Make sure this fits by entering your model number.
【Patented flexible formula & 89A Shore Hardness】 – Ataraxia Art’s flexible PLA plus is a patented formula that took years to perfect and release. FPLA+ is more flexible than TPU filament and easier to use. Great for a variety of project like shoe insoles, phone case & many more. Available in the following Pantone Matched colors: Red, Black, Yellow, Gold, Violet, White, Blue, Green, Prusa Orange & chocolate.
【Compatible with Bowden Extruder and Direct Drive】- Ataraxia Art’s Flexible pla filament Works with any 3d printer, regardless of it being direct drive or Bowden extruders. TPU filament 175mm on the other hand will not work with Bowden extruder 3d printers. This includes the Ender 3 V2 and Prusa Mini. In addition, all our reels are extremely precise, having a dimensional accuracy of +/- .03 mm.
In this article about this flexible PLA I explained how, although this isn’t technically PLA, it does print much easier than TPU, a more common flexible filament. I used it to print an amazing Mandalorian Blacksmith helmet for my 4-year-old. She can’t break it because it’s so bouncy.
This isn’t for newbies, though. It took a lot of trial and error to get the setting for my 3D printer right, and because it is so soft the accuracy can be pretty wonky. But for something that’s different from normal PLA, it is worth checking out.
Flexibility isn’t really what you think of when you initially think of PLA, in fact, it is one of the stiffest printing materials outside of carbon fibre-filled materials, but maybe you can’t print TPU (Thermoplastic Polyurethane) on your printer but you want something with a bit of give, that’s where Flexible PLA comes in, and nothing does it better than Ataraxia Art’s PLA+
Flexibility is measured on the Shore scale, either Shore A or Shore D, they aren’t directly comparable but they both go by the rule “the higher the number the stiffer it is” therefore a 95A TPU is much stiffer than a 60A TPU, and the softer it is the harder it is to print, imagine trying to push wet spaghetti through a straw that’s only a little bit bigger than the spaghetti, it’s very difficult.
So what if I told you that Ataraxia Art’s patented PLA+ is 89A, softer than most standard TPUs, and EASIER, to print. the rule of thumb for printing with flexible is that you turn the speeds really far down, up until a few years ago, printing TPU above 25mm/s was unheard of, you were a crazy person. but Ataraxia Art’s Flexible PLA+ is able to be easily printed at up to 90mm/s, our own Chris Wedel has printed parts using it at 80mm/s on His Flashforge Adventurer 4 and it came out a dream, in fact, the images here are from Chris and printed on the Adventurer 4.
Whether it be phone cases, impact absorbers for doors, rubber feet for your furniture or heck, maybe you just want to try a 3D Printed wallet out, Ataraxia Art’s Flexible PLA+ is so newbie friendly, it offsets the higher cost, with 12 colours, you’re likely to find something that is your taste as well.
(Image credit: Future)
Colorfabb LW-PLA
The Best Pick if you need it to be light
REASONS TO BUY
+
Effectively getting 2 rolls of filament on one spool
+
Very easy to sand and paint
+
can be incredibly lightweight
REASONS TO AVOID
–
Stringing/Oozing near impossible to tune out
–
Quite pricey
–
Colours change as foaming changes
One thing people don’t think about with 3D Prints is weight, if you’re printing props, a 50g hand plate, a 300g shin guard and a 500g helmet, that adds up quickly. On the other hand, RC planes are a popular thing to 3D print, but you want those as light as possible, any extra weight is more stress on the motors and then you need a bigger battery, its a vicious cycle, so in comes colorfabb LW-PLA, or Light-Weight PLA.
LW-PLA is embedded with a special foaming agent that, when it hits a certain temperature starts to create bubbles and expand, whilst this is usually a bad thing, in a controlled way you can foam up the filament and trap air to take the place of filament that was once there, leaving you with a print that, at full foaming can be 65% lighter than an unfoamed part! this also means that a single 1KG roll of filament is roughly equivalent to 2.2 rolls of 1kg filament.
not only is it significantly lighter, but LW-PLA also sands incredibly easily and is easy to paint and prime, another real boon for Cosplay and props. The one major downside, outside of cost for LW-PLA is that because of the nature of the foaming, retraction doesn’t really work, meaning there will be little strings and boogers for you to clean up, thankfully they just pop off with your finger.
What is amazing about LW-PLA is that you don’t need a high-end printer or extruder to print it. I printed helmets on my Anycubic Kobra Max. the Kobra Max has a Bowden extruder and a PTFE lined hotend. I printed it on my Voron V0.1 with an all-metal hotend with a direct drive extruder and both printed flawlessly. Something that is traditionally a problem with bowden extruders, namely oozing and stringing is unavoidable with this material anyway, so it opens you up to using it in more places.
Bottom line
Why you can trust Windows Central Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.
So for me, the bottom line is that for most people, for most things, picking up some Jessie PLA from PrintedSolidis the best thing you can do. A great mix of low-cost, high-quality filament, with good consistency, so you can rely on buying 5 rolls that the colours will match between them, something I have experienced not being the case with other manufacturers with more expensive filament.
Printed Solid has a truly expansive swathe of colours available, but they also recently bought the rights and recipes to a fan favourite, Polyalchemy Elixir, the original “silk filament” with my favourites being “Emerald City”, I can’t wait for Printed Solid to bring it back and maybe introduce new colours.
So that’s why Jessie PLA is my best pick for the ultimate PLA for most things, it’s ludicrously cheap at $20 per kilogram for USA-made filament, and the company is always ready to help the customer in any way whether it be on social media, their customer support line or more.
There are a lot of different 3D printing materials out there. Here’s how to pick the right one for your project.
The most popular type of 3D printing is called fused deposit modeling, which uses filament on a spool to create 3D objects. This is the most common style of 3D printer for hobbyists and most small businesses, because FDM printers are easy to buy, and the filament material is cheap and plentiful. There are, however, different types of filament, each one good for certain projects and terrible for others.
It’s important to choose both the right type of material and the right brand of that type, be it PLA, ABS or something more exotic. Here are the best of each of the five main filament types.
In this article about this flexible PLA I explained how, although this isn’t technically PLA, it does print much easier than TPU, a more common flexible filament. I used it to print an amazing Mandalorian Blacksmith helmet for my 4-year-old. She can’t break it because it’s so bouncy.
This isn’t for newbies, though. It took a lot of trial and error to get the setting for my 3D printer right, and because it is so soft the accuracy can be pretty wonky. But for something that’s different from normal PLA, it is worth checking out.
Cosplay and 3D printing go hand in hand. At any convention, most of the armor and helmets you see are made from either foam or 3D-printed filament, and a lot of the small delicate work is made on resin 3D printers to keep the details sharp.
Most of the time though, 3D-printed armor is rigid and breakable. I have a Mandalorian helmet I’ve printed in polylactic acid, or PLA, that looks great but it chipped the first time I dropped it on the floor.
Fortunately, there’s a solution. Most 3D prints are made from either PLA or ABS filament. The former is easy to use, but delicate. The latter is harder to print, and similarly rigid, but is much more impact-resistant. Through the joys of TikTok I’ve recently discovered flexible PLA, a specialty filament that combines rubber-like give with the ease-of-use of PLA.
I’m using a version from a company called Ataraxia Art, which is closer to a material called TPU, or thermoplastic polyurethane, than PLA. TPU is often used to make 3D-printed phone cases, but is sometimes tricky to work with when you’re printing large pieces. It can be done, but the hours of setup make it a time-consuming process.
The big advantage this flexible filament has is it will print with settings very close to that of standard PLA, which is the easiest material to print, and almost all 3D printers are designed to print it. Note that I’ve found, even with similar settings, it’s best to slow your print speed down a little and keep your bed cooler than you would normally.
The PLA version on the right is more likely to break with extended use
I asked Ataraxia Art CEO, Jalpa Mistry, about the need for a new type of flexible 3D printing material. “My son had the idea [for] a flexible filament that could print like PLA,” Mistry told me over email. “So we started brainstorming, and after several months of trial and error, we finally came up with our flexible PLA. We made sure the product had incredible properties such as a softer shore hardness of 89A [a measurement of how rigid elastic materials are], a lower print temperature and zero odor.”
I also liked that these filaments are matched to specific Pantone colors, making it easier to get a project exactly right.
Other companies like Paramount 3D make similar sounding products, but the PLA from these other companies is still pretty rigid, just with more give than standard PLA. This is great if you need your rigid prints to bounce if dropped, but not if you need them to flex with your body. Amazon is usually a good source for a wide variety of filaments but keep an eye on prices, which can fluctuate.
After I spent some time figuring out the best flexible PLA settings for my Prusa Mk3 printer I managed to print a fantastic Armorer helm from the Mandalorian for my daughter. It took 28 hours to print, so I’d hate to have to recreate it. She’s three, and, as you can imagine, isn’t particularly careful, but she can throw this version around to her heart’s content with no damage at all.
A Small Family-owned business providing you with the highest quality 3D printing equipment. We aren’t a huge corporation. This business is owned and operated within our family. I always wanted to do creativity with my kids and that ended up with 3d printer filament business in KATY TEXAS USA. We source our materials from the US to ensure that they have the highest quality. We strive to provide the best quality products and support. ” GREAT THINGS COME FROM HARDWORDK & PERSEVERANCE, FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS ” ATARAXIA ART How did we get our start? When our school got a 3D Printer, our son became obsessed with it. However, he would often complain that most of his prints would break or not print right. When we finally got our own 3D printer, we tried several brands. Yet, we noticed that the quality wasn’t that good. So we decided to fix it. Why do we love what we do? We love how close 3D Printing has brought our family together. Before, we would be apart and not talk much. But now, we all work together not only to create prints but also to design our products. In being avid 3D printers, we understand the community. What makes our products unique? This flexible 3D printing material is a cosplayer’s dream- article published in CNET. article related with our product. what makes us different from others? Ataraxia Art truly believe to support our customers all the ways for all our products. We try to innovate new products which help all our customer to increase their creativity.
