as good as it gets with any filament.
There is a tiny bit of fuzz, but that can be taken care of with a tiny bump in retraction length. Mechanically, it’s quite fascinating as well. Impact resistance is good for a PLA, but of course there are other materials that do better there, strength otherwise is actually top-notch. Layer adhesion is as good it gets, and the core material strength is excellent as well. It’s quite a rigid material, it doesn’t stretch a lot, but of course, it’s still a PLA, so it’s not going to withstand high temperatures well.
But all things considered, you’d be hard-pressed to find PLA that performs as admirably as Matterhackers Pro PLA across the board, so even though it’s my spreadsheet telling me to give it 5 flaming stars, I would personally not rate it any differently. Well done Matterhackers.
🛒 Matterhackers [📦🌐]