Test of spring material
I wanted to know what material to use for plastic spring features. I used HeyVye excellent spring “Printable Spring with Manual Support” that I reduced to half the size in Fusion 360.
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4591444
Compression from 30mm to 16mm length and kept at 16mm for 2hours (almost fully compressed).
Final length after 2h compression + 38h no compression=40 hours.
PLA 26.0mm 79%
PETG 28.6mm 94%
ABS 29.5mm 98%
Force at 16mm:
PLA 5.0N
PETG 3.5N
ABS 6.3N
Result:
ABS is the best material for springs but it can be difficult to remove supports.
PETG is almost as good at ABS but spring force is only 55% of ABS.
PLA is bad for springs. Strong force initially (79% of ABS) but it loses it strength quickly and doesn’t recover well.
Note:
Room temperature 20C
Room Humidity 30%
Humidity level in the filament can have affected the result but I don’t think so.