Learn 3D printing
3D printing academy
Interactive lessons on printers, filaments, slicers and design, from your first print to advanced FDM. Follow the roadmap or jump into any live lesson.
Start here: interactive lessons
Printer types, side by side
See how bed-slinger, CoreXY and delta printers move, compare direct drive with Bowden, and find the printer that fits you.
Choosing the right filament
Weigh strength, heat, flexibility and ease for PLA, PETG, ABS, ASA, TPU and nylon-carbon, then test yourself on real scenarios.
Slicers, Orca and Bambu Studio
Understand what a slicer does, compare the popular ones, and play with a mock slicer to see how settings change time, material and strength.
Find your way around CAD
Orbit, pan and zoom; select faces, edges and vertices; understand solids, meshes and editable models.
From a sketch to a solid
Constrain a sketch, change its dimensions, then extrude or revolve it. Build a small plate to a brief.
Combine, cut and soften edges
Experiment with union, difference and intersection, then compare a fillet with a chamfer in 3D.
Design parts that print and fit
Test pin-and-hole clearance, explore overhangs and orientation, and choose joints for an assembly.
Bed levelling and the first layer
See what the nozzle gap does to every line, why a warped bed ruins the first layer and how a bed mesh fixes it, then diagnose real first-layer problems.
Dial in your filament: temperature, flow, retraction, pressure advance
Run the calibration tests in the right order and understand each one: a temperature tower with stringing, flow on a top surface, and pressure advance on a corner.
Speed, acceleration and input shaping
Find the melt-rate ceiling, see why short moves never reach top speed, then watch ringing appear and disappear as you change acceleration and the input shaper.
How FDM works: filament to layer
Trace plastic through the hotend and build a layered part. Connect layer height, line width and flow.
Electronics and firmware
Follow commands and sensor feedback. Compare Marlin, Klipper and the Bambu workflow.
Reading G-code and previews
Step through a small toolpath, distinguish travel from extrusion and decode coordinates and feedrate.
Troubleshooting: symptom, cause, test
Diagnose strings, warping, layer shifts and missing material with controlled tests.
Multi-colour and multi-material
Compare colour swaps and separate tools, estimate purge waste and check material compatibility.
Post-processing without losing the fit
Plan sanding, primer and paint; measure how removal, coating and annealing change dimensions.
Printer maintenance and inspection
Inspect the motion and extrusion systems and build a model-specific maintenance routine.
Print farm and business basics
Balance machine capacity, failures, hands-on labour and margin before accepting a batch order.
The full roadmap
Six tracks from hardware to business. Live topics link to a lesson; the rest are coming soon.
- 1
Hardware: 3D printers
How FDM machines are built, and how to pick one.
- 2
Materials
What each filament is good at, and how to store it.
- 3
Basic design concepts
The modelling ideas every printable part relies on.
- 4
Software: slicers
From STL to G-code, and the slicers that get you there.
- 5
Print quality and tuning
Dial in a printer and fix what goes wrong.
- 6
Advanced FDM
Multi-colour, finishing, maintenance and selling prints.
Sources (4)
- VB6123 – Introduction to 3D-printing · NTNU
- Intro to 3D Printing · The Maker Station
- FDM 3D Printing (course outline) · Udemy
- OrcaSlicer calibration guide · OrcaSlicer wiki
Figures such as temperatures and drying times are typical ranges. Always check the label on your own spool and your printer manufacturer's guidance.