See filaments directory [
www.filaments.directory]
You will see there are thousands of brands/types almost all of which are available in Europe.
I would say there are two main user groups (I only say this as I was in the first one, now I'm thinking of joining the second).
1) Price-conscious 3D printer enthusiasts. Generally, eBay will be the first place to try, either buying the cheapest filament at Eur10/kg or perhaps something from a brand, for example, I use GoInks in the UK, they are cheap filament but with a company to back them up, who have a brand to protect. No-name vendors will happily sell very poor filament it doesn't hurt them if customers don't like it, they can pop up under a different name and carry on. In the UK there was a filament brand Excelvan who were very popular as it was very cheap but reasonably consistent and reasonable quality. However, they were a flash-in-the-pan as once they sold all their supplies they disappeared.
2) Quality focussed. Here it is more likely we will buy from the website of a filament maker such as Colourfabb, or 3Dprima. Their products cost more typically Eur20-40/kg but often will be more interesting colours/formulations such as modified ABS/PLA or polyesters. Whilst these cost more, if you are printing commercially or for small-scale production then you want consistency and quality and are happy to pay for it. Whereas if you're making Yoda heads (thankfully that craze seems to have passed) or just printing for fun you generally want cheap.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/28/2017 07:40AM by DjDemonD.
Simon Khoury
Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions
