LAYERED – HYPE CHAIN – NO AMS
Color-Layered Hype Chain to STL
No AMS needed — swap filament by hand between colors
Big, chunky charms for a hype chain, built for single-extruder printers. Colors become physical height instead of separate filaments — pause and swap by hand at each level, or print it in one color for a bold relief look.
How it works
- Upload an image — team logos and simple designs work best. High resolution, generally SVG is needed to avoid jagged edges
- Remove the background and detect colors
- Reorder colors to set which sits tallest — drag with the ▲▼ buttons
- Adjust thickness and hole size if you want something different from the defaults
- Generate & Download for a single STL (or a ZIP with one file per height level)
- Click Download Chain Link (3MF) for the matching connector pieceassemble, and hang it up, or put it around your neck!
- Print — pause and swap filament at each height if you want multiple colors, or leave it as one bold color
Detailed Instructions
Why “color-layered,” and why no AMS?
- Colors become height, not separate filaments. Each detected color gets its own step height — the tallest color is whichever one you put at the top of the stack. Everything prints in a single color change (or none at all), so there’s no automatic multi-material printer required.
- Manual swaps are optional, not required. If you want a multi-color result, pause your printer at each height and change filament by hand. If you’re happy with a single bold color, just print it straight through — the height relief still reads as detail either way.
- Same chunky sizing as the standard Hype Chain. 150mm print size, thick base and per-level height by default — built for a bold physical presence.
- Same mounting tab and bonus download. A rounded tab sticks out past the design’s edge with a large hole through the center, sized for real chain hardware — and every generation includes a separate Chain Link 3MF download, a fixed file that’s always the same.
Choosing your image
- Bold graphics with a handful of distinct colors work best — each detected color becomes its own visible step, so busy or gradient-heavy images lose clarity in the height map.
- SVG is the best choice if you have it — logos, wordmarks, and vectorized art scale to any size with no loss of sharpness, which matters at this tool’s larger 150mm default. PNG works well too, especially for photos or anything without a vector source — just start from the highest resolution you have.
Reordering colors
After detecting colors, use the ▲▼ buttons on each swatch to set stacking order. Whatever’s at the top of the list becomes the tallest — this is your call creatively, and also determines the order you’d swap filament in if printing multi-color.
Thickness
Base thickness (the solid plate) and per-level height (how much each color step rises) are both adjustable. Defaults are chunky by design — raise either for even more relief, or lower them to save filament and print time.
Mounting Tab
- Position — where the tab sits around the edge, in degrees.
- Hole size — diameter of the mounting hole, defaults to 20mm for real chain hardware.
- Wall thickness — how much material surrounds the hole within the tab, defaults to 4mm for durability.
Export
Choose a single combined STL, or a ZIP with one STL per height level if you want to inspect or edit them separately. Then click Download Chain Link (3MF) for the matching connector — always the same file, ready to print alongside your charm.
