Thumwan Filament – Thumbs up or Thumbs Down?

Inov3d first test of Thumwan PLA

Thumwan filament is a name most of you wont be familiar with. Its a brand that I found on Amazon when idly surfing through the filament deals, not having come across this brand I found my curiosity peaked so I ordered a spool of red. You can purchase the same spool here for the princely sum of £16.99 (correct at the time of writing)

Thumwan Red Pla – Posh or not

As usual with Amazon Prime, the delivery was prompt the next day. The usual non-descript brown box and vac-packed plain black spool complete with desiccant within greeted me when I opened the package. No innovations here, no-frills, just well packaged Thumwan filament. I’ve often gone on about wanting manufacturers to add a little more information to the boxes, and again I find myself wanting the same here. Stick a logo or something on the box, makes picking the filament out from the others on the shelf at home easier.

Initial print

Starting before this print, I cleaned the glass on my printer. It’s not something I don’t do as often as I should, but with an unknown filament, I wanted to give it the best shot it had at sticking to the plain glass. Bed cleaned and re-levelled, I gave the glass a quick spray of 3DLAC – keep your eyes open for my review on this product shortly.

With the obligatory calibration cube and a benchy later, I was pleased with the results. The Thumwan filament was going down nicely. Good consistent layers, a constant diameter of the filament with minimal variance leading to excellent printing. This red pla from Thumwan doesn’t need high temps. It printed well for me at 200C with a 50C bed.

Spiderman, Spiderman, does whatever

Choosing prints for filament tests isn’t easy. You want something relatively large but not too big that you can’t find another print if it doesn’t meet the standard you’re looking for without the need to purchase a second test spool. This time I was searching cults3d when I came across the Spiderman bust.

With the printer fired up, I reused the temp settings from when I printed the benchy. A few hours later I was pleased to find a rather handsome Spiderman looking at me from the print bed! Support removal didn’t leave any visible scarring on the print, and there were no signs of any print defects at all.

The Thumwan filament is a quality higher than I would expect from the price. I printed the Spiderman bust at 0.2mm layer height at 60mm/s, and the layer lines are virtually invisible.

Final thoughts on Thumwan Filament

To sum up, I like Thumwan filament. I love it that much that It may become my new go-to brand. I have already ordered a roll of green which I look forward to reviewing for you at a later date. Thumwan will also soon release their range of silk PLA. Thumwan is set to make some fantastic products aside from the PLA. They are looking into ABS, TPU and many other types of filaments. I will be sure to try these once they are released for sale!

Update 10/11/219

Thumwan Green Pla

Previously I tested the Red and was so impressed that I came back for more. Let’s try the green!

Covering Old Ground

This is more of an update than a stand-alone article. As I have already reviewed the Red Thumwan PLA, I don’t see the need to go over old ground and besides who wants to hear me repeat myself over the packing etc. when the only change here is the filament colour.

As usual, my filament came from Amazon Uk at the cost of £16.99 for a 1KG Spool.

Green-Eyed Monster

I wanted something different, I had been planning a board upgrade for my Ender 3 Pro for a while, but I wasn’t sure what to do with regards to the case. Did I go black or did I want it to stand out? Or more importantly, did I want the wife to know which printer was which when I call to ask her to restart a print when I’m at work. Wi-Fi cameras are great for monitoring your prints.

Deciding on colourful I had a look at my filaments and couldn’t choose, so I asked my son, and he wanted green, so on Amazon, I went and ordered my new go-to brand Thumwan.

Rinse and Repeat

As usual, I did a calibration cube and benchy reusing the settings from the Red Thumwan PLA, perfect results again.

I already had my case design from Thingiverse. So I sliced it in Simplify 3D and set the Cr10s Pro off printing. Fifteen hours later, I have one completed green PLA case. And boy was the finish good! Everything just looked right. There was no stringing, no pitting, no zits and no blobs well you get the picture. If I had to be supercritical, there are some minor imperfections where the internal supports for the screws are shown through, but that’s being overly picky.

I can confidently conclude that the green Thumwan PLA is as good if not better than the red, Thumwan has plans for a range of silk filaments soon. I can’t wait to get my hands on those.

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