PLA

PLA is the easiest material to run on the G1: it melts predictably, barely warps, and sticks to the bed without much persuasion. It is the material to use when commissioning a machine or when you need to isolate a fault, because its behaviour is boring enough that anything odd is the machine, not the polymer.

The grade decides the numbers, not the polymer

Every figure on this page is a starting point. Two grades of PLA are not the same material — fillers, additives and the base resin all shift the melt behaviour — so the authority for temperatures, drying and flow is the datasheet for the grade in your hopper.

Ginger Additive does not manufacture pellets. Supply runs through Formfutura and Polymaker PolyCore — see where to buy.

Pros and cons

Good	Less good
Predictable melt, easy to dial in	Low HDT — a part deforms above roughly 50°C ambient
Very low warping, even on large parts	UV degrades it — poor outdoors
Sticks very well to glass	Stiff but brittle in thin sections
Usually prints straight from the bag, no drying	Not for load-bearing parts that flex
Holds fine geometry better than PETG at small scale

Starting parameters

These are the values in Ginger Slicer’s own profiles. They are the only figures that count: the slicer is what sends temperatures to the printer, so a number written anywhere else is a copy that can drift.

Profile	Zone 1	Zone 2	Zone 3	Bed	MVS
Generic PLA, FormFutura PLA	200	200	200	50	200
SmartMaterials PLA	185	185	185	50	200
Azure PLA	215	210	210	60	200
Ginger rPLA	205	200	200	55	180
colorFabb FOAM PLA	185	210	210	70	500

Pick the profile for the pellet you are running. If there is no profile for your grade, start from Generic PLA and copy it before changing anything — see Material profiles.

Other settings
SmoothFlow	Optional on virgin, recommended on recycled and filled
Drying	Usually not needed. Recycled grades, or any PLA left open about a week: 50°C for 4 h, then print from the dryer

More than two bottom layers can cook the part

On a geometry that is not large, printing more than two bottom layers risks degrading the material. The extrusions sit close together with fresh material landing on top, so the heat has nowhere to go; held above 60°C long enough, PLA turns whitish and starts to degrade.

Large flat geometry gives the heat somewhere to escape and is far less prone to it.

Small nozzles need a cooler Feeding Zone

The smaller the nozzle, the slower the flow, and the longer each pellet sits at the inlet taking up heat. Since the pellets are what cools the inlet, low flow means the feed throat runs hotter than the setpoint suggests.

Nozzle	Feeding Zone	Melting / Nozzle
1 mm	160–170°C	185–190°C
1.8 mm	~170°C	~180°C
3 mm and larger	185–190°C	185–190°C

At standard temperatures on a 1 mm nozzle the material melts too early, creeps up and stalls the feed.

Drying — usually unnecessary, occasionally essential

Most PLA does not need drying. Print it from the bag.

Two cases change that:

• Recycled grades
• Any PLA left out in the air for about a week

For both: 50°C for 4 hours, then feed the printer from the dryer rather than emptying it back into a bag.

Low-HDT grades pack solid if you leave them in too long

Some PLA grades have a low enough HDT that they compact in the dryer when held there too long — past roughly 6–7 hours.

You find out because the printer runs out of material: the pellets stop dropping out of the dryer hopper, so nothing reaches the machine even though the hopper looks full.

The fix is mechanical, not a write-off. Stir the lower part of the dryer hopper with your hand or a stick and the material starts falling again. This is different from PETG aggregating at too high a temperature, where the polymer itself has degraded.

Grades

Virgin PLA

Consistent pellet size, predictable melt, low moisture out of the bag. This is the reference material — if a print misbehaves on virgin PLA, suspect the machine.

Recycled PLA (rPLA)

Reground post-industrial or post-consumer PLA. The popular sustainable option, and the most variable one.

• Pellet size and shape vary; batches often contain fines and irregular pellets
• Slightly higher moisture out of the bag — this is the PLA that does need drying, at 50°C for 4 h as above
• More friction in the screw than virgin
• Colour shifts between batches — buy one batch for anything visible

SmoothFlow is not optional on rPLA

Running rPLA without SmoothFlow is the usual reason the extruder motor starts skipping. Add it before assuming the machine is at fault.

Fines and flat pellets also upset the vacuum — sieve a suspect batch before loading, see Hopper suction problems.

Grades with a matting agent absorb moisture faster than plain rPLA and want a longer dry, around 4–5 h.

Filled grades — wood, carbon fibre

Fillers raise friction in the screw, which makes them the grades most likely to skip.

• Always add SmoothFlow — around 1 g per kg. Some coloured filled pellets already contain a lubricant, so test before adding more
• Start from the PLA profile and work down: filled grades generally print cooler, not hotter
• If the motor clicks, lower all zones before changing anything else
• Carbon-fibre PLA is abrasive; the hardened nozzle handles it. Use 3 mm rather than a small nozzle
• Wood-filled grades sand and stain like wood and print lighter than plain PLA

Do not run 100% part cooling on filled grades

Full cooling can pull the Nozzle Zone sensor out of range and trip a thermal error mid-print. Keep part cooling below about 70%.

Common issues

Symptom	Cause and fix
Motor skipping	MVS too high, or missing SmoothFlow on a recycled/filled grade. See Extruder motor skipping
Screw turns, nothing extrudes	Plug at the barrel inlet — take the hopper off and lift it out. See Nozzle and barrel clog
Horizontal stripes on the surface	Too hot. Drop all zones to ~185°C
Last layers bow upward	Previous layer still hot. More fan late in the print, or 5°C cooler
First layers curl inward	Not enough cooling early. Fan from layer 1 at 20–40%
First layer milky on clear PLA	Bed too hot — slow cooling crystallises it. See Z offset and first layer
Brown, degraded extrusion	Material sat too long in the barrel. Lower the zones and purge
Whitish, degraded surface on the bottom layers	Heat build-up — reduce the number of bottom layers, see above
Printer runs out of material with a full dryer	Pellets packed in the dryer hopper. Stir the lower part by hand or with a stick

Supply

Stock comes from Formfutura and Polymaker PolyCore. Contact Formfutura sales for volume supply rather than guessing pack sizes from the webshop.

Test every new batch with a small calibration print before committing it to production, and log supplier, batch, MVS and SmoothFlow dose per project — it is the only way to explain a result months later.

Where PLA actually fails: heat

PLA’s HDT is low, and that is the property that decides whether a PLA part survives its life. Above roughly 50°C ambient it can deform — and reaching 50°C takes less than people expect:

• Direct sunlight on the part
• Inside a car
• In transit — a parcel in a hot vehicle or warehouse is enough

If the part will meet any of those, PLA is the wrong material regardless of how well it prints.

Related notes

• PETG
• SmoothFlow
• Multi-Heating Zones
• Max Volumetric Speed
• Rotation Volume calibration
• Z offset and first layer