When it comes to obtaining prints that are successful enough, ensuring that you configure the settings of your slicer with the recommended generic values for the type of filament you’re printing with is usually an adequate first step to get things going.
On the other hand, if you’re looking to optimize your prints as much as possible – finding the optimal slicer settings for the filament you use is one of the best things you can do, as even different brands for the same type of filament can require distinct values for an optimal printing process.
Today, we will dive into the process of configuring the temperature values specifically for Hatchbox PLA, which will allow us to achieve a more optimal printing process compared to using generic temperature values for PLA filament in general.
So, what are the optimal temperatures for Hatchbox PLA filament?
According to the manufacturer’s specifications, the optimal nozzle temperature range for printing with Hatchbox PLA filament is 180 to 220 degrees Celsius, with no requirement of a heated bed for a successful printing process.
Moving forward, we will take a deeper look into the optimal temperature values for printing Hatchbox PLA filament and find out how we can configure the temperature values for Hatchbox PLA in popular slicer software like Cura and PrusaSlicer.
Table of Contents
What Are the Optimal Temperatures for Hatchbox PLA?
Even though using the ballpark temperature figures for PLA should yield satisfactory results more often than not, configuring the temperature settings with the values recommended by the filament manufacturer is a quick and easy optimization that will improve your prints.
The most suitable extruder temperature range for printing with Hatchbox PLA filament, according to the manufacturer, is 180 degrees Celsius to 220 degrees Celsius, with the heated bed inactive.
On the other hand, as 180 to 220 degrees Celsius is a pretty wide range, finding the optimal temperature will require you to run some test prints by modifying the value in small increments within this range and staying at the temperature that yields the best results in your case.
For the purposes of this article, we have tested a spool of Hatchbox PLA filament with a Creality Ender 3 and obtained the best results for a 20 mm calibration cube with a nozzle temperature value of 210 degrees Celsius and no bed heating.
While conducting the testing process, we have started printing with a nozzle temperature of 180 degrees Celsius and gradually went up to 220 degrees with 10-degree increments.
How to Configure Hatchbox PLA Temperatures in Cura?
By using a combination of the custom material presets to save the properties of the filament and print profiles to store the print-specific settings, you can easily have access to settings for all of the distinct filaments you use in Cura.
To start, let’s find out how to add the Hatchbox PLA custom material preset to Cura, which will hold the filament-specific configuration for later usage:
- Click the Prepare tab on the top of the Cura window.
- Click the middle pane to bring up the material menu.
- Click the dropdown next to the Material label.
- Choose the Manage Material option from the menu to bring up the material dialog.
- Choose the Generic PLA option from the left pane, and duplicate it with the Duplicate button.
- Choose the newly created profile from the left pane.
- Fill the Brand input with “Hatchbox” and the Diameter box with the diameter of your Hatchbox PLA filament.
- Switch over to the Print Settings tab in the dialog.
- Fill the values you would like to save to the Hatchbox PLA profile, and exit the dialog.
Now that we have added the custom material preset, it’s time to configure a custom profile that we will use in conjunction with the preset we have created, which holds the print settings:
- Navigate to the Prepare tab on the top of the Cura window.
- Click the rightmost pane to bring up the Print Settings menu.
- Click the Custom button if you see it, else skip this step.
- Click the Profile dropdown and choose the Manage Profiles entry.
- Duplicate one of the default profiles you see by selecting one and clicking the Duplicate button.
- Name your new profile “Hatchbox PLA” to make it easily identifiable later.
- Activate the profile by choosing the Hatchbox PLA profile and clicking the Activate button.
- Configure the Print Settings of Cura as you usually do with the values you would like to save on the Hatchbox PLA profile.
- Click the Profile dropdown, and click the “Update Profile with current settings” option to transfer the settings to the profile.
After creating both the custom material and the custom profile, you can select the Hatchbox PLA from the material menu dropdown and the corresponding profile from the profile dropdown in the Print Settings section, which will load all of the Hatchbox PLA settings you have configured.
How to Configure Hatchbox PLA Temperatures in PrusaSlicer?
Adding custom material presets in PrusaSlicer is a fantastic way to configure each filament separately, as you can quickly switch between these presets whenever you need to move on to a different brand or type of filament to load your settings.
- Navigate to the Filament Settings tab through the top of the PrusaSlicer window.
- Click on the Floppy Disk icon next to the dropdown at the top left corner.
- Type “Hatchbox PLA” into the input, which will be the name of the custom preset you’re creating.
- Modify the Nozzle Temperature, Bed Temperature, and Filament Diameter parameters accordingly. If you wish to, you can also enter values for the filament cost, density, and spool weight values to enable calculations.
- Click the Save button, and save the preset without modifying the name, which will load the settings you have configured into the Hatchbox PLA material profile.
After creating the custom material preset, you can locate the Hatchbox PLA entry in the Filament dropdown (located in the Plater tab) of PrusaSlicer, and load the settings you have configured whenever you wish.
Wrapping Up
Even though it may seem like a lot of work to configure and save a different set of temperature values for each distinct brand of filament, we believe that it’s one of the most straightforward optimizations you can perform to take your prints to the next level.
To quickly recap, Hatchbox recommends a nozzle temperature range of 180 to 220 degrees Celsius for printing as optimally as possible with their PLA filament. As Hatchbox states that a heated bed is not required, there is no recommendation for an optimal bed temperature value.
As always, experimentation is the key to finding the optimal temperature value in your case, which is why it’s often helpful to run a series of test prints with different temperature values that fall in the 180 to 220 degrees range to find out what works best for you.
Happy printing!
Mike started his 3D printing journey with the Anet A8 when it first came out back in 2017, and has been obsessed with 3D printers ever since. Nowadays, he primarily uses his Ender 3 to print functional parts that make his life more convenient whenever possible.