nGen heat stability?

Filament
1

I’m seriously thinking about switching from PETG to nGen, and I’ve done a lot of research here. One comment from a user here concerns me:

“A down-side of nGen is that it can distort at a relatively low temperature. nGen parts cannot be used near heat sources.”

My parts will be stored in a hot attic in the summer. I’d guess the temperature might go as high as 160 F or so, although that may be extreme. Does anyone know about this issue? Thanks!

2

nGen and PETG have nearly exact the same glass transition temperature. That means, they will withstand the same temperatures up to about 75°C (167F).

3

According to ColorFabb nGen has a temperature resistance of 85° C. I have been using it a lot for the last few months making parts that are exposed to temps up to 130° F for periods of 1-4 hours and have not seen any distortion yet. I have not test it for longer periods at a time though.

I have recently tried the new ColorFabb HT recently which they state resists temps up to 100° C. I haven’t tested the heat resistance yet, but the layer adhesion is very good and it makes very strong parts. The down side is it likes to warp similar to ABS, but I raised the bed temp and that has helped quite a bit. Also colors are limited.

Maker Geeks has just released a “dishwasher safe” PLA which I have not tested yet. They claim it is temp resistant to 125° C, but parts must be annealed after printing to achieve maximum temperature resistance. This means you have to bake the parts in an oven at 100° C (212° F) for 5-10 minutes. They do offer many more colors though.

4

I’m getting a ton of strings with nGen and the built-in profiles. Anyone else seeing that problem?

5

Heavy stringing is nearly always a sign of over extrusion. Check your filament diameter and esteps calibration first.

6

Try lowering the extrusion temp a few degrees to reduce stringing.

7

Stringing with PETG (which I am using right now) is reported all over the net, and I get it as well. I’ve ordered some nGen to see if that’s better. Your post is discouraging. However, I’ve learned some things about PETG stringing that may apply to nGen:

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  1. Ambient temperature makes a big difference. Stringing is much more of a problem at 80 F in the room than at 65.
  2. Head temp of 240 C produces much less stringing than 250. Dropping to 235 is even better, but then extrusion speed becomes a limit, as PETG seems to need a lot of melting time in the head.
  3. I raised the retraction speed to 20 and the distance to 2, which helped
  4. Dropping the infill speed to 30 (sigh!) helps
  5. Set CURA to make a lot of warmup loops around the object before printing it. PETG comes out funny at first, but eventually stabilizes. You want it stable before printing the object.

With these parameters, I am usually able to get decent prints with eSun PETG. But after six months of PLA, which is a dream to print, I am annoyed at how tough PETG is to tweak. I sure hope the nGen I ordered works better than PETG.