What brand of filament do you guys use that is the most color true? (is that the correct term? Maybe ‘color authenticity’? Sorry, english isn’t my native language…)
I would like to print a nice red color and did a little test with the bambu red and Kingroon Red filament but I was somewhat dissapointed by the outcome.
Unfortunately, the color printed is not really red. The red is not as vibrant, nice and deep as I hoped. It is a bit dull, tending towards light red/pink/ or maybe a hint of orange? (I will upload a photo later today…)
Am I making any sense here? Is this something you recognise?
What brand do you guys use?
Are there any filament brands known for their good color quality.
Maybe it is just the color red that is hard to print because other colors I use don’t seem to vary that much…
I don’t have any good red suggestions, unfortunately, but I wanted to clarify what you needed. However, I do have an anti-suggestion (I can’t remember the exact word for it): I’ve used BBL PLA Matte Scarlet Red, and it isn’t vibrant (hence the name ‘matte’, ahahhah) and is rather dull after it’s printed and cooled down.
Well maybe not what I initially asked for, but still it is good to know what the experience of others is with certain brands of filament.
Now I know what NOT to buy
The notion of color so far in this thread is subjective. Can we define “Red”?
If you’ve ever interacted with the print media world, they use the Pantone scale. If you’re working in the desktop publishing space, that translates to either RGB for screen or CYMK for desktop printers. Web sites use HEX. There are other standards as well.
Standard
Description
Examples
RGB
Additive color model used in electronic displays.
Red (255,0,0), Green (0,255,0), Blue (0,0,255)
CMYK
Subtractive color model used in color printing.
Cyan (100,0,0,0), Magenta (0,100,0,0), Yellow (0,0,100,0), Black (0,0,0,100)
HEX
Hexadecimal color codes used in web design.
#FF0000 (Red), #00FF00 (Green), #0000FF (Blue)
Pantone
Standardized color matching system for printing and manufacturing.
Pantone 485 C (Red), Pantone 300 C (Blue)
RAL
European color matching system used in architecture, construction, and industry.
RAL 1023 (Traffic Yellow), RAL 3020 (Traffic Red)
HSL
Hue, Saturation, Lightness color model used in digital graphics.
Early in my career we supplied media for bar code printers and my engineer used to joke, “There are 256 shades of black and the human eye can only detect one”.
If you do a search on PLA color matching, you will find some suppliers who will scientifically match to your specific color standard. I looked into this for a project which required a company logo that used a specific set of color standards. They are expensive as in $120/spool expensive. But if you have to match a color, that’s the only way to go.
Another issue is how thick the red is (or any filament). Most are somewhat translucent and there are color calibration thingies in MW you can print that have steps so there are different thicknesses. They are used a lot in hueforge printing.
Depending on what you are printing, colors behind a particular color can also change the shade.
But if printing solid color stuff, you’ll just need to scope out other manufacturers to see how their colors look. If the printing settings are the same as the Bambu PLA, you can save the Bambu red PLA RFID tags and tape or mount it/them on the new spool to still get RFID functionality. If you don’t put tags on both sides of the spool, though, it will only be able to be read in certain AMS slots.
It took me several tries to get the yellow I wanted. Sometimes colors vary from one batch to the next from the same seller (“manufacturer”). The only places I’ve found that provide color specs as noted by @Olias are typically very proud of their filament and it shows in their prices. I typically get my filament off Amazon and get it the next day. (Or sometimes the same day if I order early enough.) So, it’s easy for me to try a color. I can always use it for trials or tests if it’s not quite the right color.
I bought the BL CYMK pack and can say with certainly those colors are “washed out” compared to typical colors. But they are for a specific purpose.
Not to go too far off topic but did you know that you can send back partially used filament if your not satisfied and Amazon will take it back, no questions asked if you’re a Prime member? I return about 10% of my first-time filaments. In fact, in a couple of cases, I’ve used 200g of the filament trying to get it to calibrate before I pulled the plug. Amazon doesn’t even question it and I have 6 places I can drop off the return, one being about a mile from my house.
I’m not as fortunate. It’s a 50-mile trip for me to get to UPS drop-off that accepts more than an envelope. The two times UPS was to supply a label and pick up the item, I found the labels on the ground by the porch. They didn’t stick around or even knock. The last package that was shipped to me by UPS was marked as delivered. It was delivered somewhere over 1,000 miles away.
It’s over a quarter of mile to my mail box, for crying out loud. I live in the sticks.
Earlier this year, my previous supplier of Red filament ran out of stock. Everyone else I went to sold red, but, their red had yellow mixed in, so it was a dark orange. It looks red from a distance, but, up close, you can tell there is yellow in the mix.
Bambu Red is a decent red compared to the ones I have been getting recently. I have only recently tried some of the BL filaments.
Today I opened an eSun PLA Cool White. I have had many whites, this white is WHITE. Better than every other white. Now the other whites look like they have a little yellow in them.
It is like a warm vs cool light bulb.
It would be great if a uniform standard defined the mixes of all colours and granted them universal names, which all decent suppliers agreed to. Business doesn’t do that though.
The AnyCubic AcePro system (their AMS) has built-in support for Pantone colour filaments. That is a different approach that adds to the cost of things as Pantone is known for charging huge licensing fees for the colour-matching swatches.
Thanks for pointing this out.
Indeed, my definition of ‘red’ might be a whole lot different then yours.
And like others also mentioned, printing in solid color might come out different then printing red on top of another color.
I’ll test some more and might even purchase some colorfabb filament (which I do read good reviews about).
Unfortunately, you do not write anything about the print settings. Remember that the appearance of the colour depends on the melting temperature and speed. Likewise the lustre on the object.
Yes, we’ve known that ever since we started seeing differences in colour and gloss on a benchy with high-speed printing. But even before that. If you print normal, black PETG too cold, it becomes matt and doesn’t look quite as black. If you print PETG hotter, the black becomes stronger and shinier. If you print coloured benchys, you will probably be able to see this clearly. Many people have already wondered how these differences on the outer wall of the benchy come about.
With Silk-PLA, such as gold, this is also very noticeable. You get a completely different result in terms of colour and gloss if you print it slowly.
PS:
Today I printed a test model on my X1C that I designed yesterday. Here I can see that the colour intensity of the PLA used (in red) mainly depends on the temperature. I have the most intense colour with this filament at a printing temperature of 195°C. The colour intensity at this temperature is better at the highest tested speed of 240mm/s than at the lowest tested speed of 60mm/s. I might have to choose a lower printing temperature at 60mm/s to improve the colour intensity somewhat. But we’re talking about subtle colour nuances here.
Thanks for your extensive reply.
I’m still mostly a standard user, but after reading your post I know I have a lot to learn
I already had my sights set on filament from Colorfabb for some time now so I just went ahead and bought a spool of red (signal red! ).
Below is the difference between the two (printed with default settings):
Unfortunaltely, the photo does not do justice to the actual color… (my photoskills/camera are to blame), but when having the two prints side-by-side the color difference is real.
I was actually being facetious and trying to be light-hearted. There’s nothing wrong with your photo skills. My point remains as I posted above, unless one is referencing a color standard, any color standard, color is very, very subjective. One’s mans blue/green is another man’s green/blue. If you asked 10 people what was the difference between the two red, most would say one is darker. This is why I prefer RGB, it’s only 3 number that have to have a value between 0 and 255.
The two times UPS was to supply a label and pick up the item, I found the labels on the ground by the porch. They didn’t stick around or even knock. The last package that was shipped to me by UPS was marked as delivered. It was delivered somewhere over 1,000 miles away.
).
There’s nothing wrong with your photo skills. My point remains as I posted above, unless one is referencing a color standard, any color standard, color is very, very subjective. One’s mans blue/green is another man’s green/blue. If you asked 10 people what was the difference between the two red, most would say one is darker. This is why I prefer RGB, it’s only 3 number that have to have a value 