AU Rarity - Aurarum Made In Australia Filaments and Printers

 

The Hunt For The Printerpeople

When I started actually looking for parts and supplies for my then-still-very-new 3D printer I quite sensibly looked in Australia, and thanks to a great bunch of suppliers online, I went from feeling all isolated and dependent on overseas suppliers and the then very dodgy supply chain, to feeling much more secure knowing we had so many good businesses right here. 

Brucely the 3D printer (A Creality Ender3 Pro, hence the name. Puzzled? See if you can figure it out, and I'll put the explanation at the end of this article.) arrived here shortly before the Pandemic did. I ordered a spool of printing filament from the same overseas company that I bought Brucely from, but realised that a kilogram of filament doesn't last forever and then what would I do? 

To give some idea, here's how that all went: 

I ordered Brucely from Banggood.com (and here's how you can support me by triggering my affiliate commissions when you buy from them) on the same day as I ordered a spool of Creality filament. The printer was in stock in their Australian warehouse and I ordered it Thursday night and it arrived on Monday. OMG! 

  

Excitement in early April 2021 as this arrived...

The filament on the other hand . . . As I said, it was the early days of the pandemic and deliveries were experiencing delays. 

The printer luckily arrived with a smallish coil of filament to experiment with, and anyway it took me over an hour to assemble and align Brucely's chassis. Incredibly, it worked after my none too professional assembly and alignment, and the first print came off the TF card that was included with the printer. It took almost six hours to print . . . It also used up most of the filament sample, and it became a bit urgent to get another spool. 

My Wife The Amazon Huntress

My wife found some on Amazon, and that arrived within a week as they too had just recently opened an Australian fulfilment centre. Lucky me. (Both for having such a cool wife, and such good luck. But she's the Queen Of Online Comparison Shopping And Getting Bargains so I appreciate her assistance. ) I also learned that 3D printing involves a lot of nail-biting and patience when you first learn to trust the printer. 

Those spools lasted a while, and eventually (about six weeks later, yikes!) the original spool of Creality filament arrived as well, and I wasn't interested in becoming a prolific producer so that lasted until quite recently. 

But I also wanted to test different materials, so a few spools arrived here and there and were tested. One was quite low temperature and made for creamy smooth models if printed at the right temperature, one was balky and brittle but great for making first drafts and templates.

Some Local businesses Were Excellent

I emailed several Aussie companies that made filament locally and to my chagrin I realised that there was the obverse to that - some of them just. Didn't. Care. I got into an email conversation with one manufacturer who seemed to think that they couldn't be bothered with a private customer even though they are a public store, and in the end I felt a bit snubbed to tell the truth. 

There was another that touted themselves as a super-duper whoopie-doo store for printers, parts, and supplies like filaments. And to tell the honest truth, I was almost salivating at some of the materials they had in stock, and some of the colours. But you know what? The store was closed for the pandemic and they never bothered to respond to a single email. 

I sent an initial one, then a follow-up two months later, and then one more after the pandemic, and got not one response. And now I don't even keep their URL or contact details, I can do without the anger I felt at them.

I did find several resources, and Aurarum was THE discovery for me. They make their filament here, it's packaged beautifully, and prints really well. The colours range is good, as is their range of materials.

Even my shop supervisor Pickle was impressed.

Aurarum's colours left everyone very impressed, and I had to print a dozen trinkets for people to satisfy their love of those lush shades. Needless to say Aurarum are now a regular resource for me. Also they have printers assembled and made here, parts, are reasonably priced, and have good support.

But as all the best commercials say, "Wait! There's more!"  So here are the steak knives.

The Maker Store. It has a great range of Maker needs and materials. I didn't find filament but I did find V-slot wheels and bearings, and they have CNC requirements to make your own HUGE (full sheet) CNC routers to mills to engravers and everything in between. 

The aforementioned V wheels. I had some premature wear in Brucely's Y axis and emailed Creality who pretty much immediately said they'd send me a new set, but which took their time getting here, eight weeks by the time they arrived, so I looked around for a local supplier.

The Maker Store saved my bacon by having wheels here for me in a week and when I build my machines for recycling plastic they'll be top of my list for extrusions and parts in general.

I don't have to mention Amazon, do I? Since they've had their fulfilment warehouse here in Australia everything's just a few days away, which is generally GREAT for me when I really need to get a part ASAP. It's expensive compared to other suppliers but you can always make me a small donation to help me when push comes to shove and know that it will always be appreciated by this maker. 

One thing I regularly buy here though is the Xintong ZhiLian PLA filaments which have surprised the heck out of me by being good looking, good printing, and inexpensive, a person could do a lot worse than this filament. 

Also AliExpress, Banggood, and a range of other overseas suppliers. These take between 3 and 6 weeks to deliver, and sometimes even 6 months, it pays to have stock of 'speculative parts' if you build a lot of projects. 

I'll keep posting here with useful links as I find them. For the moment, have a look at Ted's News Stand, buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi, or even donate directly. It's always appreciated and helps me to get stuff done with RCX-AU.