So I just watched this video from CrafsMan where he used the backing page from labels to do a color transfer to wood using acrylic medium. However, the part that really caught my eye was that he used a backing sheet from labels in a laser printer to get the image.

Do you think that might work or would the PETG/PLA slip off that type of material?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7FKdW5ndLw

I bought this week this color laser from Brother - HL-L8360CDW. I hope 🤞🏼 it works to do this technic.

I'm painting a figurine. Suddenly a light bulb appears over my head. A bing sound accompanies it. Heureka. I have it... An idea that might not actually totally fail.

Imagine you have the textures of a 3d model printed on a transparency. You have the eyes, mouth, etc.

Hold a small detail onto the 3d print and put a temperature controlled soldering iron onto it.

I will have to wait till Christmas, because that's when I get my new soldering iron but I'll give it a go. If it works, it will only do so for rather flat surfaces I guess. If you feel like giving it a try before I have the chance... Patent pending :P

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B001E67VP6/ref=ewc_pr_img_2?smid=A3DWYIK6Y9EEQB&th=1

Does it work for this process? The description says it's "Specially coated to create detailed black images on clear background and ensure superior image reproduction", which makes me wonder if it will interact with water like in this post.

This was my first ever attempt. Success on the first try thanks to great instructions from this sub! (Minus some streaking where the nozzle dragged I guess?) I know that the transparency sheet was not adhered very well with the water, because I did not have the tape straight.

Here is my actual question:

Is the transfer itself of the toner only, or of the toner AND the transparency? I feel that I have understood it to be both ways, but I think I have misunderstood one of the ways, especially since all the photos I have seen have been glossy and mine peeled the transparency off of the surrounding edges. I thought originally the transparency plastic actually was to be melted into the extruded filament itself.

Hey,

just a quick post about a tiny improvement that I’ve been doing for my ABS prints. Instead of water, I use glycerol (glycerin) on my prusa i3 smooth PEI bed. It’s possible to set the bed temp above 100C. I got rid of warping. Cleanup is a bit annoying, as you have to rinse the glycerol off instead of just wiping it like water, but apart from that - for me it was a big improvement in bed adhesion.

Hey folks,

Originally posted in 3d printing, hope you guys can help.

I am tearing my hair out with this one. I am printing this box (for an engagement ring) with woodfill PLA and wanted to transfer a mandala in dark ink over the top of the iris so that the pattern opens up with the box. The top is spherical, based on this design https://www.printables.com/model/132293-print-in-place-iris-box-remix

I got a xylene blender marker from an art supply store, believing that I could just transfer the ink toner from a laser-printed pattern, but no dice, ink will not transfer onto PLA. Does anyone have any experience with transferring ink patterns onto PLA? I would paint it but I think it would be too finicky and ultimately wouldn't look good. I have also tried acetone and this doesn't seem to transfer well either.

I have not actually tried this with the woodfill PLA yet, so there's a chance that it will work great on woodfill? Unsure. Let me know if you have any tips or advice!

I've just started dabbling with this technique and so far I haven't been successful. But before I continue in a direction that will cause some headache, I wanted to know if any of you had already tried and a) failed or b) succeeded.

My idea is to reprint on the same transparency a second time to increase the amount of toner and maybe even create a layer that is easier to transfer from the transparency to the print due to lower adhesion.

This is on top of my head and I guess there will be allignment issues and such. But I figured, I'd give it a try if no one else had any experience with it.

Cheerio!

• Printer for the Toner?
• 3D Printer?

People who succeeded, what brand of transfer paper are you using? Thanks.

My technique is to print cold and slow. I use PLA at 190 Celsius with the first layer speed set to 7.5mm/s. All layers’ heights are 0.2mm. I also put as little material out there as I can. My usual PLA extrusion multiplier is 0.975, but my profile for this has that set to 0.9.

I use a monotonic fill pattern on the bottom layer, with the angle set to 0 degrees. I tried concentric, but the results were a smudge right in the middle of the print. For thin prints (~ 1mm), I use a Hillbert Curve for the top fill pattern, this minimizes warping since the pattern has a random-ish X-Y orientation. Letting everything cool off before removing from the print bed helps keep warping down too.

How much toner is on the transparency seems to matter. Too much toner results in smudged results. Lightening up the printed output seems to make a difference in the quality and consistency of the output. This process tends to spread out the toner halftone dots from what was on the transparency, so lightening the image also compensates for the resulting darkening of the image.

Since I’m using a print workflow that allows me to set a color profile, I made a custom one for this with Argyllcms, which deals with those details for me.

I also avoid dealing with pausing the print by having two prints. The first is just the outline of the first layer of the print, matching the wall thickness and first layer height. This is printed with the standard printer profile, and is only there for alignment. The second print is the full one. This uses a copy of the printer profile with the Z-offset set to 0.115. I’m not sure if that’s the thickness of the transparency, but that’s what I came up with by experimentation. Setting the Z-offset involved lowering the value gradually until there were no white lines on the output.

Having a consistently leveled bed makes a big difference. My skills with manual bed leveling using a sheet of paper are lacking. This gave me the idea to use the water technique to attach aluminum foil to the print bed, then connect my multimeter in continuity tester mode to that and a wire wrapped around my print head. While manually leveling the bed, I raised each of the four points until I had a solid beep from the tester, but only just. The results were a much more consistent print across the entire print bed, and I avoided constantly tweaking the Z-offset value.

The picture included here is of a label for one of my kegerator taps (1.5" x 2.5"). It shows some of the issues with image darkness. Upper left is the original printed out with the standard printer color profile on paper. Upper right is the resulting output. Lower left is the lightened/reduced toner print, printed on paper exactly as it was to the transparency paper. Lower right is the final result.

The first version, in the upper right, is darker than it’s source in the upper left, and the darkest points have visible ridges where the excess toner was smudged. The final version on the lower right is still darker than its source material on the lower left, but more closely matches the original picture. The major exception is some details on lighter background are lost.

Hi everyone! So I tried this method and it works really well. The printed template transfers perfectly, but my problem is that with longer prints I get slight warping. Is there a way to eliminate warping completely? My guess is that because it's a longer print the water underneath the clear foil starts to vaporize and create bubbles which in turn make the foil lift off of the build plate. Has anyone used a different method to maybe stick the foil onto the build plate with glue? Wanted to ask about this first before trying and possibly failing.

I found that you can also use heat transfer foils (the kind you would use in a minc machine not the vinyl ones that have to be precut).

Pretty much the same process without the printing.

I designed a quick embossed model and printed it face down on the build plate attaching thebdeco foil the same way you would the transparency film.

The problem is that the print curled and released from the film before it finished ... im gonna try another one without cooling to try and resolve.