CC3D Silk Gold PLA Filament 1.75mm 1KG 3D Printer Filament 2.2LBS Spool 3D Printing Materials Shine Silky Shiny Metallic Metal Silk PLA Gold Color

I had been wanting to try one of these mega-gold filaments for a while, so I decided to google around looking for "the best". Everyone has their own idea of what that means of course, but I had to start *somewhere*, and this stuff did come with some decent recommendations, so I figured "what the hell, it's worth a shot", and bought a spool. I've never printed with "silky" filament before, let alone this brand, so it's new territory for me. This stuff is inexpensive ($19.99/kg at the moment), made in China, and people were talking it up, and everyone knows how THAT usually goes -- "if sounds too good to be true, it probably is". I figured if it doesn't stack-up, it won't be a huge loss. At first, I had jamming problems, intermittent starved lines, brittleness, bad overhangs, ooze... the works. So, I didn't get a very good first impression of it. I figured, well, if I can't get this to print nicely, maybe I can just get it going barely well enough to use it for things where it's okay for the part to look ugly or where the color won't matter. But... I didn't want to settle for that, and kept poking at my settings until I finally got it figured out. Over the course of about 20 meters' worth of filament printing calibration objects, I got it dialed-in decently, and all those issues just... went away. Afterward, I printed a couple of small non-calibration items, then put the spool away for the time being. I still have some fine-tuning to do before printing anything big or important, but that's to be expected when playing around with a new filament, and it was already past time to shut things down for the night. So, yeah... that first impression was wrong. I mean, dead, fracking wrong! This really is a good product. As I wrote in the headline, the photos I saw didn't lie, and I'm certain mine don't either. It really does look as nice as the claims. One of the defining properties of this stuff: between the overall glossy/shiny/silky appearance and the way light interacts with the texture of the printed surface, it's hard to see the layer lines on flat vertical or curvy/"organic" surfaces (like the side of a cube, or the hull of a Benchy), making prints look a lot smoother than normal. At least, at 0.2mm layer height, anyways. Of course, mechanically, the layer lines are no different from any other plastic. This effect doesn't hide the "terraced terrain" look of gently-sloping top/bottom surfaces (like the Benchy's gunwale or cabin roof), but as with any other filament, you can mitigate that to some degree by using a finer layer height where it's needed, or maybe with that non-planar slicing method that's making the rounds. This leads to another nice quality: it's slick to the touch, even coming from my old printer (which doesn't produce the smoothest of surfaces to begin with). In fact, it almost feels "oily", compared to my other filaments. Of course, it's probably just as dry as any other plastic. It's simply *that* smooth right out of the hotend. I now wonder what vapor smoothing would do to it (and what solvent one would need for this product, for that matter). One thing that surprised me is that this stuff wants (in fact, demands) a lot less retract than any of the other filaments I use. As in, they all need around 2 mm of retraction length, while this gold does great with just 0.5 mm). I'm certain that too much retract was what led to jamming, starved lines, and ooze (paradoxically). Now, on the questionable side, this filament does have a LOT of die swell. For those who don't know, this is the effect where extruding into free air too fast (for a given temperature) will cause the extruded plastic to distort, shrinking lengthwise while also getting fatter, not unlike a muscle contracting. Or, as someone else described it, "like a hanging worm reacting to being touched". This isn't too much of a problem during normal printing, though, and can be beneficial in one case: if you anchor a line of hot plastic to something, stretch it across open air, and anchor the far end to something else, then let it cool, the filament's tendency to shrink lengthwise will cause it to pull itself taut between those anchor points (at least, with reasonably thin lines). Of course, we all know that this is how bridging works in 3d printing, and this behavior leads to *great* bridges with very little droop, but it has the negative side effect of making partial overhangs less than ideal, as they'll want to curl up if printed too fast. This is particularly apparent on parts with a small horizontal cross-section, which lead to short layer times, such as the 30-85° overhang test pictured above. The behavior of bridges and overhangs is comparable to ABS, but less severe, and like that material, these issues can be dealt with with appropriate settings or using things like a dwell tower or just adding more parts to the plate, so that there's more to print at heights where the problematic overhangs show up. And...well... it doesn't smell sweet when printing, like PLA normally does. Gotta have that delicious smell of waffles. :-) Also bear in mind, this is a standard-size 1kg spool -- the photo attached to this Amazon listing makes it look bigger than reality. ## End of review ## The following settings were used to print most of the items seen in the photos attached to this review (ignore the object on the far left, it's a bad print and is NOT representative): * Hotend: 195°C (precisely calibrated) * Bed: 65°C * Diameter: 1.73 mm * Flow: 94% * Geometry: 0.2 mm layer height, 0.4 mm line width * Speeds: I use Slic3r's autospeed mode, with a 5 mm³/s volumetric flow rate target, which works out to around 70 mm/s on most print moves. Travels at 300 mm/s, and retract and unretract speeds are both set to 40 mm/s. 1000-1500 mm/s² acceleration. X/Y jerk is set to 20. * Cooling: fan at 85% on print moves, 100% on bridges ( I usually run it flat-out 100% at all times on other PLA's, and PETG typically gets 15 to 25% on print moves and 50 to 100% on bridges, depending on color). The printer is just an old acrylic Prusa i3 MK1 clone that I've modded, upgraded, and just generally tinkered with over the years. It is equipped with a genuine RPW-Ultra all-metal hotend, with 12v/40W heater and 0.4 mm nozzle, a direct-feed, geared extruder of my own design, and Printbite-covered glass for the print surface. Layer cooling is provided by a 5015 blower, through a duct that aims the airflow at both the left and right sides of the nozzle. The whole kit is controlled by a BigTreeTech SKR v1.3 loaded-up with TMC2208 driver modules, and running Marlin (bugfix-2.0.x branch).

I have used several rolls of this filament and it works great and looks very nice. The price is reasonable it does not tangle so I will keep using it.

So at first I used the most liked review comment cura settings of 195C nozzle, 65C heated bed, and 94% flow rate. It printed pretty good but then a week into printing the filament had a total fail on me as it snapped in my bowden tube and hotend. I had to take apart the nozzle and tube, it wasn't hard but this was defintely a clear sign of moisture in my filament. For those of you new to 3d printing, many filament love to absorb the moisuture in the air which will directly negatively impact your prints from poor adhesion, prints, or worse...a total failure. I got a really nice filament dryer and my print has come out absolutely amazing. It looks perfect and there are 0 flaws in the print. The dryer is awesome because it functions as a spool holder as well so you can print 50-55C heated filament for butter smooth PLA. Get yourself a filament dryer or you can also try the ghetto method as well by putting this filament in the oven for 4-6 hours at 50C. But obviously this has a huge flaw as you are going to leave a chemical smell in the oven you cook your food in... so drop 50-60 dollars and get a proper filament dryer.

I have their silk copper PLA, which is awesome. I got the silk gold expecting the same and... not so much. The color and appearance is great. However this filament spurts and contracts out of the nozzle and has spotty adhesion. It continually jams as well. It acts a bit like it is water logged. I printed with it an hour after it was delivered and I live in a semi-arid climate so it wasn’t my house that gave it problems. SUPER disappointed! <later on> Once you get the filament dialed in, it is beautiful to behold. It makes great statues, but is more problematic with "built in place" models. Not impossible, but challenging to get right.

These are the best gold and silver silks I've found, that is they look the most realistic. They foam quite a bit which is normal for silk, but it leads me to believe the TPU content is high. For that reason, this stuff really performs best when dried. in fact, it will start to degrade after just 10-20 hours of printing, so I print straight from the dryer. Also, I have had rolls of gold that are less metallic (more like other brands) while I have had many that look exceptionally like real gold. I wish the consistency was better. Printability is just fine on my Prusa Mk3, MK4 and Bambu X1c as long as it's dry. Try going a little slower if you have issues. Layer adhesion is better than other brands I've tried, but it's still a weak point. Orient your print so that layers are perpendicular to the axis you most require strength on. That said, this is for aesthetic parts, not functional ones, so it's more than adequate. Great stuff once you get used to the quirks. I've had parts pass for real metal until handled.

The filament was well packed and the vacuum sealed bag is also a Zip lock. The bag had a desiccant pack inside. The Spool was well wound, and dry. This is a very high pearlescent filament. My experience with these kinds of filament, is that they are softer, but very smooth. They really fight with your extruder. They either grip, or slip. When they slip they are easily worn where the extruder bites in, causing jams. Because of this, I find that higher extruder temps create a less viscous flow and less back pressure. 228ºC on my MK3 is spot on. Other then that my standard PLA profiles work perfectly. The gold is very yellow in color and has a nice presentation. I printed a E-Calibration Vase box and found my E- multiplier was spot on. The 0.40 mm vase mode box was strong, and showed no sign of weakness or layer delamination issues. My first object is currently printing. I don't see anything unexpected or horrific with the filament, I like it and would purchase more, when needed. Extruder 228º Bed 60º speed 70 mm/sec on a Prusa I3 MK3. Note, I use lower Accelerations and Jerk setting, it really makes these kinds of filaments print better.

Don't give up! I was about to send this filament back as I had zero issues with using regular PLA and assumed it was a problem with the filament. Keep in mind that this was only my third successful print as a 3D printer noob. I didn't realize that jumping into silk PLA was going to be such a headache, but it was completely worth it. The big problem was my z-offset and subsequent adhesion. I set my z-offset using the paper method as recommended by AnyCubic, but the z-offset that I used for normal PLA just didn't work with the silk PLA. I was about to give up until I started playing with random z-offsets. You can see the results placed around the model in the picture. I finally dialed it in to where it was adhering, and then further dialed it in while the print was running instead of stopping as in previous attempts. Eventually I got a good z-offset for my printer and it started laying perfectly. The end result is absolutely beautiful in Gold silk PLA. I used Cura 5.2.1 with all defaults for AnyCubic Kobra and Generic PLA. Also, check your temperatures! I noticed that I didn't have the luster on some of those initial runs and I suppose that it was that I had my temp at 230 from a previous project.

I really want to love this stuff! TLDR: Tried two different rolls because the finish is amazing but it gums up inside your nozzle and eventually blocks it up completely. I'm out over $50 in nozzles, days of time lost and nothing to show for it. Beware! I have a brand new Flashforge Adventurer 4 and couldn't wait to make gold Princess Zelda Cosplay stuff for my daughter. After several 1 and done prints in various PLA and ABS, my roll of gold came and I couldn't wait. It took a while and a few trashed 3D Benchy's to dial in slicer settings but I was ready to go. Little did I know that this stuff was already backing up in my nozzle. With retraction on, it slowly backs up in the tube. I left a 17 hour crown print to go overnight and came down to a small rat's nest about a fifth of the way through. It was small because it jammed the nozzle which, at first, was enough to mess things up and start missing extrusions but it completely jammed in short order, causing my feeder to grind a notch in the filament. Dead stop. Half a day of cold pulls and probing but I had to pronounce this nearly brand new nozzle dead. The sheen and finish on the benchy's was SO good, I ordered a NEW nozzle (they're bespoke so about $25 each) and chalked it up to a bad roll. Second roll came today and in 5 short hours, I had another jammed nozzle. This time, I caught it when the extrusion was intermittent but I could not save the nozzle. Don't let the 5 stars fool you. When it works, it looks amazing but I'm not sacrificing nozzles or risking a burnt up feed drive because this stuff swells on retraction and gums up your gear.