Printing with colourful filament is great, isn’t it? So many bright and wonderful colours to choose from, but how about transparent PLA+ filament? I am using Sunlu Transparent PLA+ filament for this review. To me it is a kind of exotic material as I guess it’s not widely used. I wanted to print something solid with it, something with a few perimeters and then in vase mode to see how transparent it really is…
The solid print
As I am using my CR10S with the Micro Swiss All Metal Hotend, I thought I’d print the XYZ 20mm calibration cube as I haven’t tested this since I installed the all metal hotend. This was printed with 20% infill at 210.
I haven’t actually measured the cube, but from first glance it all looks good to me. The Z face looks fuzzy, but is a smooth surface. The fuzziness is from the infill. The letters are all clean and straight lines.
Lets go bigger!
I now wanted to print something to show how transparent the Sunlu Transparent PLA+ filament actually is. I stuck with my original nozzle temp of 210 and I went for the Christmas Tree by idig3d. This was a fantastic print! It was as transparent as I expected as due to the layering whilst printing, you know you are not going to have a clear view but fantastic for a glazed kind of look.
Here it is with a changing LED inside
What else do you have?
Here are a couple of other prints I did with the Sunlu Transparent PLA+ filament, again sticking with the same nozzle temperature. I went for those not requiring infill, as from the calibration cube, it doesn’t look as nice on the eye!
Batman – The Caped Crusader by David Östman
Here is a time-lapse of this print
This was printed using 3 perimeters and 0% infill and this came out pretty well. I had a bit of stringing, but nothing a bit of flame can sort. also, under the chin, there was a little gap too, but more than likely due to no infill and not many layers.
The Pi Bowl was printed using vase mode and again, has come out pretty well! As I am using the Microswiss All Metal Hotend, I have still yet to get perfect prints from this, but as it is, I am happy so far!
This Sunlu Transparent PLA+ filament is pretty strong and using vase mode, does give it some flex. I would definitely recommend this filament if you are wanting that kind of transparent look, however, you will not get crystal clear results (as with most transparent filaments) due to the way 3D printing operates but this is a contender amongst the masses!
Where can I get it!?
Sunlu Transparent PLA+ filament is available from Amazon and at a pretty reasonable price too! (£18.99 as of mid Jan 2019) and as with most filaments, comes packaged nicely & vacuum packed with silica gel sachets. If you do decide to get this, please feel free to share your prints on the 3D Printing Inov3D community Facebook page. We’d love to see them!
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Thank you for reading. Any comments appreciated so feel free to leave them below.
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