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n order to create glass-like transparent 3D
prints, you need to start with a very transparent
filament — but there’s much more to it than that.
After experimenting with different filaments for
the last 10 years, I can share my tips for getting
great clear prints.
First, your transparent filament. Most natural
PETGs will work well, though you’ll likely find
that some work a little better than others. The
photos in this article use a mix of natural PETG
from Overture and Sainsmart, and Hatchbox
transparent black PLA. PLA is rarely as
transparent as PETG, and higher-temperature
materials like PC tend to cloud while cooling.
It doesn’t matter how transparent the filament
is if you have lots of interstitial spaces breaking
up the light going through, the way you will with
typical infill settings. This means that you either
have to create a hollow print with a single wall,
using vase mode for example, or your print has to
be completely solid.
VASE MODE
Taulman3D, the makers of T-glase, the first PET-
based 3D printing filament, gave us the recipe
for creating super-transparent prints in vase
mode. It turns out that in this case, extremely
thick layers are best (Figure
A
). You want to use
a layer height close to your nozzle width, so that
there is minimal contact area between layers, and
most of the light entering one extrusion line will
exit out the other side of that same line, rather
than refracting around unpredictably as some
rays cross the boundary between layers.
A layer of a clear coat like XTC-3D to fill in the
space between these lines further enhances the
effect (Figure
B
).
SOLID PRINTS
Getting transparency with anything thicker than
a single wall requires filling in all the tiny spaces
between extrusion lines. This means you need
to make your prints solid, either by using 100%
infill, or by skipping the infill altogether and
making all your layers top/bottom layers. Filling
all the space in these layers is easier with thin
layers, but that’s not enough.
You’ll need to carefully calibrate a flow
multiplier that works for your particular printer
Xxxxxxxxxx
RICH “WHOSAWHATSIS”
CAMERON
is an open-source
3D printer hacker who designed
the RepRap Wallace and Bukito 3D
printers. He is a co-founder of the
Pasadena, California-based consulting
and training firm Nonscriptum LLC, focusing on teaching
educators and scientists how to use maker tech.
Clear coats enhance transparency.
B
and filament. This will probably require turning up
your flow multiplier, since most printers slightly
under-extrude by default.
In order to get the plastic to flow into itself well
enough to squeeze out all the air, you’ll need to
print hotter than usual to lower its viscosity. Also,
you need to print really slowly, in the 10–30mm/s
range, so that the plastic can flow into all the little
cracks, and give the air time to work its way out
before it gets trapped.
TOP AND BOTTOM SURFACES
To be able to see through a print, you also want
to make sure that the top and bottom surfaces
are as smooth as possible. For the top surface,
there’s a setting called ironing designed to help
with that by doing a second smoothing pass
over the top layer. However, ironing algorithms
generally extrude a little bit while ironing,
assuming that the top layer will not be completely
filled. If you’ve adjusted your flow rate to avoid
M85_114-17_SB_Clear3Dprints_F1.indd 115M85_114-17_SB_Clear3Dprints_F1.indd 115 4/9/23 1:03 PM4/9/23 1:03 PM
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