What is the density of the PLA?

If you’re into 3D printing, then you have probably realized that the smallest details can lead to significant results. A slight deviation of your build platform from a level position can result in poor bed adhesion. A small moisture bubble in your filament can cause a jam in your nozzle, and a mismatch between your extruder and heating settings can cause a filament to deform inside the print head. Experienced 3D printing professionals have learned to look into the smallest details to see where things can go wrong and how the process can be improved. You know many online stores provide several series of filaments, including PLA basic, PLA plus or PLA pro, PLA matte etc. Here, we have to say that UJOYBIO is new brand in 3D printing filament, but the quality of filaments in their store exceeds much more 60% on the market. If you would like to try UJOYBIO filament brand, please kindly click here to choose from, which will match your imagination.

An example of a minor detail that can prove to be useful is the density of the filament material that you are using. Why does density matter? In this article, we’ll focus on one of the most popular filament materials used today-PLA. What is the density of PLA and what you can do with this information?

What is PLA?

PLA-along with ABS-is one of the top two most commonly used plastic filament materials used in the field of 3D printing using Fused Deposition Modeling(FDM)technology. PLA stands for polylactic acid, a polymer with building blocks(or monomers)made from lactic acid. The process of PLA manufacturing was improved by using lactide as a raw material instead of lactic acid and utilizing a ring-opening polymerization process. The result of this improved method is a more chemically stable and durable high-density PLA.

One of the most distinct characteristics of 3D printer PLA is the fact that is can be manufactured from plant material. The lactic acid precursor of PLA can be produced by the bacterial fermentation of any carbohydrate source. These carbohydrates are naturally abundant in the form of starch, sugars, or even waste materials such as grain hulls or plant stalks. The fermentation process has to take place in controlled conditions to allow for the total isolation of lactic acid.

The key takeaway from this is that PLA is one of the new plastics that can be produced from sustainable sources. This is contrast with standards that are derived from non-renewable petroleum products.

Another outcome of PLA’s unique chemical composition is that it can be organically broken down into its lactic acid components. The biodegradable characteristics of PLA has made it a “guilt-free” alternative to traditional plastic products that persist in the environment for decades and frequently end up ingested by sea animals. UJOYBIO offers premium high quality filaments, customer can choose single color or dual color for their projects. Also, if you want like metallic filament with various color, such as gold metallic filament, silky 1.75mm 3D printer accessories filament etc.

Sutures and implants made from PLA can be naturally broken down and safely absorbed by the human body. Large-scale manufacture and adoption of PLA products have started to become more common in the past few years, driven by consumer preference for more environmentally friendly products.

Why is PLA so popular as 3D printing filament?

There are a couple of reasons for why PLA has remained as one of the most popular filament materials for 3D printing for but it all boils down two points: affordability and simplicity. PLA is incredibly cheap. You can get a 1-kg roll of PLA for less than 20USD, and that’s for major-brand products. You can certainly find cheaper PLA filaments, although you run the risk of using a poor-quality product.

The second factor that makes PLA so popular as a 3D printing filament is that its so easy to use. PLA melts at a relatively low temperature of 150 to 160℃。 Because of the low printing temperature, PLA manages to avoid commonly encountered issued such as warping or string. If you’re printing with PLA, you probably won’t need a fancy 3D printing setup or additional accessories. PLA is also not known to produce any noxious fumes during the printing process.

The biodegradable characteristic of PLA has also played a part in making it a popular material for 3D printing. 3D printing hobbyists, especially beginners, can go through a ton on misprints before they perfect their technique. If you were printing with standards plastics such as ABS, these misprints would probably end up as solid waste and stay in a landfill for the next couple of decades. With PLA, you can have the peace of mind knowing that the misprints can be disposed of in some compost and naturally degrade over a couple of months.

What is the density of PLA filament?

Most filament manufacturers states the density of the filament in the product spec sheets. It’s not even a problem if the manufacturers leave out this detail, as it’s easy enough to look for the density value of any material online.

To be able to use the density of PLA to estimate the length of the remaining filament, we also need to distinguish between different filament diameters. Naturally, a filament with a 3.00mm diameter will have a larger cross-sectional area than a filament with 1.75mm diameter. All these values are have been handily summarized below:

Density of PLA: 1.25 g/cm *3

Cross-sectional area of 1.75mm diameter filament: 0.024cm *2

Cross-sectional area of 3mm diameter filament: 0.071cm *2

To illustrate the idea, let’s say that you have a leftover filament spool that weigh 350 grams. This is a 1.75mm PLA filament. All you need to do to get a good estimate of the length of filament remaining in the spool is to divide the weight by the density and the cross-sectional area, as follows:

Length of spool=(350) grams/[(1.25 g/cm^3)*(0.024 cm^2)]= 116 meter 

The results show that you still have 11, 667 centimeter or 116 meters of remaining filament. With this knowledge, you will be able to know for sure if you have enough filament to finish your print, regardless of whether your slicer software estimates the material requirement in terms of filament weight or length.

In summarize, density is an oft-neglected characteristics of 3D printing filaments that can actually be pretty useful with a little bit of understanding. Since most 3D printing professionals ends up with several leftover spools of different filaments lying around, a reliable method of estimating how much filament is left in a spool can be valuable. However, simply weighing the leftover spool is only half of the equation-knowing the remaining length might be crucial, especially if your slicer software estimates the material requirement in terms of length.

The procedure we have outlined above is a very simple but versatile method to check if you have enough tough filament to get though the design you want to build. Again, the method makes use of a few assumptions which may not be 100accurate, so always have a bit of wiggle room when estimating your remaining filament.