Filament Lineup
Made from renewable sugarcane or cornstarch, this beginner-friendly and most popular filament smells like sweet waffles when printing.
What is PLA (Polylactic Acid)?
The most affordable printers including all the ones in the classroom use this technology.
What is Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM)?
On a traditional bedslinger printer, the heated print bed actively slides back and forth along this axis.
What is the Y-axis?
This legacy 3D file format stores geometry as a polygon mesh but lacks unit definitions, color maps, and print settings.
What is an STL file?
The flat surface where melted plastic is deposited to build the model.
What is the print bed?
ABS (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene) is the exact durable material used to make these popular interlocking plastic toy building bricks.
What are LEGO bricks?
This extrusion-based process melts solid plastic filament and pushes it through a heated nozzle layer-by-layer.
What is Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM)?
On a CoreXY printer, the print bed only slowly drops downward along this axis as layers build.
What is the Z-axis?
This software program takes 3D CAD files and slices them horizontally into toolpath directions for the printer.
What is a Slicer (or Slicing Software)?
The motor and gear assembly that feeds solid plastic filament into the heater.
What is the extruder?
This rubber-like elastomer filament is ideal for phone cases, but hard to print because it bends like a wet noodle.
What is TPU (Thermoplastic Polyurethane)?
This type of 3D printing is the most expensive to set up and maintain and is mostly used in industrial manufacturing with total costs for a complete system being $100,000+.
What is Stereolithography (SLA) or resin?
If you print a tall, thin object on this type of printer, the rapid bed movement can shake the print loose from the build plate.
What is a bedslinger?
Generated by slicers, this plain-text script contains direct machine commands like "G1 X10 Y20 E0.5".
What is G-code?
The heated tip that melts the filament and deposits it in thin lines.
What is the Hotend & Nozzle?
This filament is a modified version of the exact plastic used in grocery store water bottles.
What is PETG (Polyethylene Terephthalate Glycol)?
Invented in 1984 by Chuck Hull, this technology uses a UV light source to cure liquid resin into solid plastic.
What is Stereolithography (SLA) or resin?
This type of printer is more reliable for high-temp plastics because all printing happens inside the printers outer frame or cube boundary.
What is Core XY?
Unlike mesh formats, this CAD file format stores geometry using exact mathematical equations to create smooth curves.
What is STEP?
High-precision motors that move precise distances to control position.
What are Stepper Motors?
Arguably the strongest filament we talked about it has unmatched chemical and wear resistance, but it will absorb humidity right out of the air and will not print correctly if not dried.
What is Nylon (Polyamide)?
This industrial technology uses a high-powered laser to fuse particles of plastic powder without needing support structures.
What is Selective Laser Sintering (SLS)?
This type of printer has one stepper motor for each axis (x, y, z) that is prints on.
What is a bedslinger?
This modern XML-based archive format bundles mesh data, materials, colors, and slicer print settings into a single file while preventing non-manifold errors.
What is 3MF?
In this type of printer, the printhead moves left/right on the x-axis and up/down on the z-axis.
What is a bedslinger?