This review is for Hobby King Transparent Red PLA filament, in 1.75mm. I will be going over it’s print quality, ease of printing, and performance in price.
Test Bed for the Review
The test bed for this review of the Hobby King Transparent Red PLA is my ever faithful Tevo Black Widow. It’s been upgraded with a pieced together Volcano hot end using Micro Swiss goodies.
It also has a glass bed, parts cooling, TMC 2100 drivers on the X and Y, and finally the wonderful community firmware from the Black Widow Facebook Group.
Just for giggles, I also loaded it up in my Tevo Tornado. The Tornado has smoothers on the X/Y axis, a BL-touch, modified Marlin firmware and a modified cooling nozzle.
I typically print my PLA filament at around 210-220c, depending on the model. This PLA ran through the temperature quality test best at 210c on my setup. I printed all of the test samples at 220c to guarantee good layer bonding.
They are printed at .2mm layer height with 30% infill and two perimeters and 4 top/bottom layers. I have my print bed on my Black Widow heated to 60c. These are my typical settings while printing out ‘usable things’, not just trinkets or models.
| Print Temp | Bed Temp | Bed Surface | Cooling Fan |
| 210c | 60c | plain glass | yes, 80% |
What is Hobby King?
Hobby King is an online shop specializing in RC hobbies and 3D printers and supplies. 
This is my first roll of Hobby King 3D filament. I’ve read good things on the filament from popular blogs and Facebook groups online. The ordering process for Hobby King was easy and they offer text/email updates for shipment, which is very nice.
The shipment took three days from start to finish for the filament to arrive at my door step. The packaging was solid, but plain. The filament came in plain cardboard boxes with no graphics what-soever.
The spool was vacuum sealed with a desiccant pack and was tightly wrapped with plastic cling wrap around the actual filament to prevent un-spooling. There were no rips in the bag.
Hobby King lists the filament with the name ‘Bright Red‘ on their website, but the product number that I received matches what is listed online.
The Hobby King Transparent Red filament, as it’s name would suggest, is transparent and a nice bright red colour. It is very uniform in diameter, with tolerances within 0.02mm. In the hand it feels a little bit ‘slicker’ than other PLA filament that I have used. It feels more like PETG than PLA.
First Failure… RIP: ‘Mistor Duct
This is kind of embarrassing. My first test print failed and it failed hard. The print came loose from the bed plate and formed a hot wad of filament around my nozzle and hot end. It killed a thermistor and my cooling duct, so next time you’re having a drink… pour some out for my duct and thermistor.
Let’s Get Printing!
After cleaning that up and printing a new cooling duct in PETG, I went back at it and the 2nd test printed perfect. Just for giggles, I printed some handy Joy Con grips. These all came out amazing.
The Hobby King Transparent Red printed bright, clean, and shiny. The colour is gorgeous, but I really like red colours.
I printed a few other random models and also an E-Nable Phoenix Hand that will be donated to some very lucky boy or girl.
I had no issues printing any of these things. There was no warping and all models were proportionally accurate with the measurements that I had specified.
Some of the cheaper filament that I have used in the past will have intermittent patches of under extrusion or even missed extrusion. None of that happened on any of my tests with this Hobby King Transparent Red filament, just strong, smooth, and solid extrusion. I really like the colour.
The only slightly negative thing I would say about this filament in the smell. It’s definitely the stinkiest PLA that I have ever used. Most brands give no smell or some slight sweet scents. This smelled like I was processing maple syrup in my work space.
Also, since the filament is transparent it gives off awesome lighting effects!
The Nitty Gritty, Should You Buy It?
I wasn’t expecting much from bargain priced PLA. This Hobby King Transparent Red does print very nice and looks fantastic. It normally sells for under $15 USD a 1KG roll, and shipping is reasonable in the ‘States.
I can’t comment for any of my friends across the pond or up the the frozen tundra, so YMMV. It’s cheap enough to take a gamble on, and I’m glad that I did. In the future I will try out some of Hobby King’s other filaments.
Check out some more pictures of my prints in the gallery below!
Also, don’t forget to check out my blog at Nubwerkes.com. I use my printers to print free 3D printed hands for others!
Like what you see? Send me a donation to paypal.me/nubwerkes, all proceeds will go towards the purchasing or supplies and postage for printing assistive devices.
Chemy Torres
Even when I read the transparent red I was expecting something a little bit more translucent than this, but it’s actually pretty good looking, nice finishes and also looks strong enough for hard work.
Nice article.
Andrew DeLisle
Thanks! It’s pretty much on point with the rest of my transparent filaments as far as translucency. Everything I printed was 1.2mm thick walled and 20-30% infill, you can easily see through the walls and see the infill. Sometimes the pics don’t do the items justice, and I really feel this way for this specific filament.
Single walled prints are extremely translucent with this filament.
Thanks for the comment and the compliment, I’ve got more content that will be dropping soon!