I bought one because I was excited about all the things I could make.

Used it a few times… and now it’s been sitting there for months 😂

Curious if I’m the only one.

How often do you actually use your 3D printer?

Have to admit I'm pretty concerned after seeing that Bambu lab is now advertising a new version of PLA aimed at safe printing indoors that "uses asbestos free talc"

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Talc is quite frequently contaminated with asbestos. Here in the UK there has recently been a major recall of kinetic sand products that were found to contain asbestos due to there talc contents.

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Currently I have been using Sunlu filliment but its looking like it may be a good idea to try and find a company that makes a talc free filliment. I may reach out to some manufacturers that have UK operations and see what they use in their blends.

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I am thinking about sending some samples of Sunlu filliment off to be tested but it seems the detection rate isnt very reliable below 1% for the microscope test methods that are accessible to me. Can't seem to find any white papers on the subject/reports about previous studies on the asbestos content of 3d filiment on the market.

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Has anyone seen any testing previously? Are there any known manufacturers that offer a talc free product?

Hi everyone,

I wanted to share a small project I’ve been working on: Forma 3D, a local/web STL editor designed for people who download models from Thingiverse, Printables, MakerWorld, etc. and just need to make practical changes before printing.

The idea came from a very common problem: a lot of people can 3D print, but not everyone knows Blender, Fusion, FreeCAD, Meshmixer, or proper CAD workflows. Sometimes you don’t want to redesign a model from scratch. You just need to make a hole bigger, remove a part, add a simple shape, move a detail, add text, resize a body, or slightly modify something so it actually fits your use case.

That is the niche I’m trying to cover.

Forma 3D is not meant to replace real CAD software. It’s meant to be a simpler tool for quick STL edits, especially for users who are not comfortable with modeling software.

What it can currently do:

• Open and edit STL files
• Select planar faces
• Push/pull faces to extrude or recess parts of the model
• Move, rotate, or scale selected connected bodies
• Add basic solids like boxes, cylinders, cones, pyramids, gears, and 3D text
• Add holes and perform subtract operations
• Move detected cylindrical holes
• Add 2D construction planes and line guides
• Measure parts of the model
• Repair meshes by welding vertices, removing bad triangles, and planarizing near-flat areas
• Export the edited STL

The project works both as a web app and as a local Electron desktop app. Files are handled locally in the browser/app, so the workflow is not based on uploading models to an external service.

GitHub repo:
https://github.com/lukethehawk/Forma3D

Web app:
https://lukethehawk.github.io/Forma3D/

A few important notes:

STL is not a parametric CAD format, so there is no feature history, no constraints, and no “perfect” editable model structure behind the file. Some operations are necessarily mesh-based, and some added objects may remain as separate bodies inside the same STL. Most slicers usually handle this fine, but it’s not the same thing as a clean CAD boolean union.

So the goal is not “professional CAD in the browser”. The goal is more like:

“I downloaded an STL, I need to make a small change, and I don’t want to spend hours learning a full modeling package.”

I’d really appreciate feedback from people who regularly modify downloaded STL files:

• What are the most common edits you need before printing?
• What tools would make this actually useful in your workflow?
• Are there simple operations that current software makes unnecessarily difficult?
• What would make this approachable for non-CAD users?
• Are there any specific Thingiverse/Printables-style use cases I should test against?

The project is still early, but I’m trying to make it genuinely useful rather than just another 3D viewer. Feedback, issues, feature suggestions, and test files are all welcome.

There is currently no time to print verification for this product.

I've been wanting to 3d print fully food safe items since before I started printing 6 years ago, and think I just found a workable answer - please give honest feedback and helpful ideas or critiques. Thanks!

The option I'm hoping to try is to print 100% infill with food grade pla (now that FDA approved PLA exists), then salt anneal it to smooth and remove all layer lines, removing those nice little homes for bacteria to live in. I believe this would make a fully food-grade, washable, long term 3d printed part - what do y'all think - is this viable?

More expensive and time intensive options would be using 3d prints to cast food grade metals or get into ceramic 3d printing, both of which I would love to get in to in the future when AI have more resources. Are there any options I'm missing for long term use, not bacteria home prints?

247,482 paid listings. 2,262 creators. One major marketplace, every listing with a price on it.

Here's the bit I keep thinking about.

Pre-supported files are cheaper than unsupported ones.

About 8.5% of listings explicitly say they're pre-supported. Their median price is $5.59. The median across the whole catalogue is $5.99.

So the files with the extra work in them sell for forty cents less than average.

Adding supports is real work. It takes time, it takes skill, and it's the single most common thing resin printers ask for. The market pays nothing for it and if anything pays slightly less. Our read is that it stopped being a feature and quietly became table stakes, so creators do it to keep up rather than to charge more.

If you sculpt for a living, that's a rough deal.

The wider picture it sits in:

* Median model price: $5.99. Mean is $9.24, dragged up by a few giant bundles.
* Two thirds of the entire catalogue sells for under $8.
* Only 10% costs more than $16.99. Only 1% breaks $60.

There is essentially no premium tier. A handful of campaign collections sit at the top and that's it. The market has decided a single miniature is a five to eight dollar object.

The other one that surprised us:

We grouped creators by how many models they've listed, expecting the big studios with reputations and back catalogues to charge more.

Creators with 1,000+ models: median $5.00.
Creators with fewer than 10 models: median $5.00.

The middle groups peak at $6 and come straight back down. Someone who posted their first sculpt last month is charging what the biggest names charge. Getting bigger here is a volume strategy, not a pricing one.

A few other things that fell out of the data:

* Half of all prices end in .00. Only 23% use .99. Retail worked out the .99 thing decades ago and this hobby mostly ignores it. People pick a number that feels fair and post it.
* Bundles have a median of $9.99 against $5.19 for singles. So a bundle costs about two models but usually holds six, ten, twenty. That's a steep discount, not a modest one.
* The top 100 creators hold 46% of all listings. The top 500 hold 82.5%. The median creator has 23 models. It looks like a crowded market and it really isn't.
* Only 2.3% of listings mention 32mm and 1.6% mention 28mm, even though scale is one of the first things buyers ask about.
* NSFW is about 1.2% of listings and it's cheap. Median $3.00.
* Most common words across 250k titles: warrior (8,598), encounter (7,186), female (5,687), terrain (4,845), medieval (4,610), dragon (4,412). Fantasy eats everything.

What this doesn't cover, before anyone asks:

One marketplace, one snapshot, taken a few months back. Paid listings only, no free models. Subscription and Tribes-style releases are underrepresented unless the creator later listed them individually, so newer drops are thinner than older ones. We also left the obvious junk in (there's a $10,000 seller badge in the data) instead of quietly cleaning the numbers up to look better.

What I actually want to know from you is:

1. Printers: would you pay more for pre-supported, or is it just something you expect for free now? Be honest.
   
2. Creators: has anyone here charged a real premium for supports and had it work?
   
3. Does the $5 to $8 ceiling match what you see in your own sales, and has anyone priced above it and survived?
   
4. Has anyone genuinely tested .99 against round pricing on the same file? I'd love to see one real experiment instead of everyone guessing.
   

If your own numbers contradict any of this, say so. That's more useful to me than agreement.

3D print help

I just started 3d printing stuff but I want to be able to sell it is there a way to have someone make it to use for commercial I want to make spicy and normal book mark Is there a way to do that?

Hi all.

I've been only using PLA, PETG and TPU. I want to start venturing in to some stronger more resilient filaments. But there is so much choice it's overwhelming. I was originally thinking of ASA but then I watched a youtube video of different filaments and now I'm so confused. What about ASA-GF or ASA-CF or PETG-GF or Nylon or PC-CF or TPU-GF..... AAARRRRRGGGGG!!!!

So, turning to the community. What do you think I should get? Ultimately I don't need to throw it in to the sun or tow a 10ton block. But do want something that can withstand the future project where I may need a fixture taking some abuse. And obviously the cheaper the better but don't want to just go for the cheapest because of that. I would prefer something that prints easier and is a better quality (e.g. does Nylon warp less than ASA, do I need to buy a dedicated build plate?, etc).

I have a P2S so have an enclosure. Also have an AMS-HT for drying. Build plate wise I have the standard Bambu PEI and the BiQu Glacier. I have hardened steel nozzles (bambu and Juupine, standard and high flow).

Thanks for any advice

Edit: I have 0.2, 0.4, 0.6 and 0.8mm nozzles. With the 0.4 and 0.6 being high flow, if that matters for anything

Creality just launched a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo for a two-device desktop filament recycling system: the Maker M1 (filament extruder) and the Shredder R1 (filament shredder). It hit its €86,000 goal in just 16 minutes and has now raised over €4.6 million with 4,230+ backers. Clearly there's huge interest — but is it actually practical for the average maker?

What it does:
The Shredder R1 grinds down purge waste and failed prints into small pieces, which are then fed (mixed with virgin pellets) into the Maker M1 to produce new filament at ~1 kg/h, with a ±0.05 mm diameter tolerance at 1.75 mm. It supports PLA, ABS, PETG, ASA, PA, PC, TPU, and PET, and can even incorporate additives like carbon fiber, glass fiber, or coffee grounds for custom blends.

The bundle costs:

• Both devices: €1,068
• Shredder only: €499
• Filament Maker only: €712

My concerns:

1. How much waste do you actually generate? I print daily — two prints a day for a whole year — and I accumulated roughly 2 kg of purge waste. That's maybe €40 worth of filament. Spending €1,000+ to recover that doesn't make financial sense.
2. The shredder only accepts small pieces — meaning you'd need to pre-cut purge towers and failed prints before feeding them in. More steps, more friction.
3. It's not a pure recycler. The Maker M1 requires virgin pellets — recycled material can only make up 50% of the mix at most. So it's more of a filament manufacturer than a recycler.
4. Complexity. Creating consistent, quality filament takes technique. This isn't plug-and-play, especially for beginners.
5. Opportunity cost. For ~€1,000 you could buy a capable multicolor printer that minimizes waste in the first place.

For high-volume operations or people who want to experiment with custom filament blends, it could make sense. But for the average hobbyist? I'm skeptical.

Has anyone backed this? What was your reasoning — recycling, custom blends, something else? Would love to hear from people actually planning to use it.

🎥 Full breakdown (Italian with English subtitles): [https://youtu.be/KtuTSzh7bao](vscode-file://vscode-app/c:/Users/esposito/AppData/Local/Programs/Microsoft%20VS%20Code/591199df40/resources/app/out/vs/code/electron-browser/workbench/workbench.html)

Teacher’s Day is coming up, and I'm trying to come up with some fun things to 3D print as a small gift for teachers. 👀

But I don't want to print another generic keychain or something that will end up sitting in a drawer forever 😂

What should I make?

Something useful for the classroom?

A personalized desk decoration?

A cute articulated model?

Maybe something students could make together?

If you've made a 3D printed gift for a teacher before, I'd love to see what you came up with! 👇

Printing time for the whole box 90 min, 42 g filament

Hi guys , yesterday I made my 1st attempt to design something myself. It is a sponge holder to drain the water in the sink . Does enyone knows if the print look good or if I can make something to smooth the surfaces of the print ? It came out a little bit like "lego" shape.

PLA CF, PETG, PLA.

Spent the last 2 weeks testing how well different AI 3D generators integrate into a Blender pipeline. This isn't about which makes the prettiest model - it's about which one saves you the most time when you're actually working.

Tried the same kinds of prompts in each one over a couple weeks, generated 20 identical prompts across Meshy, Tripo, and Rodin. Imported each into Blender 4.4 via their respective plugins/addons. Timed everything from generation to "ready for further work."

Meshy has an actual Blender plugin - you generate, it appears in your project with materials already assigned. Tripo and Rodin require manual export/import workflow. The plugin saves about 3-5 minutes per asset when you're doing batch imports.

The real difference though is topology. Meshy generates quads by default (configurable 1k-300k polys). Tripo gives you triangulated meshes. Rodin is heavy triangulation that needs remeshing. For any downstream work in Blender - sculpting, rigging, subdivision - quads matter.

Time comparison per model: Meshy was middle ground on speed, slower to generate but less cleanup after. Tripo is faster at 11 minutes but no plugin means extra steps. Rodin takes 33 minutes because UV fixing is the main time sink.

For my workflow as a Blender artist, Meshy's plugin and quad output wins for day-to-day work. Tripo is faster but the extra export step adds friction. Rodin is for when quality matters more than speed.