Polymaker Releases HT-PLA Pro Filament for Better Performance & Thermal Stability

PLA became a favorite 3D printing material because people thought it was safer than ABS, since it didn’t give you headaches. And being made from plants, it felt safer and greener too. We all know now that this is not true. But, it prints so well. And people thought that PLA was weak initially, brittle, and melted too easily in the sun. We now know that in a lot of cases, it can be a tough material that you can use for a lot of applications.

Given PLA’s popularity, many people have tried to tweak it to print better and be stronger. The PLA CF thing was kind of stupid, while High Speed PLA was of course marketing genius. High Temp PLAs are in demand when people want tough parts that are easy to print but need just a little more temperature resistance. Now, Polymaker has reengineered its HT-PLA to make a better performing, heat stable PLA, resulting in HT-PLA Pro.

Months ago, the company already tweaked this line. Polymaker has tried to make the material less brittle while improving intra layer bonding. The material has also been impact modified to double the notched Charpy impact strength to 9.94 kJ/m². The tensile strength in the Z direction has increased from 20.8 MPa to 26.8 MPa as well.

The Vicat softening temperature is 148.3°C and can be raised to 150.5°C through annealing. With annealing, the heat deflection temperature is 107.6°C. HT-PLA Pro is meant to work well without hardened nozzles (good news for INDX buyers then!) and heated chambers. Polymaker says that it prints well up to 300 mm/s with a 230°C nozzle temperature and 25-65°C build plate temperature.

Maarten Bosters, Product Marketing Manager at Polymaker, said,

“HT-PLA Pro gives makers, print farms and functional-part users a stronger, more dependable HT-PLA option without adding complexity to their workflow, It combines a substantial toughness upgrade with the easy printing and heat stability that customers value from the HT-PLA range.”

The material will be available in 18 colors and at a price of $25.99 per spool. Polymaker says that it used nano reinforcement to make the filament perform better. With nano reinforcement, small particles diffuse loads, reduce small cracks, offer better bonds layers, and improve strength. This also worked on reducing sag and warp.

I really like Polymaker. Their products have been good and reasonably priced. I also like the printability of their filaments. It’s become increasingly difficult to be a filament company in 3D printing. Prusa’s excellent filament and Bambu’s reach, along with Amazon’s push, have made it a hard market to ply. At the same time, the companies that are surviving in filament are either low-cost, high-volume players, or those that offer US- and European-made filaments at reasonable prices. Polymaker moved a part of its operation to the Netherlands which made it much more responsive to the market, quicker to ship orders, and gave it much deeper user understanding. All these moves have been very good for the firm. Meanwhile, it has deep R&D capability in China and operates efficiently there as well.

Being a reasonably priced, good quality player has been much more difficult of late. But, independent filament companies can be responsive, nimble, and innovative in ways that larger firms can not. It’s nice to see Polymaker come up with useful materials that can really help users make more stuff well.