Description
West3D is pleased to introduce another line of filaments to our lineup, made in the Pacific Northwest - ProtoPasta is a premium line of filaments.
From ProtoPasta:
Shout out to Fillamentum for creating the popular Vertigo Grey. Also at the top of their craft, we appreciate other folks who make good stuff. After all, a little healthy competition with some banter and encouragement makes for good fun! Inspired by both popular filament and film culture, we present to you Empire Strikes Black HTPLA, a premium metallic black PLA filament with silver glitter.
We hope you find similar inspiration in this color as it connects to your likes and interests. We took special care to attain maximum sparkle while maintaining the rich, black color and avoiding any shift towards grey. It takes a delicate balance of saturation, concentration, and material selection to reach such greatness. We hope you appreciate and enjoy the quality and craft that makes Proto-pasta stand out among filament manufacturers.
This ain't no stinkin' grey. Strikin' back with Metallic Black!
Created from our highest quality, translucent HTPLA v2, this stuff is black and sparkly!
Print with the ease of standard PLA with standard hardware and temperatures, but make fun, mesmerizing prints that stand out. Celebrate good times by printing toys, treasures, and keepsakes. If you want to make a print more fun, just add some metallic pop! Our metallic finish contains no actual metal and has little risk of clogging or wearing your nozzle, and it won't make a glitter mess, but beware the printing is sure to be addictive! Metallic particles are relatively small but have some orientation effects, giving top/bottom surfaces more shine than sidewall, so have some fun playing with orientation to see how the result changes! We recommend 0.2 mm layers for the best result.
HEAT TREATING
Like our other HTPLAs, Metallic HTPLA can be "Heat Treated" to increase crystallinity for "Higher Temperature" resistance compared to amorphous PLA, ABS, and co-polyesters like PETG! Glittler Flake HTPLA prints translucence, but turns opaque when heat treated (or crystallized). With a more crystalline structure, heat treated HTPLA parts can hold form to near melting, though temperatures where the material is practically useful vary greatly depending on geometry and load conditions! For this improved the performance, your prints should be baked in an oven until you see a change from translucent to opaque with reduced gloss. This visual change indicating the improved performance! We've seen the change take place in 5-10 minutes on thin walled parts but can take an hour or more. We've had good luck in a quality, at home convection oven at 110C (225F). Parts will get very "floppy" before becoming more firm, so please leave supports on your parts or support them and bake them on a flat, non-radiating surface (like glass, ceramic, or composite).
In our experience, good results were achieved using standard PLA parameters ranging from 195-225C nozzle with standard build surface preparation (blue tape, glue stick, or BuildTak). No heated bed required but up to 60C is okay. Beware, if the bed temperature is too high, your part base could actually heat treat while printing, increasing warping and decreasing adhesion. Some shrinkage will occur in the heat treating process, so dimension critical parts may need to be scaled appropriately (as much as 2.5% in our experience).
- No abrasive fillers so expect normal wear with standard nozzles.
- Available in 1.75 & 2.85 (3) mm diameter on a 500g diameter recyclable cardboard spool
- Usable on most PLA-compatible printers, such as Lulzbot, Makerbot, FlashForge, Dremel, Ultimaker, Printrbot, and more!