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Some things are just destined to ride the novelty merry-go-round. Today, it’s holographic print beds, which continue to catch the imaginations of content creators and 3D print enthusiasts alike.

Available under a number of different, seemingly meaningless names, smooth “PEY,” “PEO,” and “PET” print bed sheets can nowadays be found on the likes of AliExpress. These modern, printing-specific sheets come cut to fit popular build plate sizes and have adhesive backing for convenient setup. Some even ship with a steel sheet as a whole new print bed, with PEI backing on one side and the shiny transfer side on the reverse. They’re all an evolution of sheets that have been available for years under different names.

Such is the interest even Bambu Lab is getting in on the act, recently releasing its own official “3D Effect Sheet” in a number of patterns for its standard size and mini print beds. The company warns that these stickers, applied to one side of a metal print bed, are to be considered consumables, as the effect will diminish after repeated prints in the same area of the sheet.

The technical name for the structure of the sheets is diffraction grating. The way they work is not by adding to the print, transferring a chemical or additive, or anything like that. All they do is create a negative of the microscopic pattern that is etched into the sheet. Reflective materials at such fine scales break the light apart, scattering it into different components of the spectrum and giving the appearance of a multicolor sheen. It isn’t really multicolor, it’s just scattering the light.

Printing onto such holographic sheets transfers the microscopic pattern to your print and, given the glossiness, makes the print appear iridescent. We explain a bit more in this post from 2019.

If you’re curious to test it out but don’t want to spend money on a sheet, you can achieve the same effect by ripping open a CD or DVD and using the reflective inner layer as a print surface. Of course, there’s a greater overhead of work involved there, particularly setting an offset to not gouge the disc, and you’re limited in how large you can print, but it’s much cheaper than mucking around with stickers on your print bed.

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License: The text of "A Colorful Spotlight on Holographic Print Beds" by All3DP is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.