After years of being used only in professional settings because of their high price tags, 3D printers are finally becoming affordable options for small businesses and personal use. From classrooms to hobby workshops, 3D printers are a great learning tool and a fun way to bring your creation to life.
Featuring limitless uses, 3D printers can be beneficial for designing small versions of objects as a way to see where improvements need to be made, with 3D printers becoming commonplace in fields like tech, furniture, design, and science. In the medical field they can provide accurate models of organs and body parts to help nurses and doctors practice procedures. When used in schools, 3D printers can help teach design, and even architecture.
Like any printer, 3D printers need ‘ink,’ which in this case is filament. Made in a variety of colors and thickness levels, filament is what makes the 3D object and therefore plays a vital role in the success of turning a design into an object. If you’re going to use a 3D printer, you need filament. Here are three great options to help bring your creations to life.
1. MIKA 3D Shiny Silk Gold Silver Copper PLA Filament
Bring your creation to life with the MIKA 3D Shiny Silk Gold Silver Copper PLA Filament, featuring the three most popular colors of filament. Each spool contains 500g of high quality, no-bubble, eco-friendly filament, which is compatible with most Diverse FDM 3D printers available on the market. The filament comes in a wide variety of colors, including pink, purple, blue, red, green, yellow and more.
Pros: The set of three filaments comes with the added bonus of a 3D print remove tool or one solid glue stick.
Cons: The filaments are only sold in bundles of three or more and individual colors can’t be purchased.
2. HATCHBOX PLA 3D Printer Filament
Print with confidence using the HATCHBOX PLA 3D Printer Filament, which has minimal warping, no heating bed required, and produces little to no odor. The filament is 1.75mm in diameter, which works for most printers, while the spool holds 1 kg of filament in total.
Pros: The HATCHBOX has a higher extrusion temperature than the OVERTURE at 180°C to 220°C.
Cons: The HATCHBOX spools are 8” in diameter and may not fit in all 3D printers.
3. OVERTURE PLA Filament
Get a bonus build surface that makes it easy to lay out your design when you purchase the OVERTURE PLA Filament, which like the HATCHBOX is a 1 kg spool with a diameter of 1.75mm.
Pros: Made with a clog-free patent, the OVERTURE is both bubble-free and tangle-free.
Cons: The black OVERTURE filament has a more opaque finish when used to make thin prints.