An exotic, automotive-inspired filament designed together with TOM!

Special thanks to Thomas Sanladerer (toms3d.org) for visiting Protoplant and participating in the design and manufacture of his very own Proto-pasta color, Tangerine Orange Metallic (TOM) Gold HTPLA.  Inspired by wild, dynamic colors like those made popular by Lotus Cars, this color dynamically shifts in the light from gold to orange.  We hope sharing the process of making and the resulting one-of-a-kind product inspires you to print beautiful, cherished things!

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! 

We recommend 0.2 mm layers for the best result.

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!

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).

• 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!

No abrasive fillers so expect normal wear with standard nozzles.

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).
Avoid jams, improve print reliability with Proto-pasta HTPLA on the Prusa MK3.