Best Filament for Beginners: Your First Spool

If you have just unboxed a printer, this is the short version: buy PLA or PLA+, in a mid-tone colour, from somewhere local. Then spend your attention on the first print rather than on the filament aisle. This guide covers what to buy first, what to buy next, and the handful of things that go wrong in the first week.

Your first spool

Buy PLA+ if you can stretch to it, and PLA if you want the cheapest possible start. Both print at low temperature, barely warp, need no enclosure and forgive the settings a beginner will give them. PLA+ adds toughening additives, which means your first functional prints are less likely to snap — and nothing kills enthusiasm faster than a bracket breaking the moment you fit it.

Pick a mid-tone colour for the first spool: grey, black, a mid blue or a mid green. It is not an aesthetic recommendation. Dark and mid colours show layer lines, stringing and first-layer problems clearly, so you can actually see what your printer is doing. White hides detail, and translucent or glitter filaments hide it completely. Buy the interesting colours second, once the machine is dialled in — there are sixty-odd in the 3DMA range waiting.

One spool is enough. The common beginner mistake is buying five materials before printing anything, then having five sets of problems to learn at once.

What to buy, in what order

Steps 1 to 3 cover most of what most people ever print. Steps 4 to 6 each have a hardware prerequisite, and buying them before you have the hardware is how spools end up unopened on a shelf.

What a spool costs in Australia

At 3DMA a 1 kg spool of Core PLA is currently $14.95 and Ultra PLA+ High Flow is $19.95, in Australian dollars. That is the real band for decent PLA here: roughly the mid-teens to low twenties per kilogram, with specialty finishes above it.

Below that band, the savings come from somewhere. Usually it is diameter consistency — filament that varies in thickness alternately over- and under-extrudes, and the print looks bad for reasons you cannot fix in the slicer. Sometimes it is winding, and the spool tangles and stops a print eight hours in. Often, with overseas stock, it is simply freight: a spool that has spent four to six weeks in a hot, humid shipping container arrives with moisture already in it and prints rough straight out of the bag.

A failed print costs you the plastic plus the hours. One eight-hour reprint wipes out the saving on a cheap spool several times over, which is why cheapest per kilogram and cheapest per finished part are rarely the same filament. Buying locally also means a spool arrives in days rather than weeks, sealed with desiccant — see Shipping & Returns.

First-print checklist

Ten things worth doing before you press print on a new spool. They take about five minutes together and prevent most first-week failures.

1. Wipe the build plate with isopropyl alcohol. Fingerprints are the single most common cause of a first layer that will not stick.
2. Check the spool turns freely in its holder, and that the filament is not tucked under an earlier wrap.
3. Set the filament diameter to 1.75 mm in your slicer. It is the default, but check.
4. Load the right material profile. A PLA profile for PLA or PLA+, not whatever was last used.
5. Run the printer’s bed levelling or auto-level routine with a clean plate, not a dirty one.
6. Print a first-layer test — a single-layer square. Lines should be slightly squashed and just touching, with no gaps and no ridges.
7. Adjust Z offset from that test, not from the finished print. Gaps between lines mean the nozzle is too high; a rough ridged surface means too low.
8. Print a temperature tower if you have time. Twenty minutes now saves hours of guessing later.
9. Watch the first two layers. Almost every print that fails, fails here. Stay for ninety seconds.
10. Reseal the spool when you finish. Bag or tub, with the desiccant, every time.

Bed adhesion without buying anything

Glue sticks, hairspray, adhesion sprays and upgraded plates all exist, and with PLA on a modern printer you need none of them. In order of what actually works:

• Clean the plate. Isopropyl alcohol on a lint-free cloth, every few prints. Skin oil is invisible and is usually the problem.
• Get the Z offset right. A correct first layer is slightly squashed. This matters more than any surface treatment.
• Slow the first layer to around 20 mm/s so the plastic has time to bond.
• Run the bed at 55–60°C for PLA. Too cool and nothing sticks; far too hot causes a bulging bottom edge.
• Add a brim for anything with a small footprint. Five lines is usually plenty.
• Stop the draught. An open window or an air conditioner blowing across the bed lifts corners. Move the printer before you buy anything.

If a plate is genuinely worn smooth and PLA still will not stick after all of that, then a glue stick is a reasonable stopgap. It should not be a routine.

Three problems you will hit in week one

One fix each, for the three faults that account for most early frustration.

And the thing worth knowing early: sometimes the filament is fine and the printer is the problem. If a known-good spool fails the same way, stop tuning the material. Our troubleshooting guide has a five-minute triage that tells you which half is at fault, plus a full symptom-to-fix table.

Which first filament for your printer

Printer choice barely affects the first spool, but it does affect what comes later.

• Modern high-speed printers benefit from high-flow formulations, which are compounded to melt fast enough to keep up at speed. Ultra PLA+ High Flow is the straightforward first spool.
• Multi-material systems handle PLA, PLA+ and PETG happily. TPU generally should not go through an automatic material system — feed it directly, and check your printer’s documentation.
• Bowden-tube printers can print PLA and PETG well but struggle with TPU, because the long tube lets flexible filament buckle. If flexibles matter to you, that is a direct-drive upgrade, not a filament problem.
• Open-frame printers of any kind are fine for PLA, PLA+, PETG and TPU, and unsuitable for ABS and ASA without an enclosure.

Frequently asked questions

What filament should I get as a beginner?

One spool of PLA or PLA+ in a mid-tone colour. PLA is the cheapest and most forgiving material there is; PLA+ costs a few dollars more and makes your early functional parts far less likely to break. Both need no enclosure, no special nozzle and no hardware changes. Buy one, print with it until you are getting consistent results, then add a second material.

Is PLA or ABS better for beginners?

PLA, by a wide margin. ABS needs an enclosure to stop it warping and cracking, it wants a bed around 90–110°C, and it has a noticeable styrene odour that means it should not run in a room you are sitting in. PLA prints on an open printer at low temperature with almost no odour. ABS is a material you grow into once you have the hardware for it.

Is PLA or PETG better?

Different jobs. PLA is easier to print, gives a better surface finish and costs less, but softens around 55–60°C and is brittle. PETG handles heat to roughly 80°C, resists moisture and chemicals, and is tougher — at the cost of more stringing and a fussier first layer. Use PLA for anything decorative or indoors, and PETG for parts that live outside, get warm, or take a knock.

What is safer, PLA or PETG?

Both are among the lowest-odour, lowest-emission filaments in common use, and both are considered suitable for printing in a normally ventilated room — unlike ABS and ASA. PLA has the edge on odour. Food contact is a separate question: printed parts have layer lines that harbour bacteria regardless of the polymer, so treat 3D printed items as not food-safe unless you have specifically verified the material, the hardware it touched and the intended use.

Can I print PLA without a heated bed?

Yes, though it is harder. PLA is the one common material that will stick to an unheated surface, especially with a textured plate or a layer of painter’s tape. A bed at 55–60°C makes first layers far more reliable, so use it if you have it.

Do I need to dry a brand new spool?

A spool that arrives sealed with desiccant and has travelled domestically should print fine straight out of the bag. A spool that has been freighted from overseas, sat in a warehouse for months, or been open on your shelf for weeks in humid weather may not. If it pops at the nozzle or prints rough, dry it — our storage guide has the temperatures and times.

How long does a spool of filament last?

A 1 kg spool yields roughly 20 to 30 typical desktop prints of 30–50 g each, or well over a hundred small items. Stored sealed with desiccant, unopened filament keeps for years; left open in a humid Australian summer, PETG and TPU can degrade noticeably within weeks.