Rigid.ink Review

Let’s start with the tolerances, most of the filaments they sell have 0.03mm tolerances which I can vouch for. These are very good tolerances. This is important to produce consistent high quality models. Many brands, especially the cheap ones, have very bad tolerances which is not too good for your printer and they will produce poor, inconsistent models.

One thing Rigid.ink certainly do not lack on is colour. Rigid.ink offer just about any colour from solid colours to translucent colours. In PLA choice there are 21 solid colours as well as 3 translucent colours. This makes for quite a choice however another great thing about rigid.ink is that fact that they let you buy 10 meter samples if you don’t fell like committing to a full 1 KG roll. The colours are good as well; they are consistent, bright and vibrant.

Rigid.ink offer lots of variates of filament from the normal ones to the more ‘exotic’ ones. They, of course, offer ABS and PLA in the plentifully range of colour they provide. They also offer soluble support filaments such as HIPs. On top of all that they sell specialist filaments like PETG, flexible PLA. There are not as many colour options in the specialist filaments yet the colours are still on par with the main colours in terms of quality.

What about customer service? Due to how good the customer service was I had to add it to this review. It is clear that Rigid.ink want to provide high quality filament to its customers. They send you emails to make sure everything is ok and allow you to reply if something isn’t. I have emailed them asking questions about their filament and I got a quick, clear answer. What about packaging and delivery? Well delivery for samples of 10 meters of ABS or PLA is free in the UK and if you choose to order filament from them (on their website) if you buy over £50 worth of value delivery is free in the UK. When you order a sample or a 10 meter long bit of filament it comes in a sturdy, re-sealable, air tight, metallic bag with Rigid.ink logo on. On the bag it tells you that you can place your rolls of filament into it to keep moisture out and keep your filament fresh. With samples you also get a small bag sweets, nothing to do with filament, yet  it will probably help you pass the time for the print you are doing with the sample filament. With 1KG rolls; each roll comes in its own box in an air tight sealed metallic film. Unlike the sample packs the film is not re-sealable however you might as well get a free sample with your order for you 1KG rolls. The 1KG rolls are spooled onto a sturdy spool with double holes at certain intervals to put the lose end of your filament into when you store it. Overall the customer service and packaging is excellent and something you will not get with cheap Chinese filament.

So let’s get to the ‘million dollar question’: How does it print? Well the simple answer to that is, great! With Rigid.ink filament I have always gotten great prints out of it. The layers appear smooth and are consistent. The colour is also very nice and vibrant on the models I print. Bed adhesion is very good as well, the prints stuck very well to numerous print surfaces such as painters tape. Warping is excellent: in PLA warping is next  to nothing even without a heated bed, and ABS is also good. ABS warping is is very little on my Prusa i3 without an enclosure with a heated bed. To be honest there isn’t much to say about the quality of prints, they come out looking amazing!

What about price then? Well the PLA and ABS filaments cost £27.95 (40.84 US Dollars, correct as on the 04/02/160), and of course more exotic filaments such as flexible PLA or PETG cost a few pounds more. So what’s the value like then? Well personally I think the value is good, you are paying for a premium filament and the service that goes with it. This filament prints so much better than the filament that I used to buy off Amazon for £20 (29.21 US Dollar, correct as on the 04/02/16) from China.

Overall then I without a doubt recommend Rigid.ink for their filament and their service as well as value. It may be tempting to go for the cheaper brands for £20 but you will get much better prints with decent filament, so do your printer justice and get some decent filament. If you choose to buy from Rigid.ink you can use my referral code to get £5 off your first purchase : http://r.sloyalty.com/r/uB3HHJEvtV7H.

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