Materials
The five plastics X3D prints, with the all-in price per gram, density, what each one survives, and the jobs it is the wrong choice for.
X3D prints five plastics. This page tells you what each one costs per gram, what it weighs, what it survives, and — the part most material charts leave out — when it is the wrong answer. Every rate below is all-in: filament and normal machine time in one number.
The five materials#
| Material | Price per gram | Density | Best for | Avoid when |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PLA | $0.12 | 1.26 g/cm³ | Display pieces, prototypes, figures, most indoor parts | It will sit in a hot car, in direct sun, or carry a real load |
| PETG | $0.12 | 1.27 g/cm³ | Functional parts that must not snap, brackets, clips, things that hold water | You want the crispest possible fine detail |
| ABS | $0.12 | 1.04 g/cm³ | Warm environments, enclosures, parts you want to sand, drill or vapour-smooth | The part lives outdoors — ABS chalks and yellows in sunlight |
| ASA | $0.14 | 1.07 g/cm³ | Outdoor parts, signage, anything in year-round sun | Nothing about the job needs UV or heat resistance — you are paying more for both |
| Flexible TPU | $0.13 | 1.21 g/cm³ | Gaskets, grips, straps, phone cases, feet, anything that bends | The part has to stay rigid, hold a thread, or take a press fit |
Density matters more than it looks. Price is charged on weight, and the same model in ABS weighs about 18% less than in PETG because ABS is lighter per cubic centimetre. A model that comes to 40 g in PETG comes to roughly 33 g in ABS, so ABS is quietly cheaper at the same $0.12/g rate.
Picking one in thirty seconds#
| What the part has to do | Pick |
|---|---|
| Look good on a shelf, a desk or a table | PLA |
| Get handled, dropped, or bolted to something | PETG |
| Hold water, or live in a bathroom or kitchen | PETG |
| Sit in a car, near a motor, or in an enclosure that gets warm | ABS |
| Stay outside through a summer and still look like itself | ASA |
| Squash, stretch, seal or grip | Flexible TPU |
| Show the finest detail you can get | PLA at Premium 0.1mm layers |
Heat and UV#
Heat resistance is the property people get wrong most often, and PLA is where it bites. PLA begins to soften not far above 55 °C — a closed car in a Texas summer passes that easily, and so does a sunny windowsill. A PLA part does not melt; it sags, and it sags under its own weight without warning.
| Material | Heat | Sunlight and weather | Toughness |
|---|---|---|---|
| PLA | Lowest of the five. Softens in a hot car or a sunlit window. | Poor. Goes brittle over months outdoors. | Stiff but brittle — it snaps rather than bends. |
| PETG | Better than PLA. Comfortable in a warm room, not in an engine bay. | Fair. Survives outdoors but yellows over time. | Tough. Bends and dents before it breaks. |
| ABS | High. The usual choice for warm enclosures. | Poor. Chalks and discolours in UV. | Tough, and sandable, drillable and glueable. |
| ASA | High, essentially ABS-like. | Best of the five. This is what ASA exists for. | Tough, like ABS. |
| Flexible TPU | Modest. Treat it like PLA on heat. | Fair. | Does not break — it deforms and springs back. |
Printing temperature limits#
Every file that reaches a farm printer is read by a G-code safety check, and part of that check is a per-material temperature figure. If you upload an already-sliced file, these are the numbers the check expects your slicer to stay under. Going over one is a warning on the operator's report — "double-check the material" — not a rejection; what actually stops a file is the hardware ceiling above it.
| Material | Nozzle max | Bed max |
|---|---|---|
| PLA | 260 °C | 75 °C |
| PETG | 280 °C | 90 °C |
| ABS | 290 °C | 115 °C |
| ASA | 290 °C | 115 °C |
| Flexible TPU | 260 °C | 70 °C |
Colour#
Twelve colours are held on the shelf and print at the material's own rate: Black, White, Red, Cyan, Sakura Pink, Sunny Orange, Green, Yellow, Mint Green, Lavender, Silver and Brown. Ask for any of those and you pay the rate in the table above.
One order is printed in one colour. A model we slice for you goes to the machine as a single-filament plate — multi-colour is not something you can order yet — and nothing extra is charged for a model that looks multi-coloured on screen: the quote is the single-colour price. Each printer carries a four-slot AMS, which is where your spool is fed from and the ceiling on how many filaments one plate could ever use. If you need more than one colour today, paint the model in Bambu Studio or OrcaSlicer, export the sliced plate and upload that file: the operator maps the filaments in it to AMS trays, and its own grams and hours become the quote, purge included.
What we do not sell#
The order form offers exactly five materials. The farm's printers can run others — polycarbonate has its own temperature ceiling in the safety check, and carbon-fibre-filled PLA satisfies a PLA order because it is the same polymer — but those are operator-side, not options on a customer order. There is no resin, no metal and no nylon on the order form. If your part needs one of those, say so at /contact before you upload a file.
How material choice reaches the price#
- Weight is model volume adjusted for infill, times the material's density — or, where we can slice the file, the grams the slicer actually measured.
- Billable weight rounds up to the whole gram.
- Weight is multiplied by the material's rate per gram, then by the quality factor (1.00 at Standard 0.2mm layers, 1.75 at Premium 0.1mm).
- There is a $1.00 minimum per part, so a 3 g trinket costs $1.00 rather than $0.36.
- Bulk discounts apply from 5 units (5% off) and 10 units (10% off).
- US shipping is $7 flat and free at $50 or more; international is $30 flat and free at $500 or more.