eSUN promises that its ePLA-ST makes tougher, more durable prints than regular PLA. I put it to the test with carabiners, a drilling dust catcher and plenty of vases, and it printed better than any PLA+ I'd tried.
Unboxing and first impressions
This was October 2021. The packaging feels premium: the spool is wound so precisely you can see every single line, it's vacuum-sealed with silica gel, and there's a leaflet with all of eSUN's filaments and their specs. The promise of ePLA-ST is toughness. Regular PLA snaps when you bend it, while this one should bend and give instead of breaking. I didn't test eSUN's lab claims, since I don't have the equipment, but I tested it the way a normal user who wants durable parts would.
How it prints
To sum it up: it printed better than any PLA+ I've tested. With every PLA+ I've tried in different colours, I always had to tweak something. With this one I found the sweet spot at 205 °C and it printed like regular PLA, actually even better. I also measured the diameter at many points while printing and re-spooling, and the tolerance was better than any PLA I'd seen until then.
The strength test
I printed a ring and a carabiner at 100% infill and really tried to break or bend them. They're all scratched, but they passed my test. I also printed a dust catcher that sits under a drill bit, so the dust falls into a plastic bottle screwed underneath instead of flying around. It's a really solid piece.
Detail is great too: a Gizmo model came out with every detail. In vase mode (over-extruding at 0.8 mm with a 0.4 mm nozzle) I printed one of Ivan's beautiful vases and a hollow missile model, on a printer I didn't know well yet, and both were above expectations. For Halloween I printed my kids a Baby Yoda holding a pumpkin. I used 40% infill, but 20% would have been enough.
eSUN also makes an ST version of silk PLA, and since silk PLA is usually very brittle, I'd love to test it in the future.