dan

Yeah that’s totally galling. Shrinkflation for online services.

You know some shiny-suited corporate asshole got a huge bonus for coming up with that though.

I do not understand why publishers don’t cancel the keys. Why do they allow that parasitic industry to exist? Surely they know which key corresponds to a chargeback?

That’s incredibly awesome. What a fantastic way to end it!

In the interests of avoiding pointless semantic arguments, you can probably safely assume that in any discussion of the relative merits of materials, the word “more” precedes any adjective describing said material’s properties. For example: PLA is more brittle than PETG.

[a] bendy part is as useful as a snapped part in every application that requires strength

I don’t agree. There are many application where a bending failure mode is much more desirable than snapping. OP’s situation, for example. Pretty sure they’d much rather they were alerted to a problem because their lights were pointing in the wrong direction than smashed on the floor.

The extra temperature resistance of PETG compared to PLA might not be a big number on paper, but it makes it suitable for many things PLA isn’t. Things for use in a car, for example, are common to see problems when printed in PLA (you can find tons of pictures of PLA phone holders melted in the sun). PETG isn’t immune but will almost always fare better in any situation where there might be heat. For example, an LED light fitting, like OP's situation.

Anyway. Do we really have to fanboy materials?

It’s not quite that clear cut I’m afraid. PLA is stiffer which can be desirable but also makes it quite brittle. That means while it has a higher tensile strength, it has a lower impact strength - and it fails more unexpectedly and catastrophically than PETG, which is much more likely to deflect and bend rather than snap. That plus PLA’s susceptibility to warping or bending in even fairly moderate heat generally makes it less practical for real-world practical things that are going to deal with a bit of abuse.

PLA is much better than PETG for models or anything requiring dimensional accuracy over strength, though.

That link doesn’t work for me. But basically use PETG for strength and heat resistance, PLA is better for rigidity or dimensional accuracy, but it’ll soften super easily. ASA/ABS would be better but is trickier to print and needs an enclosure.