any3Dprint crew
Notes from the people who run the printers — what we see in customer files, what we reprint most often, and what we would have done differently.
TechnologyWhich way up: why a print breaks between its layers
A printed part is not equally strong in every direction. Across its layers it holds roughly half of what it holds along them — so which way up it is printed can matter more than the plastic it is printed in.
PricingNot the plastic: what actually makes a print expensive
The plastic is the part of the price everyone thinks about, and nowhere near the biggest. Almost all of what you pay is time — only a little of it the printer’s. Where the money in a quote actually goes, on published prices rather than ours.
TechnologyTwo colours, one nozzle: what an AMS throws away
A second colour does not cost a second spool — it costs everything the nozzle has to push out to stop being the first one. How much that is depends on the height of your part, not its size.
MaterialsABS or ASA: the same part, one of them fades
They print the same, they feel the same, and the quote differs by about a tenth. The difference only shows up after a season outside — and then it shows up completely.
MaterialsASA: the plastic that lives outside
ASA is ABS that has made its peace with the sun: same toughness, same heat, one letter of chemistry different — and that letter is the whole reason to pay for it.
File prepUpload to price: what we measure in your file
A price comes back a few seconds after you upload. Here is what gets measured in between — and the two things in a mesh that turn that number from a measurement into an estimate.
MaterialsABS: tough, but keep it indoors
ABS is what you pick when a part gets dropped, screwed into or left somewhere warm — and, of the tough plastics on our shelf, the one that quietly dies in a window.