The 3D Printing Toolkit
Four free tools built for SA's 3D print community. Enter your details once and unlock all of them, on any device.
- Print Cost Calculator
- Filament Selector
- Troubleshooting Cheat Sheet
- Beginner's Guide
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Print Cost Calculator
Filament, electricity, machine wear and labour in one place. Get your break-even and a suggested sell price in rand.
Filament Selector
See which of 16 materials your exact printer can run, then answer four questions to find the best filament for the job.
Troubleshooting Cheat Sheet
27 common FDM print problems: what they look like, what causes them, and the exact fix. Searchable.
Beginner's Guide
From unboxing to your first successful 3D Benchy, with no prior experience needed. Tick off steps as you go.
We'll build a slicer profile tuned to your exact printer and our filament, with temps, retraction and cooling already sorted. Pricing depends on your printer and filament combo, so message us for a quote.
PRINT COST CALCULATOR
Never price below this.
FILAMENT SELECTOR
Anything with High ventilation needs a fan or filter, enclosed or not. Educational reference: verify against your specific filament's TDS before a production run. Settings are starting points, not guarantees.
Myths this tool deliberately doesn't repeat
- PETG needs a hardened nozzle. It doesn't. Plain PETG isn't abrasive; only PETG-CF/GF is.
- PLA prints better enclosed. It's the opposite. A sealed hot chamber causes heat creep and jams; PLA wants cool, open air.
- PC's heat resistance is ~150°C. That figure is for neat, unfilled polycarbonate. Printing-optimised PC blends (Prusament, Polymaker) measure HDT ~106°C.
- "Consumer printers can't do nylon/PC." Outdated. Enclosed all-metal machines (Bambu X1C, Creality K1C, Qidi Plus4-class) handle both routinely.
How the compatibility logic works
- Each material is checked against your printer's max hotend temperature, enclosure, all-metal hotend and hardened nozzle, plus max bed temperature and extruder drive type for TPU.
- Not compatible = at least one hard gate fails (e.g. no enclosure for a material that requires one). Caution = a soft gate fails (e.g. enclosure recommended but not required). Compatible = every gate clears.
- Upgraded your printer (enclosure, hardened nozzle, all-metal hotend)? Choose Custom as the make and enter your actual setup.
How the Use-Case Finder scores materials
- Four questions (function, environment, heat, load) become requirements: a minimum heat-deflection temperature, a minimum strength tier, a flexibility preference, and whether UV/outdoor stability and cosmetic finish matter.
- Every material is scored against those requirements and your printer's compatibility. A printer mismatch is weighted so heavily that an incompatible material can never outrank a compatible one.
- Heat-deflection and strength figures are simplified single numbers for relative ranking, not lab specs. For a part where heat or load failure is costly, verify the exact grade's TDS.
- Temperatures are starting ranges, not fixed constants. Tune per spool with a temperature tower. CF/GF and nylon properties are strongly moisture- and orientation-dependent; wet parts are meaningfully weaker.
Sources cross-checked
- Bambu Lab official material compatibility table (open-frame vs enclosed, hardened-nozzle and AMS notes per material).
- Prusa Knowledge Base per-material print guides and the Prusa advanced filament comparison table.
- Simplify3D Ultimate Materials Guide, for mechanical property comparisons (its hardware advice predates modern all-metal consumer hotends).
- Manufacturer technical data sheets: Polymaker, Prusament, eSUN, Overture, for nozzle/bed ranges, HDT, tensile and drying specs.
- MatterHackers and All3DP material guides, plus community consensus from Bambu/Prusa/Reddit forums.
- Fume-safety notes from published VOC-emission studies (Nayak et al. 2022; Gu et al. 2019; Azimi et al. 2016). Emission rates vary a lot between brands, so ventilation advice is kept conservative.
- Printer hardware specs are typical stock values from OrcaSlicer's bundled profiles and manufacturer specs. Confirm against your printer's own manual.
TROUBLESHOOTING CHEAT SHEET
Try a simpler word like layer, nozzle or cooling, or clear the filters.
Tried these fixes and it's still fighting you? Ask us about a custom-tuned slicer profile for your exact printer and filament.
BEGINNER'S GUIDE
We'll build a slicer profile tuned to your exact printer and our filament, with temps, retraction and cooling already sorted, plus set you up with our print-cost calculator so every quote you give a customer is accurate from day one. Pricing depends on your printer and filament combo, so message us for a quote.