Filament library
PETG print settings
The workhorse for parts that have a job to do.
PETG is the material you graduate to when a print has to survive the real world: it flexes where PLA snaps, stays solid to roughly 75 °C, and shrugs off water and weather. Brackets, hooks, outdoor fixtures, and anything mechanical — this is their home.
The price of toughness is fussiness: PETG strings more, drinks moisture from the air within days, and bonds aggressively to smooth build plates. All manageable — but it's a material with rules, not a press-print experience.
Difficulty
Moderate
Best for
Functional parts, brackets, hooks, outdoor items, anything near water or moderate heat.
Skip it for
Fine decorative detail (stringing), and your very first spool ever.
Starting settings
Drying
55 °C for 6 h — Needed often — PETG absorbs moisture within days in open air. Crackling sounds or bubbles mean dry it now.
New to drying? Read how to dry filament first.
Bed adhesion
The famous gotcha: PETG bonds so hard to smooth PEI it can rip the coating off. Use a textured plate, or wipe glue stick on smooth plates as a release layer — the opposite of its usual job.
Mistakes to skip
- • Printing PETG on a bare smooth PEI plate and losing the plate's coating with the print.
- • Fighting stringing with settings while the actual cause is a wet spool.
- • Running PLA-level cooling — 100% fan makes PETG layers weak and the corners lift.
Common questions
What temperature should I print PETG at?
Start at 240 °C nozzle, 75 °C bed. Strings everywhere? Dry the filament first, then step down toward 230. Weak, delaminating layers? Step up toward 250 and reduce the cooling fan.
Why does PETG string so much?
It's a stickier, more fluid polymer than PLA — some fine wisps are normal even when dialed in. Heavy stringing is almost always moisture. Dry the spool, then tune: slightly cooler nozzle, slightly more retraction, faster travel moves.
Is PETG food safe?
The raw polymer is used in food packaging, but a printed part isn't a bottle: layer grooves trap bacteria, nozzles shed traces of metal, and colorants aren't certified. Treat printed PETG like all printed plastic — fine for dry, brief contact, not for repeated wet food use.
Not sure PETG is the right call for your project? TheFilament Pickerdecides in five questions — and thecost calculatortells you what each print costs.