Base thickness: how much you actually need

By Tiehl Roberto Matías · 6 min read · Updated 26 October 2026

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The base thickness control looks like the least important one in the generator: it does not change the code and it does not change how it reads. But the base is nearly all the plastic in the piece, so it is the control that moves weight and print time the most. And it has a trade-off that does not grow at the same rate.

The base is nearly all the plastic

On a piece from this generator, the code is a thin layer on top of a slab. Measured with the engine itself, the base takes 90 % of the weight or more: on a 90 mm plate with the default settings, 25.2 of its 27.6 grams.

That makes base thickness by a distance the control that moves weight and time the most. These are the four typical pieces, each with the relief recommended for it:

Base	Keychain 40	Plate 90	Plate 150	Stand 70
1.6 mm	3.3 g	15.9 g	44.6 g	24.9 g
2 mm	4.0 g	19.2 g	53.7 g	27.2 g
2.4 mm	4.8 g	22.6 g	62.9 g	29.4 g
3 mm	5.9 g	27.6 g	76.7 g	32.7 g
4 mm	7.8 g	36.1 g	99.6 g	40.9 g
6 mm	11.6 g	52.9 g	145.4 g	57.3 g

Going from the 3 mm the generator comes with down to 2 mm saves around 30 % of filament and of time on flat pieces. On a 150 mm plate that is 23 grams and a bit over an hour; on a plate of four 90 mm plates, 34 grams. The full cost sums are in the cost guide (in Spanish).

The desk stand is its own case: its foot has a minimum thickness of its own, so the base control only changes the angled plate and the saving is smaller.

What you lose: stiffness goes as the cube

Weight grows in a straight line with thickness: twice the base, roughly twice the plastic. Stiffness does not. How hard a plate is to bend grows with the cube of its thickness: twice as thick, eight times stiffer; half as thick, eight times floppier.

Put in the numbers of the 90 mm plate: at 2 mm you save 30 % of the plastic and keep 30 % of the stiffness. At 1.6 mm, the plate weighs 42 % less and is almost seven times more flexible. And the other way: going to 4 mm costs 31 % more plastic and gives more than twice the stiffness.

Does it matter? It depends where the piece goes. A piece glued to a flat surface needs no stiffness of its own: the wall gives it. A plate hanging from a single hole, one somebody will pick up, or a large one supported only at the edges, does. And there is one case where the lack of stiffness ruins the code: the large thin plate that warps. As it cools, the plastic pulls the corners up, and a thin base has no strength to resist it. A warped plate is a curved surface, with the reading problems the curved surfaces guide (in Spanish) explains.

What thickness to use on each piece

Piece	Base	Why
Keychain	2.5 to 3 mm	The exception: it lives banging against keys in a pocket and the ring hole is where it cracks.
Collar tag	2 mm	It hangs on its own and here weight does matter, because an animal carries it.
Plate up to 90 mm glued to a wall	2 to 2.4 mm	The wall provides the stiffness.
Plate up to 90 mm hung or loose	3 mm	What the generator comes with; no more is needed.
Plate of 120 to 150 mm	3 to 4 mm	Keeps the corners from warping.
Desk stand	3 mm	The foot already has a thickness of its own.
A piece that has to have weight	6 mm	A stand on a windy terrace, a paperweight.

The generator's minimum is 1.6 mm, and it is not worth using unless the piece is meant to be bent, like the thin plates curved with hot water to sit on a mug. At that thickness the base snaps easily right where the hole is.

Thin light bases let light through

There is an effect that does not appear in the table and that bears directly on reading. Light filaments, white and pastels especially, are not entirely opaque: thin enough, they let some light through. And the background of the code is exactly that, the top face of the base.

If the piece sits on a dark wall, a thin light base picks up some of the colour behind it and the background of the code looks greyer. Against a window the opposite happens: it is lit from behind and the dark modules lose definition. Either way the contrast drops, which is what the colours guide is trying to protect.

How much gets through depends a lot on the brand and the colour, so the honest way to know is to test it: print a square of your light filament at the thickness you plan to use, put it on something black and compare it with a 3 mm one. If they look different, your base needs more thickness. In general, with light filaments over dark backgrounds do not go below 2.4 mm.

Thickness and the colour change

Base thickness is also the height at which the filament has to change, because the code starts exactly where the base ends. So when you pick it, make it an exact multiple of the layer height (in Spanish): 2 or 2.4 mm with 0.2 mm layers; 3 mm with 0.2 or 0.3. If it is not, the change lands mid-layer. The table of which layer to pick for each thickness is in the colour change guide (in Spanish).

And if you print several pieces at once with a single pause, they all have to have the same base thickness, as the batch guide (in Spanish) explains. Decide the thickness once per batch, not piece by piece.