I run a small side hustle that leverages 3d printing. Several of the items I make sit outside or maybe in a hot car with a little weight on them. As such Pla won't cut it, and I would like to limit the varieties of filament I stock. I found American Filament through a local electronics store (GigaParts) and saw they were next door to where I work. At the time they only offered different versions of PLA but it would be awesome to be able to say my supplier is ultra local and even their suppliers are all in the USA and I believe largely in the south east region. So I contacted them to see if they would do/had petg. They said no as they couldn't find a supplier of Petg in the US but they were going to be being out pctg shortly. I don't think even a week went by and I received an email from Taylor saying the first color was out! I dropped by the next day and met Will, Megan and Taylor who all took the time from their incredibly busy day to answer my questions and there were 1,000s of them! I can say from personal experience I haven't gotten customer service that good in decades of ever, just top notch. Now as I am sure anyone reading this knows the current going rate for pctg is around $40/kg typically I was walking out of their store with it for around $30 for 1 spool. I remember Megan saying as I left once you try it you won't be able to go back. I can only hope she didn't hear my scoff. I generally go for the cheapest stuff I can find as I do lots of prototyping unless there's a good reason not to and I generally go for quality over speed so the High Flow stuff isn't what I lean towards as I don't gain much typically. When I got home I printed a part that was snapping frequently on me in petg and thought it would be a good test for PCTG. I was able to bend the part more than double closer to triple before it snapped on a layer line and that was before I optimized settings. Incredible I had a good case for what to use it special for. I printed a couple benches to tune it in a bit more and Megan's suggestion of using the bambus generic petg profile was a great place to start. I did end up using the Bambu petg hf profile with a temp at 270 and this stuff is incredible with layer bonding. I heard this stuff could also print fast so using that modified petg hf profile I cranked a benchy on my A1 out on Ludacris mode and it printed perfectly as good as at regular speed maybe a little better even. I then also did some prints to test it in the car windshield to see how it did with heat. The pla folded of course petg held up ok but could feel it was starting to soften PCTG with only a 2 wall part like nothing touched it. I found out from Megan this PCTG is a different formula from 3dfuels/esentiums pctg amd it has a higher heat resistance. I haven't gotten that PCTG but I don't think I ever will care. This stuff prints as good or better than elite PLA. As fast as any High speed variant. And with better properties than PETG. And there's no smell as there's no BPA or Styrene so safer than ASA or ABS. With all those differences it is well worth the cost for production parts, I am also considering it to be my main prototyping filament as it has already taken over a part of that. Seriously try it and expect to go back and get more. They have a customer for life in me and I can't wait for the other colors to be released. Pics are of the Ludacris benchy.
