who makes the best filament

well..i've used 2 rolls of sainsmart...black, red. I got one rainbow roll of Octave. So far the Octave is clearly better...but with some disclaimers.

1) the Octave roll was clearly packaged better from the Chinese factory than the sainsmart. Thicker plastic, vacuum sealed, larger silica gel pouch.

2) The sainsmart rolls I used were better when I first got them...so maybe moisture is ruining them over time. Perhaps if they were packaged better they would have been as good as Octave from the factory. This to say that maybe the performance of the Octave roll will degrade as moisture gets in em as well.

So for me I'm going to buy Octave...especially since I can pick it up locally. So that's my experience for you so far.

so no on fialastruder? lol
the hah didn't give me much.
*** oh I c I went to the site.
no thanks.

While I've found Octave to be more consistent, and I find SainSmart spools almost always have kinking problems, I also can't help but notice that all of my best prints -- all of them -- have been with SainSmart filament.  I can spend hours printing with Octave and having problems with curling and layer cohesion and cracking, taking multiple tries to get a clean print, then switch to a color that happens to be SainSmart and get nice, smooth, consistent prints with absolutely no layer cohesion problems.  Of course, I have to watch even more eagle-eyed to keep the spool loose so it won't bind up and cause a skip since tangles are more common, but the results speak for themselves.

What I don't know is if I just got a few really good SainSmart spools or what.

I've heard it argued that almost all the manufacturers are selling spools made on the same equipment, and the difference is just whether you're getting stuff from the start or the end of a run.  I don't know if that's true.

elmoret, I bet for every person who'd rather buy than make, there's two who'd love to make, but just aren't prepared to invest the money and/or the time and brain cells to build, learn, and operate another device.

Oh, and I'll add I'm talking about ABS rolls.

yes I am too sorry I didn't say that.
I am talking about ABS rolls

so octave and sainsmart look to be my best options?

how about the stuff maker bot sells or is that one of these two?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/3D-Printer-Fila … 166512612?

I've been using these, and they have not given me a single problem and my prints come out great.  They come in a sealed bag with the anti-moisture pellets, too!

I hadn't seen these guys before thanks for the tip ITman!!!

I bought Octave, JustABS (JustPLA), eSun (Weistek) and others I don't remember. 

I like Octave, but I do have a problem with their clear plastic wrap (Saran wrap?), at least the stuff they use on the white filament.  The stuff they use sticks to the filament so hard, it's impossible to get it off, and I end up throwing away a good chunk of filament.  Last time I actually measured the amount of filament that I had to discard, and it was about 30 yards.  For some reason, this only seems to happen to the white, on the color rolls, the shrink wrap simply unraveled without sticking.

I just got the JustABS stuff, so I don't yet know how well it works, but I'm about to.

+1 for SainSmart.