You try to support local businesses. You have a problem with a product. You ask - not even for a replacement, just some explanation. You get - Well, I'll post a sterilised version of the email exchange:
The Email Exchange:
Tue, 24 Oct, (9 days ago)
to Sales@FilamentCo
About two years ago I bought three rolls of FilamentCo PLA in colours I needed for an order , then . . . (recently) . . . the filament just snapped while printing . . .
. . .(Omitted: Full explanation.) . . .
. . .(TL;DR: Three rolls of filament only two years old are crumbling and snapping like very thin uncooked spaghetti ) . . .
And I'm not complaining, just very curious to learn . . . hope you can solve this mystery for me
=====================================================
Oct 30, 2023
to Sales@FilamentCo
. . . (They aim to respond to emails within three days) . . .
Almost a week. Has this been an unusually difficult question? I really would like to learn what's happening with the filament, and how to avoid it happening again. Please can you give me some kind of response?
=====================================================
Sales@FilamentCo
31 Oct 2023
to me
Your request (35260) has been updated. To add additional comments, reply to this email.
FilamentCo Team (FilamentCo)
Oct 31, 2023, 07:02 GMT+11
Hi *******,
The filament is really old and all sorts of stuff might be hapenning.
Try to put it in the oven for few hours at around 65C and that should help
Kind regards,
FilamentCo Team
=====================================================
The Background:
Okay - I bought a few rolls of filament from an Aussie filament maker/supplier two years ago, and when I opened it way back then, it seemed a tad brittle compared to my other filaments - but it was also in great colours that I wanted for some ornaments, so I dealt with it. It was all ornamental items anyway...
The remnants of those spools stayed in my filament cabinet. Along with several remnants of even older filament. These details will become important as the story goes on. The filament cabinet has a solid state dehumidifier that keeps the inside at 30C and 30% pretty much rock steady. Got all that? Okay.
Okay a week before the first email I got those FilamentCo brand spools out and printed a few more luckily non-critical models that wer. . . Oh hang on. The filament snapped between the spool and the top of the extruder? Cleared the nozzle, put the filament back into the extru . . . and . . . WTH? Damn stuff snapped again as I was feeding it in.
Fed it in again and left it ready to restart the prints next morning, only when I checked next morning, the filament had snapped again - in mid-air. With everything turned off overnight, cabinet door closed, not even a stray breeze to disturb things.
So - I also had some XingTongZhiLian filament I'd bought a year before the FilamentCo filament and - it printed fine. Hence, the exchange with FilamentCo. That lot above. Had I not gently prodded the people at FilamentCo, I imagine they'd not even have bothered to respond.
But their answer really floored me.
Why?
This: ". . . filament is really old and all sorts of stuff might be hapenning . . ."
Whut? So filament they sold two years ago is already - old? Do they expect me to print with it and set a timer to let me know when the damn models made with it will crumble? Or are they saying that they had it in their warehouse for a few more years before I bought it? Plastic is one of those things that last for hundreds of years, which is why we're drowning in plastic waste right now. Exactly how old is this FilamentCo filament anyway?
Are the decorations I printed originally for family and friends going to start cracking and shedding microplastics? (I know - it was heated in printing and re-formed but then again - the filament was heated and re-formed as part of the extruding process, and it seems that only kept it somewhat supple for maybe three years. ) Can you see what I'm getting at? Just how long after melting it will it once again turn to fragile toxic waste? Assuming they don't keep stock for more than a few years, the things I printed two years ago - *tick tick tick tick* may start to degrade in less than a year.
On second thought, maybe it wasn't all that old, just stored without any kind of moisture protection. Because, come to think of it, two out of three of the spool packages had lost their vacuum. There's every possibility this stuff has been improperly stored. Nothing would surprise me at this stage. Which still leaves the same sort of situation - how long stored in non-humidity-controlled environments before the models start shedding?
And as well as that, I print models that have to work. Handles for tools, parts for mechanisms, casings and housings. Imagine that handle on my plunge router in another year or two letting go during a cut in hardwood, I could lose fingers. It's not on.
BTW that XingTongZhiLian filament I mentioned really has been a pleasant surprise. They are not paying me for saying that, it's just been a lucky find. You can search for them on Amazon, which is where I came across their product. I found them, did a double-take at how inexpensive it was, and now always keep a few rolls of their filament on tap.
I'll not buy FilamentCo's products again, nor FilamentCo#2's products. Honestly - I got support out of Creality when I first got my Ender3 Pro, worked with them so closely that I got sent a heated bed and print surface, six POM rollers, and a new front panel. Ask your 3D printing network - how many people ever got that level of TS from the company? And yet when approached in a friendly and detailed conversation, they were downright courteous to a fault.
It took me two months to get a result and was delicate - but it proves I can collaborate even with the not-so-cooperative tech support Creality had, back at the beginning of its success story. I still have my old, bowed print bed in the box that the new one came in as a trophy, as proof that I am a reasonable negotiator. But both Aussie FilamentCos I dealt with are just poor experiences and poor negotiators.
Homily?
Don't piss off customers, don't sell unstable rubbish, and answer enquiries properly. Or don't, and get a few more articles like this one, remember that while I won't name and shame because I'd like to see local businesses prosper and become good local businesses, there are other customers out there who won't be similarly restrained.
Hey - help me out so I can afford a few spools of reasonable plastic. Also, please share this post and others like it with your social network.
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