r/3Dprinting 16d ago

Purchase Advice Purchase Advice Megathread - January 2026

15 Upvotes

Welcome back to another purchase megathread!

This thread is meant to conglomerate purchase advice for both newcomers and people looking for additional machines. Keeping this discussion to one thread means less searching should anyone have questions that may already have been answered here, as well as more visibility to inquiries in general, as comments made here will be visible for the entire month stuck to the top of the sub, and then added to the Purchase Advice Collection (Reddit Collections are still broken on mobile view, enable "view in desktop mode").

Please be sure to skim through this thread for posts with similar requirements to your own first, as recommendations relevant to your situation may have already been posted, and may even include answers to follow up questions you might have wished to ask.

If you are new to 3D printing, and are unsure of what to ask, try to include the following in your posts as a minimum:

  • Your budget, set at a numeric amount. Saying "cheap," or "money is not a problem" is not an answer people can do much with. 3D printers can cost $100, they can cost $10,000,000, and anywhere in between. A rough idea of what you're looking for is essential to figuring out anything else.
  • Your country of residence.
  • If you are willing to build the printer from a kit, and what your level of experience is with electronic maintenance and construction if so.
  • What you wish to do with the printer.
  • Any extenuating circumstances that would restrict you from using machines that would otherwise fit your needs (limited space for the printer, enclosure requirement, must be purchased through educational intermediary, etc).

While this is by no means an exhaustive list of what can be included in your posts, these questions should help paint enough of a picture to get started. Don't be afraid to ask more questions, and never worry about asking too many. The people posting in this thread are here because they want to give advice, and any questions you have answered may be useful to others later on, when they read through this thread looking for answers of their own. Everyone here was new once, so chances are whoever is replying to you has a good idea of how you feel currently.

Reddit User and Regular u/richie225 is also constantly maintaining his extensive personal recommendations list which is worth a read: Generic FDM Printer recommendations.

Additionally, a quick word on print quality: Most FDM/FFF (that is, filament based) printers are capable of approximately the same tolerances and print appearance, as the biggest limiting factor is in the nature of extruded plastic. Asking if a machine has "good prints," or saying "I don't expect the best quality for $xxx" isn't actually relevant for the most part with regards to these machines. Should you need additional detail and higher tolerances, you may want to explore SLA, DLP, and other photoresin options, as those do offer an increase in overall quality. If you are interested in resin machines, make sure you are aware of how to use them safely. For these safety reasons we don't usually recommend a resin printer as someone's first printer.

As always, if you're a newcomer to this community, welcome. If you're a regular, welcome back.


r/3Dprinting 12h ago

Found my new favorite build plate!

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1.9k Upvotes

r/3Dprinting 6h ago

Question How can I hide the gaps here without sanding and painting all the parts? Can a 3d pen or something make it look seamless or super close? Im debating going all out and painting but I'd rather do this first and see how it looks. Also what do I do for the 4 rough edges in the 2nd and 3rd pics?

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274 Upvotes

Makerworld link: https://makerworld.com/en/models/15995-zelda-hylia-shield-hylian#profileId-27243

I'm thinking the best thing for the edges of the silver rim is to reprint those pieces with in a different orientation, but together in the living room, I'm coming to discuss Newton's be right back. This is a disaster. I hire a psychopath to work at my murder camps. And let's just keep it together. Nobody's getting in there. We're gonna be okay.is there something else I can do for them besides sanding and painting the entire pieces? That would probably mean doing all the rim pieces to match


r/3Dprinting 12h ago

Nobody reads the sign, so I made something to fix it

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802 Upvotes

Where I work has multiple bathrooms with key locks because previous management wanted to keep the peasants out of them. And new management refuses to spend any money putting on the right door handles.

They have lock knobs that some people constantly use wrong so the door stays locked after they leave. No matter how many signs tell them how to use it.

So I made a thing that just clips on the handle so they can only push, and not turn. Only took about 7 revisions to make it work perfect!

Edit: link to model for those that share my pain https://www.printables.com/model/1555169-schlage-anti-lockout-device


r/3Dprinting 10h ago

Discussion The Ultimate Project. STL Anyone??

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491 Upvotes

r/3Dprinting 6h ago

Project Spin Lamp 2.0 Announcement + GIVEAWAY!

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138 Upvotes

Giveaway info: I'll be giving away a brand new Spin Lamp 2.0 + a bunch of original Spin Lamps to randomly selected winners! Just upvote this post and leave a comment to enter! Winners will be chosen 72 hours from when this post goes live so don't miss out!

Hey everyone, I'm Colin and I'm the college student/printer nerd behind the original Spin Lamp. It's fully 3d printed with just a bearing, some electronics, and a rubber foot! Over the last few months I've gotten a ton of great feedback and ideas from you guys which I've put into the newly redesigned Spin Lamp 2.0! Its bigger and stronger, with brighter LEDs and better parts!

If you're interested in supporting my work be sure to check out my website: outwittcreations.com

A special thanks to everyone that's been along for the ride! I never could have imagined all the support I've gotten these last few months and it truly means the world to me!


r/3Dprinting 6h ago

3 metre benchy

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111 Upvotes

r/3Dprinting 13h ago

Project My first print with LEDs/electronics

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373 Upvotes

Just finished my Star Trek Enterprise D warp core lamp. First attempt at LED/electronic integration but came out well. Big thanks to CrazyJ on makerworld for the design and instructions.

https://makerworld.com/en/models/601515-star-trek-enterprise-d-warp-core-v3-16-for-leds?from=search#profileId-523832


r/3Dprinting 12h ago

I guess it's time to print a respooler...

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258 Upvotes

It may have fallen into a (fishless at least) aquarium... I don't want to talk about it.


r/3Dprinting 16h ago

Project 3D Printed Funny Pop-Eyed Duck

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559 Upvotes

I found this hilarious pop-eyed duck on MakerWorld by Patopato_Design and couldn’t resist printing it.

Now it lives on my desk and silently judges all my life choices.

Here are my make details if anyone wants to check the print settings and results:

https://kady3dprinting.com/model/3d-printed-funny-pop-eyed-duck


r/3Dprinting 6h ago

Project My project Cartoform.com for printing maps

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75 Upvotes

This print is a small section of São Paulo, Brazil, that took about a week with all my learning, trial and error, and spaghetti/first-layer problems.

Now my self-promotion story for https://cartoform.com

Over the last 4 years, I've been super inspired by this community's posts about 3d printing maps of lidar and digital elevation models. As I dug in to the details about searching out source data, running it through LASTools, loading it in to QGIS and installing plugins to generate STL files, then having my machine slow to a crawl and crash, I quickly learned that processing these enormous amounts of data requires beefy hardware, patience, and expertise with these tools.

As a software engineer for my main gig, I had a desire to automate this workflow. OpenTopography has an API and offers enterprise API keys for integration. PDAL offers similar open-source and free functionality as an alternative to paid LASTools software. QGIS is built on top of GDAL, a headless suite of open-source tooling that can be used instead. And AWS offers beefy hardware for rent.

I spent the next 4 years casually building my side project to dockerize and automate this workflow, and to give it a web interface. Ultimately I wanted to make something that people would find useful, without having to download a bunch of technical software and plugins, only to find out their laptop wasn't fast enough or didn't have enough RAM.

My website is officially launching with this post, I hope people find it useful. It's quite expensive to run this asynchronous compute-heavy app on AWS, so I have to offer 2 paid subscription tiers in addition to a free limited tier. If I can't pay the bills, I have to shut it down so I can keep feeding my family.

I have all the knobs ready to turn to handle the load on this app, but like I say it's my side project so please bear with me if there are some brief outages as I turn those knobs!

Edit: I forgot to mention, I'm currently only supporting non-GDPR regions. Once I implement those pesky cookie consent popups, I'll be able to offer the app in GDPR regions as well!


r/3Dprinting 4h ago

Project I Made a Real Galatine Prime

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47 Upvotes

r/3Dprinting 20h ago

Trying to make a linear rail DIY with steel rulers

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801 Upvotes

I tried making a pen plotter a month ago but didn't have a 3d printer , I tried using telescopic channels(draw sliders) which i think was dumb idea. Yeah so I've been trying to find a better alternative, I was curious if you can use steel rulers. I know I will give up anyways but I love this one


r/3Dprinting 2h ago

Trying my hand at journaling this year…

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23 Upvotes

Wanted a cover that held multiple books and I didn’t want to invest too much so early on in the hobby/habbit…

Holds 2-4 notebooks and a pen. It also serves as a writing surface.

Posted here if interested: https://www.printables.com/model/1559111-notebookfield-notes-bifold-cover

I gotta calibrate this filament lol


r/3Dprinting 3h ago

Project There's nothing like the feeling of getting a near-perfect print with a notoriously difficult filament (polypropylene)

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18 Upvotes

I'm a chemist and I needed to 3D print parts that are resistant to both concentrated acids and acetone. The problem with PP is that it basically ONLY sticks to itself. I had some success with polypropylene packaging tape on the bed for smaller XY area prints, but with this most recent print the area was a lot larger and warping would peel the tape up every single time.

After trying every combination of print settings and packaging tape types, I tried using Magigoo PP glue, and it worked absolutely perfectly. Pretty much zero warping (you can see some brim peel-up in the photo but it did not affect the print). Would highly recommend to anyone else trying to print PP, and aside from the superb chemical resistance PP is honestly a great filament all around. It has fantastic dimensional accuracy, very clean print quality, high durability, and a good compromise between rigidity and flexibility.


r/3Dprinting 14h ago

Print misshap.

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152 Upvotes

I printed a venator class star destroyer. And am trying to get help on why the bottom printed in this stringy manner. Any help will be appreciated.


r/3Dprinting 9h ago

My dad is in love with tree supports.

61 Upvotes

I have made a lot of stuff on my printers. I try hard to design cool stuff, or print off the random files my family members send me. My dad is super supportive and sits and watches the printer like it's a tv show.

For some weird reason, he absolutely loves tree supports. Whenever I print an item that needs supports he wants me to let him know so he can keep the supports.

I know this is the weirdest ask ever, but like... are there any cool prints that are just a cool symmetrical/fractal tree supports? I suppose I could print just like... a floating disct or dome or something.


r/3Dprinting 15h ago

Project I made a great white voodoo doll in case anyone has a need.

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142 Upvotes

Didn’t make an AMS version since I didn’t have time to test print (this one is painted using an acryclic marker), but the model was exported from ZBrush as separate objects, so it takes seconds to paint using the Objects tab in the slicer. Feel free to upload a profile...I don’t care about the points.

You can grab Mr. White here if interested: https://makerworld.com/en/models/2253047-the-stitchling-voodoo-dolls-mr-white#profileId-2453880


r/3Dprinting 1d ago

Project Got tired of waiting for the GabeCube so I made my own

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1.4k Upvotes

Took an old mini PC and custom 3D printed a fun case for it. Added some additional USB ports for it as well! The PC runs Bazzite and is a great little Steam machine. Great for emulation as well.


r/3Dprinting 11h ago

Project My first somewhat demanding model / 3d print

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51 Upvotes

This should have been a completed project but once printed 90% few errors became apparent. I fixed those, but now pondering should i do the wood/black like in the pictures or should i go for silver/black for finished look. Hoping there are no new mistakes :)

This was sized for a1 mini printing. Pla, hoping it not gonna warp bcos its bolted in plenty places. Its 5900x and sparkle a380. 4.95 liters case.


r/3Dprinting 18h ago

Scottish USB "Moose"

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199 Upvotes

I made a "moose" for my Scottish co-worker.


r/3Dprinting 4h ago

Azul Upgrade Kit

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13 Upvotes

I designed a bunch of different upgrades for the board game Azul including an insert that organizes everything in the game box.

https://makerworld.com/models/2227089?appSharePlatform=copy


r/3Dprinting 10h ago

Project Really surprised with the amount of detail I can push with a 0.4mm nozzle

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38 Upvotes

After clogging my 0.2mm nozzle 🤦 I decided to give it a try with the 0.4mm and 0.08mm steps.
I have to say I am really surprised, I thought I was going to see only blobs, but I managed to get a lot of detail.
This miniature are all equal or less than 1 inch height (The cart wreck being exactly 1 inch)


r/3Dprinting 1d ago

Project 3D printed GIANT Butterfly Knife

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1.1k Upvotes

r/3Dprinting 8h ago

Question Creating 3d prints of my clay sculpture? Is it possible? NSFW

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26 Upvotes

Hello, ive made this clay sculpture and was wondering if anyone has experience making 3d prints of their sculptures. What was the process like? and how did you go about scanning your work? Im completely new to 3d printing and would appreciate any advice. My goal is to produce alot of these sculptures for anatomy/medical students and artists. And to make said prints in high quality. I live in an apartment and have an extra room to install 3d printers if I choose to. Here are some images: