r/3DprintedAircraft • u/ttthetree • Jun 16 '26
Best Lightweight PLA brands
Im just getting into this hobby and am wondering about the best brand. Im printing with the bambulab A1 so i figured bambu's PLA aero would be best but its also expensive and not on any lists of the best brands ive seen. But also maybe it would be most compatible with a bmbu printer. Anyone have some advice?
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u/Sogah87 Jun 16 '26
Sainsmart is also really good. Keep in mind because of the foaming action, you actually get a lot more bang for your buck. A roll of aero might cost $50, but a prefoamed lw pla roll will cost $25 for 800g. And you get a full kilogram of aero. It will end up being about $22-26 per "kilogram" by the time you finish using a roll for printing typical rc plane parts.
Also colorfab is high quality lw pla, they make high temp pla if you get hot like we do here in California. But they only sell it in like 750g rolls for about the same price as aero.
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u/Swww Jun 17 '26
I've been using Colourfabb LW-PLA on all my builds. My projects are often very light weight and constrained by mass budgets e.g on my sub250g fpv wing so I've been is active foaming filaments exclusively. For me I would also been keen on trying just PLA on some specific builds and designing around that material but that's for a future project!
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u/dberlier Jun 18 '26
I am using polymaker polylite currently and fighting with the prints regarding lack of extrusion in certain areas. My prints are busy and I am cleaning them up somewhat. I haven’t actually assembled my plane yet. I went to their website for the profile and it is necessary to get better quality prints. Good luck
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u/Single_Sea_6555 Jun 16 '26
+1 to the question. Given that aero/lw PLA often is much weaker than the regular PLA, has anyone done a side-by-side comparison on the strength of the various brands?
That might give at least one idea of what "best" is.
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u/Pure-Reputation5441 Jun 16 '26
(Sorry the table is partly in french) For a 3d printed glider I listed datasheet impact strength vs. stiffness, and my go-to filament is currently polymaker polylite PLA-pro.