Favorite printing colors?

[Daid 306]

Thanks to some donations on SkeinPyPy, and the excellent service of Faberdashery. I now have almost every color available in PLA. (Except gold and galaxy blue)

I haven't printed in every color yet. But I was wondering what peoples favorite colors are.

I haven't tried printing in crystal clear, and I'm really wondering how that will look. I have printed in glowbug yellow (glow-in-the-dark) and that's really an awesome color to use. A bit more expensive, and almost always out of stock. But awesome. I only managed to get 20m of it. And only printed a glow-in-the-dark yoda so far. It's impossible to photograph the glow effect for me. But it's still awesome, I really recommend you get some.

Other then that, I like my roll of red a lot more then my roll of black. Because the final result is less shiny, making print faults less obvious.

[joergen 2]

Thanks to some donations on SkeinPyPy, and the excellent service of Faberdashery. I now have almost every color available in PLA. (Except gold and galaxy blue)

I haven't printed in every color yet. But I was wondering what peoples favorite colors are.

I haven't tried printing in crystal clear, and I'm really wondering how that will look. I have printed in glowbug yellow (glow-in-the-dark) and that's really an awesome color to use. A bit more expensive, and almost always out of stock. But awesome. I only managed to get 20m of it. And only printed a glow-in-the-dark yoda so far. It's impossible to photograph the glow effect for me.

For a starter, you should come up with a gallery page on some website showing off your work (your models and your slicer) and the new colors, together with some tech details how it was sliced and printed, so others could use it as a guideline how to get good prints.

If you get a tripod, or a bean bag to support your camera, and go manual & long exposure and play a bit with the ambient light (don't go totally dark), you can capture the glow.

 

Other then that, I like my roll of red a lot more then my roll of black. Because the final result is less shiny, making print faults less obvious.

I haven't printed my ultimachine red PLA yet, but printing a bit warmer/slower should bring the shine back, since the lack of shine is a incomplete/rough surface on the extrusion when it leaves the nozzle.

[unclebobtech 0]

I would also like to see the gallery of prints and what plastics being used.

[codemaven 0]

Ahh, looks like the long post I spent forever writing got lost... :(

Anyway.... I'll quickly summarize.... My favourite colour is the Faberdashery Robot Silver... I've printed lots in it. It's only really silver in certain lighting - most of the time it's just grey... but I do find it to be a good all-round colour for many things.

Glowbug yellow is cool. I too printed a Yoda in it!

Bling-Bling gold mostly looks like a pale orange... but when the light hits it right it can look goldish and quite cool. My favourite thing that I've printed so far is a Star Trek TNG communicator (thing 14345) at 0.02mm layer height with the oval in Bling-Bling gold and the chevron in Robot Silver.... It looks just like the real thing.

Crystal Clear extrudes perfectly clear in single strands, but when you start laying that down of course you don't get a homogeneous solid so the end result tends to be more of a translucent white. It's still pretty cool, but don't expect clear prints.

the most recent thing I printed was a stand for my Galaxy Tab tablet that I designed myself and printed in Galaxy Blue... I'm not really that impressed with it. The blue is not transparent enough to really let the aluminium specks shine. I want to do a highly detailed USS Enterprise model one day in many pieces (glued together like a plastic model kit)... My intention is to use Galaxy Blue with LEDs inside for the strips on the engine nacelles.

Here's some snaps of things I have on my desk at work. The Glowbug yellow Yoda (looks white in the direct sunlight on my desk), the Galaxy Blue tablet stand, and my Star Trek Communicator.

https://picasaweb.google.com/102544598518008997408/3dPrints?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Cheers,

Troy

[codemaven 0]

Hmm.. I think I'm loosing my mind... Apparently my original long post wasn't lost, I just posted it in the wrong thread... It's over here: http://forum.ultimaker.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=572&p=3091#p3088

Troy

[Daid 306]

Dragon: Village green

Chest: Glowbug yellow (with a bit of ultimaker black at the bottom, because my extruder was not empty)

Base: Lapis Blue

The Lapis blue comes out a lot lighter then I had expected. But the village green is a very pretty color!

[unclebobtech 0]

That's very nice quality. Any photo editing? And how much software calibration in order to get to this?

[Daid 306]

That's very nice quality. Any photo editing? And how much software calibration in order to get to this?

No photo editing, taken with a phone camera of a HTC Legend (without flash)

Calibration: SkeinPyPy (Cura) defaults, with just layer settings to 0.1mm. No calibration in steps per E (but the default is almost spot on for me). And 190C. Printed with USB (I also have an SD option)

[codemaven 0]

The images in my link are all done in Netfabb at 0.02mm layer height... They look very good in person. Those photos don't do them justice. They were just taken here at work with my camera's phone... At 0.02 layer height I cannot see individual layers at all without a very strong magnifier. When I say I made them myself people usually ask me if I cast them from a mould. Especially the Yodas. They really feel completely smooth to the touch.

I've only had my machine since December and I've been getting these quality results for quite a while. I was lucky - I've done no calibration or anything to the machine... I just got NetFabb and slowly started reducing the layer height bit by bit as far as I dared go.. I've never had any issues except some extruder jams back in January. I'm printing at 175 degrees now. Reducing the temperature actually helped my jamming problem and improved my prints.

Cheers,

Troy.

[Daid 306]

 

The images in my link are all done in Netfabb at 0.02mm layer height... They look very good in person. Those photos don't do them justice.

I have the same problem with my photos, the objects look a lot better in person. That yoda photo is awesome! I get some stringing between the ears and the head at 0.1mm layers, seems like that is no issue at 0.02mm?

[codemaven 0]

There's still quite a bit of stringing between the ears... but it takes me about 30 seconds with a Swiss army knife to clean it up. I don't think I noticed any difference in the amount of stringing when using different layer heights... Lowering the temperature did help a bit with stringing though.

Cheers,

Troy.

[thedudevt 0]

@CodeMaven- Would you mind posting info about your NetFabb .02 profile here?

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=581

Thank you!

[unclebobtech 0]

Guys,

Netfabb is very expensive. Do you guys feel it is worth buying?

[Daid 306]

Netfabb is very expensive. Do you guys feel it is worth buying?

The Ultimaker engine adds about 10% to the price. 150E. And from what I hear around here, it contains a lot of configuration options. So if you like to tweak your prints a lot, then it sounds interesting.

But my personal opinion, I'm happy without it. My initial idea was, I'll try without, and if the "free" options suck too hard, then I'll buy it. The free options did suck a bit, but where workable. With SF40+ (volumetric printing) things changed for the better. And I don't even consider buying NetFabb now. Also to make sure I don't "taint" Cura with NetFabb ideas and get into problems.

IMHO, you better spend the 150E at Ultimaker or Faberdashery on Filament.

[codemaven 0]

I would suggest you try without Netfabb and see how you get on. As Daid said there are some very good free alternatives out there. I have not looked at his Cura yet, but it sounds very promising.

For me, I started with just SF35 and was impressed with the results at the time... but they were still nowhere near as good as what people were getting with Netfabb. I couldn't get SF40 to work for me... but I don't really think I gave it enough of a chance.... I saw the great results that people were getting with Netfabb and decided to give it a go. I was impressed right away. My first print with it (without changing any settings) was at 0.08mm layer height and just blew me away.... I don't think Netfabb is any more configurable than Skeinforge - maybe even less so... but the defaults 'out of the box' seem to be better and the GUI is a lot nicer to work with. Those are the two points that it seems Daid is targeting to improve on the Free/Opensource front with his Cura project.

I've done very little adjustment to Netfabb since I've been using it... Basically I've been lowering the layer height and temperature and have not at all touched the other configuration options and it's just worked well for me. I think I've been very lucky in that respect. I wasn't particularly careful in assembling my machine but it seems that I hit everything just right when assembling it. Your mileage may vary.

My Gripes with Netfabb:

No volumetric support built in (not sure how big of an issue this is... I think it would make it easier to configure).

Still lots of bugs, releases are addressing them, but slowly.

No Linux support (this is actually the biggest issue for me... I haven't been able to get it to run reasonably in a VM )

No demo to try-before-you-buy...

I really, really wish they would release a Linux version... NetFabb is the only non-Linux app I use so I maintain a while separate PC just for it right now because I don't want to have to reboot my main PC just use Netfabb...

€150 is a lot of money... too much in my opinion for what you get... But currently I think it's the best out of the box solution if you don't want to spend forever tweaking your settings.

In my opinion, try Cura, try Slic3r, and see what you get. The default 'Ultra' profile in Netfabb is 0.08mm, which is a noticeable improvement even on 0.1mm. I've never seen anything less than 0.1mm from any other software. I'm glad I took the plunge for Netfabb and I love it... But €150 is a big premium to pay.

cheers,

Troy.

[Daid 306]

In my opinion, try Cura, try Slic3r, and see what you get.

FYI: In the development version of Cura you can select Slic3r as a backend instead of Cura's version of SF. This makes using the same settings for both even easier :-) (It's still experimental, and there are a few bugs when you use Slic3r, but it's in the work for the next version)

 

The default 'Ultra' profile in Netfabb is 0.08mm, which is a noticeable improvement even on 0.1mm. I've never seen anything less than 0.1mm from any other software.

I've printed at 0.05mm once with SF. Works, but slicing takes a long time. My bed wasn't level so the object finally detached itself from the bed and was ruined. But it worked.

[Daid 306]

Transparent twisted bottle with cap. Printed with Cura at high quality settings. Cap screwed on without any problems.

Transparent PLA isn't as transparent as I hoped it would be. But with proper light it still looks pretty cool.

[Daid 306]

Ok, update on another color. White!

White is very pretty, looks neutral, and also doesn't show problems as well as some other colors. The only disadvantage is that it can burn a bit if it's exposed to heat too long, which makes it slightly brown.

[italianmaxx 0]

Yesterday I printed a keychain with faberdashery glow pla. Some problem with nf but a very good print with cura at 200 C and 0.2

Object came out with a very good finish, normal color is between a pale ivory-cream and hide well little problems.

The show starts when you turn off the light and the object starts glowing a light green, fantastic!

It's a sin that the glow doesn't last very much time, I mean that after you 'charge' the object in front of a light source it glows bright but the glowing fades fast and during a whole night the objects keep just a bit of glowing.

Anyway prints very well, ( just clean the nozzle of the last pla used before start the print), kids get crazy about it and the quality of the pla is really good, thr object appears sturdier than other normal pla, no smell, very good finish.

Approved!

[Daid 306]

The glow of the glowbug last longer if you have more material in it, so I recommend a high infill value like 70%-90%.

[codemaven 0]

Good tip Daid.

I love my Glowbug Yoda, but it doesn't flow for long.... However it's printed with very little infill... nearly hollow. I think I'll try it with a much more solid infill.

Troy.

[italianmaxx 0]

today I printied two keychaines, one with faberdashery gold and one with faberdashery red.

with gold I'm quite disappointed. the filament has a good color but after print it loses so much its gold finish becoming pale and maybe a little opalescent. temp is the same of silver and golwbug = 200 C

The red is AWESOME! it need some degree more (220) but its finish is really really good. It seems the good old LEGO red, quite shiny. Feels really heavy and hard after print, I'm really satisfied

by the way, the gold keychain is sliced and printed in netfabb. disappointing. the upskin is missing somewhere and the walls are more a net than a wall (standard, 0.2 layer)

the red one is sliced in cura rc2 and printed in printrun (0.2 layer, 60mm/sec, 30% line infill, 220 C). very good print. a little bit improvment in upskin and cura will be perfect.

[codemaven 0]

I find that with the gold it mostly looks a dull orange colour... but when it catches the light just right on occasion it can look gold-ish. it looks good on my Star Trek communicator badge...

I've never had any luck with anything less than High quality in NetFabb.... In fact I only ever use the Ultra High 0.08mm profile and 0.04mm profiles that I've created myself... I couldn't get prints to work properly at the 'standard' or 'low' quality profiles.... However, I found that the print time estimates between the ultra-high and standard are pretty close... the Ultra high profile prints at a high feed rate and produces amazing prints in the same amount of time as prints of much lower quality. My prints of Yoda only take about 7.5 hours.

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/olrvENFmEX08Jtrm-efu0dMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=directlink

Cheers,

Troy.

[ian 32]

we just ordered our first ultimaker last night for my engineering company in Leipzig and we took netfabb off our order.

Instead of the 150 euros for netfabb, we are going to use Daids super cool Cura, buy the new ultipanel and get two extra rolls of PLA for the same price as Netflab.

Netflak, take notice !!

Daid... you are the king !!

Ian :-)

[Daid 306]

we just ordered our first ultimaker last night for my engineering company in Leipzig and we took netfabb off our order.

Instead of the 150 euros for netfabb, we are going to use Daids super cool Cura, buy the new ultipanel and get two extra rolls of PLA for the same price as Netflab.

Netflak, take notice !!

Daid... you are the king !!

Ian :-)

You could have also donated the 150E to the "Let Daid take more nice vacations" foundation :mrgreen:

The UltiController is a good option, I highly recommend it. So far I found it a better add-on then the 2nd extruder I have.