Tactink 1.75mm Grey PLA PRO (PLA+) 3D Printer Filament 1KG Spool (2.2lbs), Dimensional Accuracy +/- 0.03 mm, Gray

My Red spool of Tactink 1.75mm PLA arrived very quickly, thanks to Amazon Prime. First impressions after opening the box were good, it was a relief seeing the spool very well vacuum packed with the standard silica packet. After that lovely sound of air rushing in from opening a fresh vacuum packed spool (3D printing enthusiasts know what I mean) I went to check the diameter with my caliper. I was pleased to find the spool was pretty dead on at 1.75mm (as seen in pictures). The next thing I did was grab another spool of a slightly more expensive, common and high quality filament in my collection. I am looking at the picture of the two spool side by side and it is hard to tell much of a difference between them. The color is extremely important to me, because most “red” filament tends to either run more pink or orange than red. Thankfully this Tactink 1.75mm PLA is affordable AND the color is actually red.Loading the filament in my printer was standard and simple. I was happy that the center mounting hole of the spool was large and fit a standard flash forge creator spool holder. The spool fits loosely on the holder, but as my printer is close to a wall this was not an issue for me. Normally, spools tend to have a much smaller center mounting hole, which requires you to print or buy a specialized holder. Once everything was mounted and loaded I opened a STL file for Ooze/Retraction Testing from thingiverse (thing:15087) into Simplify 3D. Here are the settings I started out with using my all metal hotends printed on plain mirror glass, cut and supplied by the local hardware store (your settings may vary):Extrusion Multiplier of 0.95Retraction Distance of 1.15mmRetraction Speed of 1400mm/minPrimary Layer Height of 0.2mmFirst Layer Height of 87%First Layer Width of 100%First Layer Speed of 50%Default Printing Speed of 3000mm/minX/Y Axis Movement Speed of 2500mm/minZ Axis Movement Speed of 1400mm/minHeated Build Platform Temp of 75C for layer 1 and then down to 70C the other layersExtruder Temp of 193C (200C printed a little better)Part Cooling Fan is set to OFF for the first 3 layers and then 100% for every layer beyond.My first print with the extruder temp of 193C came out pretty clean and had good strength. However, I reprinted the same test and bumped the extruder temp up to 200C and saw some improvements. I have supplied the pictures of the 200C printed piece directly from the printer without any supports or clean up at all. It’s obvious that this is indeed quality filament and it shows from the accurate red color that is not the unwanted pink or orange most other companies are selling. Also, the picture does a pretty fair job showing how there is no stringing and a pretty clean surface without any major defects like under-extrusion or blobbing that is common on lesser quality filament that are not dimensionally accurate throughout the spool. With Tactink’s lower price, high quality and availably I may just make this my new primary filament company after trying out more colors.

A little bit of information that may be relevant before reading this review. I am a 3D Printing enthusiast with thousands of hours of printing time, and I also run a hub on 3D Hubs. I run a FlashForge Creator Pro 2016 with a Micro Swiss All Metal hot end and have experience in printing everything from PLA and ABS up to Polycarbonate, Nylon, and metal exotics with up to high 80s percentage of metal composite.This review is for Tactink’s White PLA 1.75mm. I ordered the filament on April 10th 2017 with Prime Two Day shipping and received it on April 11th 2017. Shipping was incredibly fast and was even faster than the free two-day Prime shipping as I happened to be just a few hours away from the warehouse it shipped from.PACKAGINGThe packaging was a simple brown box with a window cutout to see the filament roll inside along with a sticker indicating the batch number, material, color, and recommend temperatures. Nothing fancy, but we don’t need fancy. That would just incur more cost that would have to be included in the final price. Include in my box was the vacuum sealed roll of filament with a desiccant pack inside. Also included was a resealable bag that I assume is to store the roll when not in use and help protect it from moisture. This was not needed for me as I already have a dry box storage setup for my filaments but it is a nice touch for those who do not. The vacuum sealed roll still had a very tight vacuum which is good. Even some other premium brands do not have a good seal.SPOOLThe spool itself is nice and has cutouts to see how much filament you have left on the roll. The wind on the spool looks nice and so far have had no tangles due to the winding. The internal diameter of the spool is around 75mm and the height of the spool is roughly 70mm. I weighed the filament and the spool and it came in at 1128g, or approximately 2.5lbs.RAW FILAMENTI measured the raw filament with a digital caliper and after many measurements along the spool all measurements were within the advertised tolerance of 1.75mm +/- 0.05mm. The ovality of the filament looked fine as well. I also wrapped the raw filament around by finger to check for brittleness. This is a quick and dirty way to test for the impact resistance that is advertised for this filament as those additives also allow the raw filament to bend without breaking similar to ABS. I was able to wrap the filament around my finger multiple times without it ever breaking. It was incredibly tough and was not brittle at all. This initially supports the advertised claim of increased durability and impact resistance.PRINTSI did various prints ranging in temperature from 185C to 220C. I use a PrintBite print bed and for PLA I need at least a 65C bed for adhesion. I had to take this into account as that extra heat from the bed radiates up the part and can cause overheating depending on print speed and hotend temperature. However, unless the model was quite small I saw good results with 220C hotend and 65C bed at 60mm/s at 0.1mm layer heights. I will include pictures of prints that I have done with this filament such as a Benchy and Drogon the Dragon from Game of Thrones. All came out quite nicely. The color of this filament is a very bright white. It doesn’t not seem to have a yellowed tone to it as some other manufactures white filament does. The filament flows very smoothly and it is very fascinating to watch the printer as it prints very smooth lines. I noticed very little to no smell while printing. If there was a smell you had to basically stick you face right up next to the extruder and then it smelt very faintly sweet as PLA tends to smell.OVERVIEWThis is a very nice filament for the price and Prime shipping makes it even more appealing. It flows very nicely and it is very tough compared to standard PLA. I could compare it to premium USA Ingeo PLA blends. It will probably print hotter than most of standard PLAs but if you have a strong part cooling fan you shouldn’t have any issues. My FFCP has a weak part cooling fan and I could sometimes run into slight overheating on overhangs but this was not an issue with this filament but an issue that I experience with other PLAs with durability additives and is mainly due to my weak part cooling fan and needing 65c bed temperature due to PrintBite. Overall I recommend this filament as there are little to no downsides that I can find. It just prints as expected. Especially if you already have experience in PLA with additives.UPDATE 4/21/17: I have used up the whole spool now. Not a single tangle or anything due to the winding. So it is a good wind for sure. Empty spool weight is 150g for those who like to measure how much filament they have left.

The packaging on this was good, vacuum sealed with a small desiccant package.This is a very solid filament. It prints cleanly with just a little stringing, easily fixed with minor adjustments. the filament was very easy to feed into the extruder (direct drive), the extrusion is very easy and consistent and the color is extremely vivid and doesn't change at all during extrusion. The end print is very glossy which brings out the layer lines but isn't really good or bad. The hole in the spool seems excessively large compared to esun and hatchbox with rounded edges this may cause issues for some people, but you can always print a spool holder for it. The one thing I had trouble with was print bed adhesion. I've always used hairspray to hold the print in place and struggled to find the right combination of hairspray and heated bed to get a solid first layer. My initial print was a Lego man, and while the print completed, the head broke free of the print bed mid print requiring it to be reprinted at a later time. I followed that with MorenaP's treefrog that printed very well, comparable to other filaments I've used just shinier. If you look close, you can just barely see where the first layer tried to lift in the middle of one of the front toes but was pushed down by the next layer, again, something that I feel can be remedied with a little tweaking. This is a decent filament. I think it would make great prints once it's dialed in completely.

Bonito y transparente

Excellent quality good value durable print results. Nice bright vibrant colour.