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Posted: 2/8/2023 12:24:31 AM EDT
[Last Edit: Rat_Patrol]
Since the question comes up a LOT of "which filament should I buy" to "what is the best filament for this project," I thought a tacked thread about filament may be a good idea. We can try it out, see how it goes, modify as needed, or just shit-can it should that be best. I had thought about expanding in the beginner's guide sticky, but this really is a subject all its own, plus getting into the weeds with material properties isn't a beginner's thing per se.
Here is the link to a Google Sheet that has filament profiles, and their recommended usage. Note: I have it set to anybody can edit. Honor system to ONLY edit to include YOUR info, not edit OTHER profiles. I'm going to reserve the next few posts to add to this later. |
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Strong men create good times. Good times breed weak men. Weak men create hard times. (You are here) Hard times breed strong men.
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Strong men create good times. Good times breed weak men. Weak men create hard times. (You are here) Hard times breed strong men.
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Strong men create good times. Good times breed weak men. Weak men create hard times. (You are here) Hard times breed strong men.
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Strong men create good times. Good times breed weak men. Weak men create hard times. (You are here) Hard times breed strong men.
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You may now comment
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Strong men create good times. Good times breed weak men. Weak men create hard times. (You are here) Hard times breed strong men.
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I added numakers PLA+. I haven't tried their PETG yet. I've otherwise only tried 3D Fuel and AnkerMake filaments. I have some Overture to try but haven't yet.
It would be nice if we could figure out what resins are in the filaments. Numakers PLA+ is 3D850. 3D Fuel PLA+ Pro is 3D870 while the 3D Fuel PLA+ Standard is 4043D. And whether US company or not. I know people like eSun and Polymaker, but they are not US companies. |
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Originally Posted By LuckyDucky: I added numakers PLA+. I haven't tried their PETG yet. I've otherwise only tried 3D Fuel and AnkerMake filaments. I have some Overture to try but haven't yet. It would be nice if we could figure out what resins are in the filaments. Numakers PLA+ is 3D850. 3D Fuel PLA+ Pro is 3D870 while the 3D Fuel PLA+ Standard is 4043D. And whether US company or not. I know people like eSun and Polymaker, but they are not US companies. View Quote |
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Strong men create good times. Good times breed weak men. Weak men create hard times. (You are here) Hard times breed strong men.
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Originally Posted By LuckyDucky: Their FAQ says they manufacture their own filaments. 3D Fuel does too in ND. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By LuckyDucky: Originally Posted By Rat_Patrol: I could not find "made in USA" anywhere on their site or TDS. All I found is a quote from Obama and headquartered in VA. Their FAQ says they manufacture their own filaments. 3D Fuel does too in ND. |
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Strong men create good times. Good times breed weak men. Weak men create hard times. (You are here) Hard times breed strong men.
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So has any one here used Numakers filament yet? Where is this made? Prices are decent, discounts for volume, free shipping over $30, but is it any good? So many questions.
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Originally Posted By bootleg15: So has any one here used Numakers filament yet? Where is this made? Prices are decent, discounts for volume, free shipping over $30, but is it any good? So many questions. View Quote I have used the PLA+ and it works well. I have not used the PETG yet. Per the website, it is made in the US. |
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Okay, today I received a spool of Numakers PLA+ filament and so far I have 3 failed prints. This stuff will not stick to my PEI build plate. After just a 1/2 dozen layers it lets go, I then had success using some Polymaker PLA+. Also it seems to be pretty brittle. I still have no idea where this stuff is made, no where on the box or spool does it give a country of origin. It does say they are headquartered in Virginia for whatever that is worth. I will not be buying any more until I get this stuff figured out.
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Originally Posted By bootleg15: Okay, today I received a spool of Numakers PLA+ filament and so far I have 3 failed prints. This stuff will not stick to my PEI build plate. After just a 1/2 dozen layers it lets go, I then had success using some Polymaker PLA+. Also it seems to be pretty brittle. I still have no idea where this stuff is made, no where on the box or spool does it give a country of origin. It does say they are headquartered in Virginia for whatever that is worth. I will not be buying any more until I get this stuff figured out. View Quote https://www.numakers.com/faq/ Look at the first question. Interesting about sticking as I haven't had that issue. Do you use a heated bed? |
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Originally Posted By LuckyDucky: https://www.numakers.com/faq/ Look at the first question. Interesting about sticking as I haven't had that issue. Do you use a heated bed? View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By LuckyDucky: Originally Posted By bootleg15: Okay, today I received a spool of Numakers PLA+ filament and so far I have 3 failed prints. This stuff will not stick to my PEI build plate. After just a 1/2 dozen layers it lets go, I then had success using some Polymaker PLA+. Also it seems to be pretty brittle. I still have no idea where this stuff is made, no where on the box or spool does it give a country of origin. It does say they are headquartered in Virginia for whatever that is worth. I will not be buying any more until I get this stuff figured out. https://www.numakers.com/faq/ Look at the first question. Interesting about sticking as I haven't had that issue. Do you use a heated bed? Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see made in the USA in the FAQs. Only, "Yes, we manufacture our filaments at our state-of-the-art facility using the most advanced extruders in the market. ". Every other manufacturer that is made in the USA has big bold letters and an American Flag on their product proclaiming the fact. As for the PLA itself, PEI textured bed, cleaned with Dawn and wiped down with 99% IPA before every print and heated to 65*C, which seems to work with every other PLA I have. It starts warping almost immediately and the lets go. Color me unimpressed. On the plus side it is very neatly wound. |
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Originally Posted By Rat_Patrol: I see it now. I'll have to give their stuff a try. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By Rat_Patrol: Originally Posted By LuckyDucky: Originally Posted By Rat_Patrol: I could not find "made in USA" anywhere on their site or TDS. All I found is a quote from Obama and headquartered in VA. Their FAQ says they manufacture their own filaments. 3D Fuel does too in ND. I own a biz, so I decided to flex that a bit. I asked them for a County Of Origin declaration about their filament. That was a couple days ago, during the week, and crickets. They have completely ignored me. I'm going with they are reselling Chinese filament and implying it is made in the USA (because they carefully don't say it is made in USA, they just imply it) until/unless further information comes in. For me, being shady about that puts me off from the biz altogether, regardless if the filament is OK or not. I fell for that trap with Rhino USA recovery supplies which are RA RA RA US VETERAN OWNED!!! USA COMPANY!!!!! Oh, after I get my stuff, made in China If you want to sell Chinese filament, then just sell it. Fine. But this dishonest shit pisses me off. |
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Strong men create good times. Good times breed weak men. Weak men create hard times. (You are here) Hard times breed strong men.
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If that's the case we need to make it known.
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Originally Posted By -Obsessed-: I'm thinking they are being misleading. This is printed on the pack. Now...if it was made in USA, don't you think this would say Made in USA? Instead it says Headquartered in USA. Holosun should copy that trick, since they are headquartered in California. https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/467079/20230225_164436-2725125.jpg View Quote I'm guessing that's what this company did. All they sell is PETG, good prices but once again no mention of COO. California Filament Even cheaper on EBay. EBay California Filament |
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Numakers updated their website to be more specific on product sourcing and manufacture:
https://www.numakers.com/faq/ Yes, we manufacture our filaments at our state-of-the-art facility in Virginia using the most advanced extruders in the market. Our PLA+ filaments are made using 3D850 resin which is made by Natureworks in Blaire, Nebraska using American grown corn and sugarcane. View Quote |
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American Filament. Made in Alabama.
Picked up a spool of PLA from a local store, haven't used it yet though. Maybe it will replace eSun for my PLA filament? |
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Who, What, Where? Call Sign, Snowball
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Anybody with experience with Overture PETG?
I bought a multi-color bundle. It seems to work OK-ish if I dry before using it. If I get a first layer down smooth, it does OK, but I still get blobs mid-print. I turned the flow rate way down using live adjust, and it ran a little better. I haven't been able to get it to stop stringing, but it's not bad. I haven't had any similar trouble with 3DXStat PETG-ESD, Atomic PETG, and Polymaker PETG-ESD. Night and day difference between overture and three other brands. I'm using mostly default settings in Cura or Prusa. Bed temp 70 to 80, 1st layer 240-255, printing 230-255. Fan off for the 1st 2 layers, 20-30% or off for the rest. I installed Orca slicer, and the default settings in that make overture work and look better, but the other three brands work and look better too. All that was on an Ender 5 S1. Just had two fails in a row on a new X1 Carbon. Same blobs on the build plate while it's trying to put down a first layer. |
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Originally Posted By Tholo: Anybody with experience with Overture PETG? I bought a multi-color bundle. It seems to work OK-ish if I dry before using it. If I get a first layer down smooth, it does OK, but I still get blobs mid-print. I turned the flow rate way down using live adjust, and it ran a little better. I haven't been able to get it to stop stringing, but it's not bad. I haven't had any similar trouble with 3DXStat PETG-ESD, Atomic PETG, and Polymaker PETG-ESD. Night and day difference between overture and three other brands. I'm using mostly default settings in Cura or Prusa. Bed temp 70 to 80, 1st layer 240-255, printing 230-255. Fan off for the 1st 2 layers, 20-30% or off for the rest. I installed Orca slicer, and the default settings in that make overture work and look better, but the other three brands work and look better too. All that was on an Ender 5 S1. Just had two fails in a row on a new X1 Carbon. Same blobs on the build plate while it's trying to put down a first layer. View Quote Can you keep temp low while it does FLC? Prusa allows you to do that. Temp stays at 155 during FLC then heats to final temp for print. Overture I've used a bit of. 10-15kg maybe. It's decent mechanical print filament, but certainly not a cosmetic grade filament. It likes to print a little cooler but I cannot get it to look decent and be super strong simultaneously. The only brands I have found that I can print hot and clean are Polymaker and Atomic. To me anyway, Numakers and Overture print nearly identical in their PETG. Which isn't necessarily bad. It is at least very consistent. More than I can say for some brands. |
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Originally Posted By -Obsessed-: Can you keep temp low while it does FLC? Prusa allows you to do that. Temp stays at 155 during FLC then heats to final temp for print. Overture I've used a bit of. 10-15kg maybe. It's decent mechanical print filament, but certainly not a cosmetic grade filament. It likes to print a little cooler but I cannot get it to look decent and be super strong simultaneously. The only brands I have found that I can print hot and clean are Polymaker and Atomic. To me anyway, Numakers and Overture print nearly identical in their PETG. Which isn't necessarily bad. It is at least very consistent. More than I can say for some brands. View Quote On the ender 5, I soak the bed for 5 minutes at the target temp before printing. Nozzle at ambient or 165. |
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I wish I saved some of the parts I made for work the other day.
I got the test prints in (cheaper) Overture working as well as I could, and wasn't happy. Didn't have any more ideas, so I put the final PETG-ESD material in and tried it. Those came out looking pretty good. Printed a full bed of those and they were all good. I'm worried about wasting less material than you have gone through already. I was already planning to stick with Atomic. The X1C has been fire-and-forget reliable (for the 24 hours I've had it), but every print I attempted with overture failed in the first 1-2 layers, and was fine in any other material. |
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Atomic is good.
Jesse filament from printedsolid.com is my new favorite. Cheap price, good filament. The PLA is regular PLA, but prints beautifully. PETG is PETG, and again, prints excellent. |
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Strong men create good times. Good times breed weak men. Weak men create hard times. (You are here) Hard times breed strong men.
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The overture worked out a lot better with drying and temperature towers. Separate filament profiles for each brand on each machine is a must.
I'm also an idiot, trying to optimize 2 brands on two wildly different machines at the same time. The X1C is *not* as dialed in out of the box as reviews would have you believe. Still working out the stringing with the overture, but it's not terrible on dry filament. I started using a food dehydrator to dry my spools, which seems more effective than the purpose made filament dryers i had. Those are probably better for feeding the machine, not preparing a spool. |
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I like NuMakers PLA+ filament but don't be afraid to bump up the temps and print it hot.
I too had issues with it not sticking to PEI bed. I bumped temps up to 235C and that went away. When I print fast I print it at 260C. Limit max volumetric print speed to 15mm3/s. |
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"Beware the fury of a patient man" - John Dryden
"Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God" - Simon Bradstreet "I may crossdress but I don't dress like a whore" - LittlePony |
220 is very cold for petg. You may want to start a new thread to troubleshoot this.
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Strong men create good times. Good times breed weak men. Weak men create hard times. (You are here) Hard times breed strong men.
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"Beware the fury of a patient man" - John Dryden
"Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God" - Simon Bradstreet "I may crossdress but I don't dress like a whore" - LittlePony |
Originally Posted By LuckyDucky: Numakers updated their website to be more specific on product sourcing and manufacture: https://www.numakers.com/faq/ View Quote Just got my order from Numakers and every spool is marked made in India. PLA and PETG... |
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"It's not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what's required." Sir Winston Churchill
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Originally Posted By Longboat: Just got my order from Numakers and every spool is marked made in India. PLA and PETG... View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By Longboat: Originally Posted By LuckyDucky: Numakers updated their website to be more specific on product sourcing and manufacture: https://www.numakers.com/faq/ Just got my order from Numakers and every spool is marked made in India. PLA and PETG... I see they changed their website to reflect that. At least they are being honest now. |
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Strong men create good times. Good times breed weak men. Weak men create hard times. (You are here) Hard times breed strong men.
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Filament prints nice so far. One spool I am expecting some tangles as it is a crappy roll up.
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"It's not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what's required." Sir Winston Churchill
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I've probably printed 30 rolls of Numakers so far. I've found it to be more consistent than Esun (no wet spools) and the colors are better than Sunlu (Sunlu red is kinda faded).
I know they may not have been too honest about where they make it, but apparently they did make it in the USA at one point then due to demand and trying to keep prices consistent they started making it in India (still better than China I guess). I looked into the PLA+ base material they use which is Natureworks 3D850 https://filament2print.com/gb/special-pla/755-pla-3d850-natural.html https://www.pushplastic.com/products/high-heat-pla-1kg It's an absolute bargain considering the base material used. Using a 5% discount code (3DR) will get you $13.30 per kg (10 pack) vs $25 per kg on the other brands that market this as their next level above their standard PLA+ material. |
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Originally Posted By memsu: I've probably printed 30 rolls of Numakers so far. I've found it to be more consistent than Esun (no wet spools) and the colors are better than Sunlu (Sunlu red is kinda faded). I know they may not have been too honest about where they make it, but apparently they did make it in the USA at one point then due to demand and trying to keep prices consistent they started making it in India (still better than China I guess). I looked into the PLA+ base material they use which is Natureworks 3D850 https://filament2print.com/gb/special-pla/755-pla-3d850-natural.html https://www.pushplastic.com/products/high-heat-pla-1kg It's an absolute bargain considering the base material used. Using a 5% discount code (3DR) will get you $13.30 per kg (10 pack) vs $25 per kg on the other brands that market this as their next level above their standard PLA+ material. View Quote I've been using them more lately as well. I used to use Polymaker (I print about 40kg/mo) but their quality fell off a cliff. Only complaint with Numakers is their PETG is extremely stringy comparatively and I haven't yet sorted it out. I'm printing really cold (225) and have insanely high retraction for direct drive (1.5mm) and it still strings like mad out of a 0.6mm nozzle. Well one more complaint is their later adhesion falls off a cliff above 55mm/s print speed. Infill starts to get broken up, etc. |
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Originally Posted By -Obsessed-: I tried telling everyone they were shifty and being very, very careful with their wording. View Quote Not exactly. I believe they were making it through a contract manufacturer in the USA (at the time I posted about that) and then moved it overseas. They changed their website to be more clear when some people posted about it. But then they moved it overseas anyway. They clearly are not made in USA anymore if marked made in India. |
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Originally Posted By LuckyDucky: Not exactly. I believe they were making it through a contract manufacturer in the USA (at the time I posted about that) and then moved it overseas. They changed their website to be more clear when some people posted about it. But then they moved it overseas anyway. They clearly are not made in USA anymore if marked made in India. View Quote I will say their PLA prints pretty well. Probably better than Polymaker. It might even be the best printing PLA I've used. Their PETG is extremely, extremely gooey and stringy. Also when doing an EM the multiplier came out to being a 1.05 to print lines properly. I emailed them and they said their PETG should actually be under extruded, closer to a 0.95. I can't help but feel that will cause issues and dimensional instability but I'm going to humor it and I'm printing a piece now. They also never filled my last order, despite it saying fulfilled. The shipping info they sent me 11 days ago stills ays that the carrier is awaiting the package. They aren't sure where it is. |
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I've been getting polymaker asa off of amazon - 4 out of the last 12 rolls have been wound incorrectly and jam up.
It's either threaded under itself, or wound too much on one side pinching it between the roll and the filament. Does anyone have a better source for ASA? I don't see any listed on the sheet. I'm getting great prints from it when the roll unwinds like it should. |
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I use 3dxtech. More expensive, excellent filament.
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Strong men create good times. Good times breed weak men. Weak men create hard times. (You are here) Hard times breed strong men.
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Originally Posted By stewie97: I've been getting polymaker asa off of amazon - 4 out of the last 12 rolls have been wound incorrectly and jam up. It's either threaded under itself, or wound too much on one side pinching it between the roll and the filament. Does anyone have a better source for ASA? I don't see any listed on the sheet. I'm getting great prints from it when the roll unwinds like it should. View Quote Prusament ASA is fantastic. It prints perfectly. Depending on your printer you can try Numakers. It is stupid cheap, especially in bulk. My Prusas hated Numakers but my Bambu X1C loves it. Prints as well as Polymaker ever did. |
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Originally Posted By -Obsessed-: Prusament ASA is fantastic. It prints perfectly. Depending on your printer you can try Numakers. It is stupid cheap, especially in bulk. My Prusas hated Numakers but my Bambu X1C loves it. Prints as well as Polymaker ever did. View Quote Thanks! I’ll check them out. It’s a Bambu X1c as well - if things work out I’ll get getting five more to run production with them. Having to drive back to the shop at night for AMS overload errors is getting old. |
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Originally Posted By stewie97: Thanks! I’ll check them out. It’s a Bambu X1c as well - if things work out I’ll get getting five more to run production with them. Having to drive back to the shop at night for AMS overload errors is getting old. View Quote As an added bonus both Prusament and Numakers use plastic spools - no cardboard spool adapters needed. |
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Who, What, Where? Call Sign, Snowball
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Originally Posted By stewie97: Not quite - I make one product to sell on these printers and I get 2-3 a day off each one. 5 total x1's should get me 50-70 parts a week View Quote |
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Who, What, Where? Call Sign, Snowball
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Originally Posted By Saker13: Nice. Just wondering, why not go with the P1 enclosed version (can't remember if it is the P or S model) or even the A1? View Quote Sorry to derail this from filament talk A few reasons - but the biggest one is we prototyped the part on an X1, and it will make production easier if all of the printers are the same model. For what I am doing and the volume I need the price difference between printers isn't that big of a deal. |
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Originally Posted By -Obsessed-: Prusament ASA is fantastic. It prints perfectly. Depending on your printer you can try Numakers. It is stupid cheap, especially in bulk. My Prusas hated Numakers but my Bambu X1C loves it. Prints as well as Polymaker ever did. View Quote The numakers ASA is working out great - the support portion of the print peals off MUCH easier than the polymaker I was using. |
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