Hatchbox PLA Filament vs NinjaFlex Flexible Filament

Costing around $20 per kg, it’s a great affordable filament in its own right: it has a stated dimensional accuracy is ±0.05mm, guaranteeing that filament diameter is consistent all the way through. The majority of filaments around this price tag does not guarantee this level of accuracy.

For this filament's price, its packaging is pretty great. It comes with its own spool, uncommon for filaments in this price range. The spool is also vacuum sealed in a tight film and packed in a rigid cardboard box.

Hatchbox offers this filament in a total of 28 different colors, even if the exact colors available may vary for each of the versions (1.75 mm and 3.0 mm). Note that some of colors (like the wooden one) might cost a couple of dollars more than regular colors.

You can use this filament with printers that have either 1.75 mm or 3.0 mm extruders, since this filament comes in both sizes. However, the 3.0 mm version costs a few dollars more than the 1.75 mm one.

This is truly elastic material, which means that the material will deform under stress (stretched or compressed), but the moment stress is removed, the material original shape is restored. The exception is if tensile/compressive yield point is reached: in this case permanent deformation occurs. This filaments tensile yield point takes place at 660% elongation, which means it's very hard to break this material only by applying tensile stress.

This filament has limited resistance to a variety of alcohols, alkali and organic substances (fuels, oils, etc.). This contrasts with what happens with many other 3D printable material, that can't even withstand contact with water.

Several examples of how NinjaFlex was used in real-world applications are available. This is a great move from NinjaTek, since, even though it is useful to see how good a product is “on paper”, it’s even better to see examples of how it was actually used. All case studies are well documented and provide visual evidence of successful use.

You can use this filament with pretty much any standard 3D printer, since it's available in the two most commonly used diameters: 1.75 mm and 3.0 mm. The 3.0 mm spools are cheaper than the 1.75 mm ones. This is because it’s generally cheaper to produce 1 kg of 3.0 mm filament than 1 kg of 1.75 mm filament.

This filament is available in 10 different colors, all of which are of very high quality and look rich.

This filament can be used with a printer without a heated bed, which is very convenient, since many 3D printers don't come with a heated bed by default or don't even have the option of adding one. Nevertheless, if your machine does have a heated bed, you can set it to 40ºC (recommended) and improve surface adhesion.