How To 3D Print

As far as slicer engines are concerned, the Ultimaker Cura is arguably one of the single most popular and commonly available programs out there. It’s what I learned on and, even though it’s both free and open source, Cura is also absolutely loaded with tons of great features. Let us take a quick look at … Read more

The Z offset is a very powerful setting in your 3D printing toolkit that you can use to make micro adjustments to your nozzle height. This is very useful when you’re 3D printing a wide variety of materials and some have thicker extrusions than others. The Z offset determines how far or close the nozzle … Read more

Along with layer height in millimeters, another term often thrown around to measure 3D printing resolution is microns. So what exactly are microns, and is 100 microns considered good? 100 microns is the same as setting a 0.1mm layer height in your 3D printer slicer. A 0.1mm layer height will yield a fairly high-quality print … Read more

All 3D printers require a companion computer software to operate them. Some of them use proprietary software; others are dependent on free open source engines, while others rely on off the shelf market products. It is entirely up to you and your requirements to determine what is needed for that perfect 3D printed object. Basically, … Read more

Elephant’s Foot is an unsightly 3D printing error that is quite common. It’s what happens when the first layer is a little bit bigger than the rest of the layers, often accompanied by a slight bulge towards the bottom. This happens for a number of reasons, all of which can be fixed. Under normal circumstances, … Read more

Bed adhesion may be defined as the ability of 3D printed plastic to effectively stick to the printer’s build plate while it is 3D printing an object. When most 3D prints are not able to stick to the build plate, the odds are that you will inevitably end up getting shifted, curled, and otherwise disastrous … Read more

There are a wide variety of materials that you can 3D print, and you may have heard or read about 3D printed wood. So is this actually wood, or something else? Let’s dive in and see the exciting possibilities and challenges of 3D printed wood! What is 3D printed wood, anyway? If you’re thinking about … Read more

One of the most basic things to underamstand about 3D printing is the relationship between layer height vs nozzle size. While the two values are related, they’re not the exact same thing! When I got my first 3D printer, I thought that a 0.4mm nozzle meant I could use a 0.4mm layer height. Boy, was … Read more

PLA is by far and large, the single most popular FDM printing filament available today. PLA filament is very forgiving for newbies who don’t have much experience with this filament type. It is always very important that the very first layer of your 3D print is always very strongly connected to the printer’s build platform … Read more

Folks that are newer to 3D printing often wonder how much you can print with 1kg of filament. If you ask this question on forums, you’ll probably get snarky answers like “2.2 lbs of stuff”. That’s not really useful! I can understand why you may wish to get an idea of how far a 1 … Read more

Cura Tree Supports are an innovative new way to generate supports. Cura has long been at the forefront of ease-of-use and advances in 3D printer technology, and the list of awesome new features is always growing. Cura’s tree supports is a notable addition to supports, something that is often a thorn in the side of … Read more

There is no doubt that getting melted filament stuck on the nozzle of your 3D printer can get quite annoying. This holds particularly true because it can be hard to very hard to clean properly. Many of not most people who are into 3D printing tend to go through this annoying difficulty of their filament … Read more

One of the most basic settings you need to get right in your 3D printer is the shell thickness. This is crucial for the stability and strength of your 3D print, so how many shells does your 3D print really need and how do you calculate it? Learn more here. As a general rule, your … Read more

3D printing is a phenomenal hobby, but it’s not without its headaches. The amount of trial and error involved can be pretty time consuming. This is especially true when it comes to curing your resin prints. How long should you cure resin prints for anyway? The reality is that most prints should be fully cured … Read more

When it comes to 3D printing safety, many, if not most people tend to think that 3D printers catch fire and burn up. However, that is not the truth as such. On the contrary, 3D printers are far more likely to generate various kinds of particulates and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Ok so what can these VOCs and … Read more

There was a time when 3D printing was the sole domain of science fiction and few people could have imagined that it would become a mainstream trend. Of course, the very thought of printing anything that you like and have designed into practical into CAD files is really enthralling. This is why it is not … Read more

Most of the time when we slice a 3D print, we only care about the infill density, and hardly give a thought to the infill pattern. With the latest releases of Cura, there are a lot of different infill patterns to choose from, which got us thinking: what’s the best infill pattern? As you might … Read more

The strength of a 3D printed part depends on many factors: the type of filament material you use, the shell thickness, the layer height, and of course, the infill. So what’s the strongest infill pattern? Let’s dig a little deeper. What’s the strongest infill pattern? Under most circumstances, the strongest infill pattern is the honeycomb … Read more

One of the most appealing things to try and do with your new 3D printer is to 3D scan yourself and 3D print a model of your head. Although some would consider having a bust of yourself quite vain, 3D scanning yourself is a really fun project you can do. Thanks to the wide variety … Read more

One of the biggest challenges when printing with any filament is dialing in the correct printing and bed temperature. PLA filament is one of the most commonly and universally used 3D printing filaments out there, so what’s the ideal PLA printing temperature? This is a question that commonly comes up for many first-timers to 3D … Read more

One of the most annoying things in 3D printing is to see a print fail. You come back to your 3D printer to see how your model turned out, only to find gaps in your 3D print. Yikes! So how do you fix gaps in 3D prints? Let’s take a look: Gaps in 3D prints … Read more

With the power of 3D printing, it’s tempting to try and turn it into a side hustle. If you’ve got the technology to make things on demand, you can find people who are willing to pay for a service or product that you provide. However, you can’t just buy a 3D printer, download free STL … Read more

Supports are essential components to 3D print certain types of models. Cura is a very powerful slicer that has many support settings you can customize to get the results you want. Learn how to configure Cura support settings in this easy-to-follow guide. FDM 3D printers work by putting down layer upon layer to build a … Read more

Your 3D printer’s bed is the most crucial component to get consistently successful prints. Properly maintaining your 3D printer bed and cleaning it is essential to keep your 3D printer running in good shape. Read on to learn how to clean the various types of 3D printer beds and get some tips and tricks. How … Read more

Anycubic printers are becoming firm favorites of 3D-printing fans around the world. Their resin-based methods offer superior levels of finish, durability, and speed. If you’re new to this method, though, there’s a learning curve involved; Anycubic resin settings can take a little trial and error to get right. That’s where we come in. This page … Read more

3D printers are a great way to improve your other hobbies – that’s why they go hand in hand with things like radio control and tabletop games like Warhammer and Dungeons and Dragons. If you’re looking to 3D print miniatures for your tabletop gaming, you’ve come to the right place. This tutorial will help you … Read more

If your 3D print looks kind of haunted by the ghosts of layers past, you’re probably running into an issue known as ghosting. 3D printing has a lot of different terminologies, so ghosting is also known as ringing, echoing, rippling, or just plain ol’ vibrations. Ghosting can really ruin the finish of a 3D print, … Read more

Tired of seeing bulges and ribs on the walls of your 3D printed model? In this post, we’ll explain how to fix Z banding and Z wobbling, which is the usual culprit for these issues. Ribbing or Z banding is one of many common issues to plague 3D printers. It tends to make layer lines … Read more

Today we’ll be looking at the benefits and drawbacks of the two types of extruders found in Fused Deposition Modeling, Bowden tube and Direct Drive extruders. The key difference between Bowden and Direct Drive extruders is where the stepper motor and feed gears are located – for Bowden it’s on the 3D printer’s frame VS … Read more

The best 3D printer in the world can let you down if you don’t have the right software to back you up. There’s a ton of choice out there when it comes to the printing programs you use. Want to get to the bottom of the Simplify3D VS Slic3r debate? We’re here to help. We’ve … Read more

The 3D printing process requires a whole range of highly innovative tools to get the job done properly. Apart from the obvious one such as a 3D model as well as a 3D printer, you will need lots of other items as well. Here, one of the instrumental pieces to the whole 3D puzzle would … Read more

One of the many challenges you’ll face in your 3D printing journey is removing the finished 3D print from the bed. You may find that your 3D printed model is stuck like anything to the print bed, so what now? How do you remove the 3D print from the bed? Here are 7 ways to … Read more

When you have low quality filament or a misaligned PTFE tube, it’s possible that filament may break and get stuck inside the PTFE tube. Getting the filament out is pretty straightforward, so let’s dive in. How to remove filament stuck in the PTFE tube The easiest way to remove filament stuck in your 3D printer’s … Read more

The 3D printing process doesn’t just require hardware support alone in the form of a good 3D printer and filaments etc. Yes, these things are very important, but they can only work at their optimum capacity when they are further complemented by a whole range of highly innovative software tools that can utilize the hardware … Read more

If you have PLA stuck on your print bed or nozzle, or you just want to smooth your PLA prints a little and remove layer lines, you’re probably looking for a way to dissolve PLA filament or smoothen it. In this post, we’ll look at the various methods you can use to dissolve PLA and … Read more

Stringing is a very common issue in 3D printing and it can make your 3D prints look really messy. The good news is that stringing is usually very easy to fix. Let’s take a look at how to fix your 3D print stringing issues. In order to fix stringing, it’s useful to understand why it happens … Read more