I make some personalised souvenirs which are very popular. Usually I have made them from standard PLA and the finish is very good. As an example the item is usually finished in yellow with black writing. I print the first few layers on the bed with the yellow and black writing, so the finished item has the black writing flush with the yellow surface and it looks great.
Recently someone asked me to make a special gold one, so I ordered some Sunlu Gold Silk PLA + and used the same design. However because the item is so small (about 40mm high & 2mm thick), the black writing was over powered by the gold walls around the text. I think there were 3 or 4 gold lines around the text which looked shocking. With the flat yellow, you dont see the walls as they blend perfectly with the rest of the yellow and are hardly visible unless you look really closely at the actual structure of the print.
So, for the moment I have changed the design for the gold one and printed the text on top of the uppermost gold layer, so the text is embossed. While this looks OK I am not as pleased as I am with the flush text - but its a compromise to get the appearance I want.
Is there a way of having the black text flush in the gold without being spoiled by the walls? I did wonder about reducing the number of walls (perhaps to 1) but havent tested this yet… or alternatively can the first 1 or 2 layers be printed without walls and then the rest of the layers be printed with 3-4 walls so the item maintains its strength?
To help us understand what you mean, please post two pictures. First, a screenshot of the slicer showing the model and text. Secondly, a photo of the printed object.
Alternatively, you can upload the 3MF file alongside photos of the printed object.
Yes, there are ways to optimize that, but to do so, it would be helpful to know whats going on. It would be helpful to see some photos so we can understand exactly what you mean by “spoiled” as well as how the 3D object is structured.
This was something which went wrong months ago and I shelved the project… so I am just printing a new test print to show what I mean about being spoiled and will upload the test 3mf too… the print will take a couple of hours so I will upload later today.
Here are some images of a finished test plaque - as you can see where the gold lays walls around the black text & lines, it leaves a halo affect. This is very noticeable in bright conditions. I did wonder if you can have 0 walls on layer 1, or maybe 1 & 2 and turn walls on for the rest of the layers… but not sure if this is possible and how it would compromise strength. Or maybe set it with something like 100+ walls, so the whole plaque is the same? With non-silk filament this looks OK as the reflection is the same for the walls and the main part of the layer - so its great, but some people ask for silver or gold and with silk PLA I get this horrible (in this instance) halo.
Any thoughts would be very appreciated as at the moment, the only way I have found as a work around is to print the text on top of the top gold layer - but this means its embossed and also the top gold layer is not as shiny as the one on the bed.
I found the problem: Depending on the orientation, the pattern, temperature, and speed all change. These are all factors that significantly influence the color of PLA Silk and cause it to vary in color. This is one of the drawbacks of Silk PLA.
When the text is facing up, you have these patterns, these temperatures, and also different speeds:
However, if you place the text facing downwards, you’ll get exactly these halo patterns, plus a different print speed and additional heat from the print plate:
I think one factor contributing to the problem - and it would probably be better - is if you loaded it as two separate objects: the text and the plate separately. Linked, yes, but as separate objects: Right now, it’s a single object, probably from Tinkercad? And that’s known to cause some problems.
Here you can see how the slicer is already having trouble displaying this correctly:
Yes, these were from Tinkercad. Funnily enough I have done some more complicated souveniers which were too big to open in Tinkercad, so have just started playing with Studio using different oblects.
When I preview it in Studio, I too have had issues where the lines/text are missing if its not viewed 100% straight on - I didnt realise that this was the slicer struggling… I assumed it was just a quirk with previewing it!
I did wonder what would happen if I made a solid plate as one object and then the text/lines as another object… place the text/lines face down on the bed and then lower the plate over the text… whether this would realise that the text is black and switch filament as needed… or whether it would just make the plate & text yellow
I have had issues with these plaques before and ended up using tinkercad to create the plate… then duplicate the text and use one version as a “hole” - then merge the plate and the hole together so the text can sit in the hole created on the plate - then I export the whole thing as an OBJ and that seems to work very well (with plain PLA).
I have to admit, I would prefer the text to be face down on the plate as the finish is much smoother and you cant really see any 3D print lines. whereas the top layer has very fine lines - not an issue, but just not as slick a finish as facedown on a smooth bed.
So if you really want it to be perfect - and this is the most important thing of all:
Slow down the print speed: PLA Silk only shines when it is printed slowly and optimally printed upright on the outer walls. Lower the speed of the outer wall.
For this to work, you have to orient the object upright. I’m sure you have a lot of questions right now, but just follow my line of thinking: Your flat surfaces will now become outer walls.
Now you’re going to say: “Yeah, but wait a minute - that creates a ton of waste! ” Well, yes, but not in your specific case; if you print a lot, it stays within reasonable limits:
Your PLA Silk should then have a glossy finish like in the pictures, not a matte finish like in the photos you showed:
I’ll just say it straight out: You wouldn’t have had to buy Silk PLA, because that kind of gloss isn’t produced that way you print at all. This gloss is produced on the outer walls, not on flat surfaces.
Some good points here - I have only recently started printing in Silk PLA and realised as soon as I started printing that the outside walls are where the shine is as the vertical walls on the plaque look really gold… but didnt think of printing my plaque vertically, so will try this and see how bad the scarring on the back from the supports are. I will also try using the text and the plaque from Tinkercad and using them as seperate objects to see if that makes a difference.
Is there a way to slow the print speed down on the first few layers only? If so I will try this with the text face down as well to see what that comes out like.
The plaque I uploaded as an example is not quite the final product as I cant upload the actual item - but what I can say is that the actual product has a hole in it… so I am not sure how that will come out… also, sadly, I tend to make these individually as dont get high volumes of requests (yet).
Many thanks for the pointers - will have a play now and let you know how it comes out.
So think I will try printing face up as in the slicer it shows only 1 wall loop around the text on the top layer - then I will iron the top to see what the finish is like
It’s only worth doing if you fill the whole plate - if you place 20 or more.
Obviously not like that - printing just 12 g and ending up with 235 g of waste makes no sense. I said it because I thought you needed a lot of them and were planning to sell them as souvenirs.
You now have 474 filament color changes, but no matter how full you make the plate, the number doesn’t change, so the plate should be fully filled. Whether you place one souvenir or 100, the filament changes are always the same, and that’s where you save a ton of time.
Give it a try - place a few more, and you’ll see that the number doesn’t increase.
Sure, if you only want to print a few, it’s not worth it.
The problem is that they are personalised with peoples personal details on each one - so every one is unique - this would mess up the filament changes too as each one would need different colours on each layer so it isnt always true that each plaque has the same changes on each layer.
I have created a single unit (with my details on, so I can use it) and inset the text into the plate - as you pointed out this way it only shows 1 wall loop round the text, but I have also slowed it down to 20mm/s on the top layer and enabled ironing - so hopefully this should produce something nice looking - even if it hasnt got the true shiny gold colour.
I might advertise the true shiny gold option at a premium price due to the extended print time… we’ll see how this one comes out first.
Thanks for all the information, its certainly given me food for thought.
