More GEEETECH 1kg 1.75mm 1KG(2.2LBS) Pure PETG, 3D Printer Filament, Vacuum Packaging,Tangle-Free, 3d printing materials (WHL #89F2)
Results are in!
In the last blog post #89, I showcased my rookie mistake of printing large objects across two spools of filament. Yeah, it still sticks together, but there’s warping (hence a large crack) and a color mismatch.
Since then, I printed a couple more of these ducts. And I contacted Geeetech (no complaint or formal refund process, just plain messages to the seller) in parallel to resolve this issue.
Let’s start with the mail exchange. Generally, those are very nice folks. Some sellers require significant pressure to offer a customer-friendly solution; most of the time, those sellers *know* they’re selling subpar shite and aren’t too keen on keeping an unsatisfied customer. Geeetech isn’t and after a bit of back-and-forth, sharing batch numbers and asking questions the customer service dude (or dudette) didn’t really have answers to, we agreed on trying again with a fresh roll of PETG. So Geeetech sent over another spool of 1kg white PETG free of charge in like two days. Excellent service.
So, I did the thing I probably shouldn’t do and printed the same part again with my residual spool, paused the print, and moved over to the new one. Which, by the way, carries another batch number, so I’ve now seen these:
BTBD062BD (old)
BTBD075AC (second)
BTBD086BE (2x, both untouched as of now)
BTBD093BA (free spool)
And, surprise, surprise…it is yet again another tint of white. Worse still, it also probably is a slightly different mix of materials, so it did, once again, not stick properly to the last layer of the old PETG. The somewhat terrible result can be seen here – it’s the one left to the center. The original print is on the left, with the large crack rotated to the back. Lighting is intentionally a bit amateurish, as that makes the color difference pop a little more. It is white, sure, but in real life the difference is obvious, while it is difficult to catch it on camera. So there’s, that.
That’s certainly not satisfying. But, what about a full print with that spool? There’s enough material left to make a full print with it. So I did – that is the one center-right. Despite a 30mm brim both on the outside and the inside, the thing warped so much that after a phase of “well, maybe it’ll hold?”, it finally slid from the plate. Once more, like in the first print, I got it to still stick together on resuming, but it is terribly ugly. Not sure about the slight line about 5ish centimeters into the print (maybe the phase of slowly lifting off the plate?), but the second line close to the end was sort-of my fault when the improvised fastening of the fully loose print moved slightly and I had to readjust. After all, these are 9 to 10 hour prints with some 600 to 700 grams, depending on brim size and support type (there’s a lip on the bottom that matches the recess on the top, these are stackable)
Well, three prints and three print failures with Geeetech PETG.
What’s the nice fourth print to the right then, you ask? Well, that one was actually the second print in chronological order – and it was Sunlu PETG white. Go figure. Great print quality, even with the thin bit on the bottom that needs a speed adjustment to print properly (see first print for reference 
) And, in comparison to the others, it’s stunningly white, especially with a light source put inside. Center-left top and center-right are the same material, so the auto-adjustment algorithms in the camera are working overtime here.
So my conclusion pretty much is to avoid Geeetech in the future. Sure, pricing is interesting, but if you cannot span prints across reels due to different material composition and tint, that’s a no-go for my probably larger-than-average prints on my larger-than-average printer. Maybe this is just a thing with white, or PETG, or PETG white, I simply do not have multiple spools of other filaments in stock for a comparison. The other ones from Geeetech are fine on their own, though, so I’ll just use ’em up and see what else can be bought for similar money. Sunlu is the current go-to, but they have issues with their material as well, which I will present in a future post. But given those two companies offer 1kg of PLA/PLA+/PETG at somewhere between 8 and 17€ inclusive of shipping, depending on amount, special offers and the exact material/spec combo, I’m a little hesitant to buy hyped European filaments that cost north of 30€/kg. I bet they’re better, but at double, triple, sometimes quadruple the price, they’d better print themselves…which they don’t. So, it’ll be Sunlu until they piss me off as well, or another competitor (eSun?) decides to increase market share by more aggressive pricing.
I’ll just duct-tape those ducts and they’ll be fine! 
