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Does PLA go bad? (lemmy.sdf.org)

And more strangely, does it suddenly go bad?

I printed this pair of glasses with a roll of ugly bright green PLA I use to print prototypes or silly things with - because, well, it's ugly - at the last minute to go to a party where the idea is to not look too serious.

But it took me three tries: the nose bridge readily broke off the first print without even trying very hard, and one hinge split in the middle before I could even drive a pin through it. I was really careful with this third print and I managed to complete the assembly and leave to go to the venue.

But it's really weird: this roll of PLA had been in the printer's room for at least 2 years, I and others have printed a million things with it without any problems as recently as last week - including multiple iterations of these glasses - and today the prints feel "dry", or less "waxy" that other PLA parts when I file them smooth, and they're really brittle.

Also, it's winter and here up north, it gets really dry in the winter - like 15% humidity - so I'm pretty sure the material is quite dry.

What gives? Any idea?

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[-] ICastFist@programming.dev 5 points 1 month ago

Could be that specific roll is just low quality, or the brand is kinda low quality

As for a reason to "suddenly" go bad, maybe it's due to the winter and some of the layers were too thinly melted together?

this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2024
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