The best alternative outside the United States is ColorFABB RAL 7044, but its very pricy. The price is what pushed me to find a less expensive supplier.
Polar Filament will sell outside North America - you just have to contact them directly.
"Platinum" PLA for Macs and Apple ][s
- Thread starter jcm-1
- Start date
Polar Filament will sell outside North America - you just have to contact them directly.
It depends on where you are at?
Silk grey RAL 7044
This page shows RAL color 7044 called Silk grey. This color appears in the category Gray hues, part of the collection RAL Classic. In other languages this RAL color has the following names Zijdegrijs (Nederlands), Seidengrau (Deutsch), Gris soie (Français), Gris seda (Español), Grigio seta...
colorfabb.com
Ouch, yeah - those are expensive, even with estimated shipping and VAT/Import Tax the Polar Filament would probably still be cheaper. I'll try to contact them, thanks.
DenmarkIt depends on where you are at?
Silk grey RAL 7044
This page shows RAL color 7044 called Silk grey. This color appears in the category Gray hues, part of the collection RAL Classic. In other languages this RAL color has the following names Zijdegrijs (Nederlands), Seidengrau (Deutsch), Gris soie (Français), Gris seda (Español), Grigio seta...
I reprinted by BlueSCSI tray in the Polar Filament Retro Platinum and the color is a much closer match to my computer's particular shade.
This image is the original in PolyTerra Muted White
This is the new one in Retro Platinum. Much better match.
Thank you so much for taking the time and effort to help develop this material.
This image is the original in PolyTerra Muted White
This is the new one in Retro Platinum. Much better match.
Thank you so much for taking the time and effort to help develop this material.
It is indeed quite close...
Your machine is a tiny shade lighter. Has it been Retrobrighted?
Got a couple spools in today, and printed out a replacement power button for a 7300. Looking good. Thanks for working to make this available.
Just received my 3 spools today. Anyone know where to get a desktop 7600/G3 style "Card Retainer Baffle" 3D model? I will try to model one myself if none exists.
Kai, I suspect you might be thinking ill of my previous remarks, but I certainly had nothing derogatory in mind.
I work with "color" on a near daily basis at work. I'm pretty meticulous about identifying even the smallest differences. If you scroll up an examine his original photo of the full height of the machine, it is easier to spot the very slight difference between the Mac's housing color and the 3D printed part. Knowing how color changes over time on old Macs (usually in the form of Apple Platinum changing to varying shades of yellow), I pretty much knew the machine was probably de-yellowed at some point and wanted to confirm it. Sure enough, it was indeed RetroBrighted. That explains the very subtle difference in brightness.
What this means is, if you have a Platium Mac Plus that is yellowed, you obviously would need to Retrobright it before you start printing plastics and expect things to match. But in my own experience with RetroBright, plastics sometimes come out a shade lighter than the stock plastics.
For example, I deyellowed an Apple keyboard once which was pretty yellowed on the top, but hardly at all on the bottom, and none on the inside. After deyellowing, the top was a very tiny shade lighter than the bottom, and the inside was very slightly darker still. Not a huge difference at all, but not 100% identical either.
None of this dialog is meant to say anything negative about the filament. I think it's fantastic Joe went the extra mile to create it. I am merely pondering "color matching" in light of what each of us would consider to be "good enough." And yes, I do think the color matching shown to us by @asphaise is truly "a great colour match"!
Oh, you're reading too much into it, I literally just meant it looks like a great colour match, to my eyes 
That does look great.
Tangentially, I had very mixed results from RetroBrite projects. I never had mottling or over-bleaching issues, but some of my attempts re-yellowed within a few months. I stopped RetroBrite after that for a few years.
About a year ago I read that someone had the same results as RetroBrite just by using sunlight or UV lamps. I decided to give that a try with a large opaque tote and reflective material lining the interior (aluminum tape and reflective vinyl) plus UV LED strips wrapping the sides and a fixed LED UV light on the top.
The results have been good. Everything comes out just as well as my best RetroBrite projects, only it takes a lot more time with only UV lighting. Lightly discolored plastics are about a week, average yellowed plastics are about two weeks, and the really bad ones take up to a month. Unlike with RetroBrite, everything done with UV only has so far not re-yellowed.
Tangentially, I had very mixed results from RetroBrite projects. I never had mottling or over-bleaching issues, but some of my attempts re-yellowed within a few months. I stopped RetroBrite after that for a few years.
About a year ago I read that someone had the same results as RetroBrite just by using sunlight or UV lamps. I decided to give that a try with a large opaque tote and reflective material lining the interior (aluminum tape and reflective vinyl) plus UV LED strips wrapping the sides and a fixed LED UV light on the top.
The results have been good. Everything comes out just as well as my best RetroBrite projects, only it takes a lot more time with only UV lighting. Lightly discolored plastics are about a week, average yellowed plastics are about two weeks, and the really bad ones take up to a month. Unlike with RetroBrite, everything done with UV only has so far not re-yellowed.
Well the best one is ColorFabb's. It's expensive, but it's very good. I have a 2kg spool I barely used, that's been lying here including in not so dry winter for almost 2 years, and it still prints fine.
Thank you for confirming that UV LEDs used indoors will work because my success outdoors in sunlight (no clouds) wasn't good, in large part because it rains a lot here in Japan and there is no way I could leave electronics outside for a month, let alone 2 weeks. I was only able to try it for a week with my yellowed HD20 drive outside in direct sun during late Spring a couple years ago. But indoor UV-only deyellowing is an altogether different matter that sounds interesting.
I think that topic is very relevant to this thread because when we talk about PLA filament made to "color-match," we need to understand that color matching is for pristine plastics that never altered their color over time. But in most use cases, I suspect people might print mouse plastics or a piece of a computer body in the new filament, and then you'd need to contend with the effects of either yellow or Retrobright on your stock plastics. A huge color mismatch lessens the joy from a perfectly color-matched filament.
All said, if your trick of using UV alone indoors can truly de-yellow a wide variety of Mac plastics back to the original color (which means no over-whitening and little to no yellow-back), that technique may just be what the doctor ordered!