About 3D Color Hub
At 3D Color Hub, colors are our passion. Our roots started off as most others in the 3D Print Community - hobbyist, and for fun. Can we make this widget? Can I spend 30 hours and $20 in materials on designing and printing this item that is $5 from the store?
The Issue
After close to 7 years of tinkering we decided we wanted to enter the business world of 3D Printing - and quickly found a gap. Very few manufacturers provided an on-demand service of color or material samples. The ones that did were typically very limited in their available options, the samples were either really expensive or too short in length to print anything with, or the samples themselves were random and rarely what we had wanted to see. We also quickly found that a lot of filaments will change colors and hues slightly after printing, while others are greatly affected by the lighting they are seen in.
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Combine those challenges with how quickly things are changing and adapting to a truly multi-color and multi-material world, it was clear the entire 3D Print industry is in dire need of a new way to approach this. Not all manufacturers will be able to offer samples of their color and material type offerings. Nor will all 3D Printers know about the variety of manufacturers out there, what those manufacturers specialize in, or even the different types of materials available.
The most challenging part as a 3D Printer trying to locate a filament? Every manufacturer uses their own setup, lighting, angles, and models to take photos with very little if any base line across all. What looks to be different hues of red are actually pretty much identical, or in really unfortunate cases, two filaments from different manufacturers that look like they should be identical turn out to be vastly different.
Throw in batch data and the challenge skyrockets - colors can vary between batches. Some manufacturers are able to control the hues better than others, but how do you know which ones? How do you know this backup roll you're putting in to finish the print is going to be identical and not be off a shade or two, just enough to visually cause an issue?
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And so, like many others, we ended up with countless rolls of filament of varying shades, and hues. And in some cases, finding out that there are some materials that their difficulty printing just was not worth the benefits for the application. In the end, most of the rolls sat for extended timeframes taking up valuable space until we could find a use for them.
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The Solution
At 3D Color Hub, we are aiming to provide a service that will help alleviate this issue by providing high quality printed samples of a variety of filaments, photographed in a variety of standardized lighting so that as a consumer, you can be confident that the filament pictured from different manufacturers are shown in the exact same conditions. And you can order printed swatches, to further boost that confidence in the color you are looking to order without needing to commit to an entire roll.
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While we are starting out with a focus in PLA, in the future we will be branching out to not only include many more manufacturers but also more material types. Both popular ones such as PETG and ASA, as well as the more specialized ones such as Nylon, PC, and Conductive
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If you have an eye on a particular color or hue, layer change, a glow in the dark, or even a specialty filament like an iron filled, keep us in mind! We'll be adding it all to our offerings in the future. Our goal is to help the community make a decision on a material and color choice with confidence, with a live in-hand sample of a printed piece, without worry of guessing based upon non-standardized images and descriptions.
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There are a lot more offerings and extensions to our services we will be rolling out in the near future, especially to help solve issues around the batch color issues. Stay tuned for more information on this before the end of the year!
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We hope you will find value in our service and join us on this journey.
- 3D Color Hub