Polymaker – PolyLite – PETG – Gold -1kg – 1.75mm

Description

Polymaker expanded their PolyLite easy printing range into PETG filament with an array of wonderful colours and great mechanical strength to match. PETG filament is considered a blend between ABS and PLA, made from Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) with Glycol additives. This ideal material is used for all kinds of functional prints that need to withstand real-world forces. Makers print with PETG when their 3D projects must take a light to moderate knock without cracking, deforming, or otherwise becoming structurally unstable and unusable. This makes PETG great for printing handguards on motocross bikes, scratch plates for sleek enclosures, handles for cupboards and storage compartments, and pretty much any other applications that may be exposed to the odd bump, knock, scrape, or similar type of harsh force.

This 1kg of Polymaker PolyLite PETG Filament offers a vibrant gold and great heat resistance when compared to other options. Where PLA would fail, you use PolyLite PETG for light fittings, vibrating parts, or an awesome decoration that won’t break soon as it’s knocked over. This PolyLite PETG provides a descent impact strength and viscat temperature resistance up to 84°C to withstand your everyday functional project needs. Polymaker promises a fantastic blend of function and easy printing with their PolyLite smooth printing technique. These characteristics make it a great all-round material for pretty much anything you want to print.

Polymaker cherry-picked their PolyLite range to be a beginner-friendly filament family, a group of fantastic multipurpose 3D filaments for everyday projects. PolyLite filaments have a particularly vibrant range of colours and are made for smooth printing. Polymaker is passionate about creating quality, premium-level filaments for all Makers without breaking the bank. We are constantly impressed with their colourful and smooth polymers that print with an ease we almost can’t believe. PolyLite is the perfect filament to try out something new or a fun, interesting colour.

Helpful Tips for Printing with Polymaker PolyLite PETG Filament:

3D Printing with the durable and slightly flexible PETG polymer is quite a unique experience, as it offers very similar characteristics to ABS, but uses very similar printing specifications to PLA. This is why many 3D Makers argue that PETG is the perfect balance between ABS and PLA polymers, offering high strength but also being relatively easy to print with compared to some of the filaments and polymers with stricter parameters.

However, if you really want to get the most out of your PETG prints, and enjoy both durable and aesthetically awesome-looking results, we’ve collected following insights, which we feel are some of the most important factors, and which we feel are the most important factors to experiment with when “dialling in” your 3D Printer:

• PETG Printing Tips – First Layer Adhesion: Although it may come as second nature to try and get the squishiest squish-factor around for all kinds of filaments and polymers, PETG is a little different, and actually shouldn’t be squished too hard for the first layer. In fact, it’s good practice when printing with PETG to have your first layer print at around 125% of the defined layer height. This will give it the ability to “grab” the following layers more effectively, and because PETG layers tend to bond well to each other, this dramatically helps with the overall print quality. This is primarily due to the glass transition temperature of around 85°C for PETG, as well as how the heatbed draws heat away from the first layer due to the direct contact with the thermally conductive heatbed.
• PETG Printing Tips – Effective Bridging: With PETG Filament, one of the more difficult factors to get right is bridging between parts, as PETG tends to sag quite dramatically due to the high temperatures required for printing. However, it’s important to note that this is more so for opaque than transparent colours, as the colourants can affect the overall chemical composition of the material being printed. As such, it will take some time to dial in just right, depending on the colour and brand you’re using, but for most cases, it’s prudent to print bridges quite slowly, turn the fan on if you’ve got it off, and then define a bridge overlap of around 1mm. This will help prevent the bridging strands from curling upwards as they’re printing, while also adding some strength to the edges so the strands stick well and don’t pull themselves loose.
• PETG Printing Tips – Strength vs Aesthetics: This factor is certainly one that we love about PETG, and is also a factor that seems quite undervalued in most 3D Maker communities, but with PETG filament you can actually distinctly choose whether you want to focus more on durability and strength, or aesthetics and detail quality. In fact, choosing which you would like to focus on is as simple as defining whether the fan is turned on or off for the print, as printing PETG with the fan on tends to produce a great surface finish, while printing PETG with the fan off helps with layer bonding and lamination, lending itself well to high-strength parts instead. Of course, you could always choose the best of both worlds by printing for strength and post-processing for aesthetics, but if you’re not interested in post-processing your prints afterwards, then the above rule is quite easy to utilise for whatever application your print is being made for.

• PETG Printing Tips – Infill & Top Layers: While it’s typical for people to assume that higher levels of infill result in higher strength prints, the truth is that high infill doesn’t always equal strength, and oftentimes an object with a good internal structure is far stronger than a solid object. As such, it’s important to tailor your infill percentages according to each specific print, and then tailor the number of top layers according to the level of infill. The reason for the differing amount of top layers is because if you are printing with less than around 40% infill, the top layers can easily sink into the infill pattern, resulting in blotchy or patchy top layers. So, if your infill is set to 40% or lower, consider adding up to three extra top layers, allowing for the first one or two layers to fall into the infill spaces, with the remaining top layers producing a strong and aesthetically pleasing top surface.

Although this section of 3D Printing Tips is longer than usual, we feel that these are all equally important for 3D Makers who really want to get maximum strength or detail quality from this fantastic polymer. However, this list isn’t at all exhaustive, and we encourage you to go out and find even more great insights, and be brave in your experimentation. You may even reveal a completely new secret that nobody knew about, and because 3D Printing is still a relatively new hobby for most people, your findings could certainly earn you some internet points if shared with the right communities.

Additional Resources:

• See the Download tab on the top of this description to get the Datasheet, Safety Sheet, and PolyLite PLA Printing Tips from Polymaker.
• Polymaker themselves put together this great introduction video about their PolyLite PETG filament’s best features and project uses: