Hi, all. So I’m pretty new to this hobby, and this might seem like a short-sighted question. But I was wondering, how important is the brand name when buying filament? I live in South Korea, which means AliExpress orders arrive here pretty quickly and are generally a viable option. The thing is that I see filament on Ali for half the price of the reputable brand name stuff I can get in Korea. Do any of you have any experience with the cheaper, no-name stuff? Is plastic just plastic, and the brand is just jacking up the price because they can? Or is there an important difference between the filament produced by the big brands and filament made in China that I can get for much cheaper? Any and all advice would be much appreciated.
@Maerman Typically “brand name” filament is going to be more consistent over time and is more likely to have reasonably good filament profiles in the slicer.
Will the cheap stuff also work with some effort, usually. But you might find that a new batch of filament is a noticeably different color. You might find that it absorbs moisture more quickly or is strangely brittle. Or they somehow got a bunch of cardboard dust onto the spools.
IMO if you’re not truly using a ton of filament or trying to make money from this, it’s worth buying the more expensive stuff.
Though I can imagine if you’re trying to make money, the consistency might be worth the additional cost, rather team having to put time and material into failed batches.
Personally I buy the cheapest PLA and hate myself everytime I have to disassemble the AMS to get out stuck pieces of broken filament (might not be related to the filament itself, I’m not asking for advise).