Practical Tips for FDM-Model Designing

Hello, Maker Community!

Starting from the launch of the first batch of Mystery box models to promote the Maker’s Supply Creator Program, the Makerworld team has been dedicated to collaborating with our creators. Together, we have been refining and promoting the projects, as well as supporting the development of the community for over a year. During this period, we have established solid partnerships with hundreds of creators from around the globe, provided support for their projects, and accumulated a great deal of design experience in the process.

To better assist creators in perfecting their ideas, we are now summarizing these experiences, identifying some common issues, and offering applicable design suggestions. After the preliminary organization, we will release these contents on the forum for all creators to review and for us to listen to everyone’s opinions.

This will be a long - term process. We expect to release new chapters on the MakerWorld Forum and Community weekly (depending on the difficulty level) and gradually improve the already published chapters based on the feedback from the community. If you have questions about a certain issue, such as how to use a specific part, how to achieve a certain effect, or how to solve a printing defect, you are welcome to leave your question as a comment in this thread. If you have suggestions for the already released chapters, feel free to leave a comment under the corresponding thread. For example, if you find errors or have good solutions to share, you can express them in the comment. We look forward to accomplishing this endeavor together with our vibrant and creative community!

For the convenience of checking the released chapters, the written contents will be listed below with links for easy navigation. Next to each chapter is the update date, and the chapters marked with [NEW!] are the latest ones.

There is so much content that is worth sharing! In terms of the priority of the content, we will launch a poll in the Makerworld Community and listen to everyone’s suggestions to decide on our subsequent content. Are you particularly interested in a certain topic? Let us know by voting!

Disclaimer:

We highly value creators’ contributions and intellectual property. The content created by the creators that will be shared in this series of Practical Tips for FDM - Model Designing will duly obtain full authorization from the relevant creators. If you have any questions regarding the authorization, please contact creators@makerworld.com.

For content co-created by creators, the intellectual property rights of the contributed parts will be retained by the creators. Participation in co-creation will be considered as the creators’ authorization to MakerWorld to use the content in this series of practical tips sharing, Wikis, product introductions, and promotional activities.

Chapters:

  1. Using Magnets in 3D Printing 1: Applications & Choosing the Best Shape [2025.04.23] [NEW!]
  2. Using Magnets in 3D Printing 2: Issues with Mixing Up Poles
  3. Using Magnets in 3D Printing 3: Installation Issues & How to Avoid Them
  4. Using Magnets in 3D Printing 4: Ensuring Even Installation

Votes:

  1. Vote for the 2nd topic
3 Likes

I’d like to see a chapter that teaches how to get cleaner supported surfaces.

4 Likes

I would love to see some guidance about stability. We all know, that a layer is quite sturdy, but the area between two layers isn’t, especially not when using PLA. There are strategies to improve this, would love to see “official” insights about it.

I think it will be more about practical things but not about quality fixes or addressing known issues.
Have seen all this several times and so so far no company did this differently…

Thank you for your comment! In this series of practical tips sharing, we aim to focus on design issues and techniques in projects with fellow creators, as well as share some inspirational case studies. This won’t overlap with the Wiki’s content on troubleshooting printer issues and using printers.

1 Like

I am in the process of creating several iterations of a model because I am not satisfied with the overhangs being printed. Supports are needed where you really shouldn’t need them.

So general shapes, angles, fillets etc., tolerances for certain materials (snap fit printed with PLA works wonderfully, with PETG I can’t get the parts apart anymore, for example), …

I personally find such topics very exciting. How best to create models so that they are great for printing for most users (on bed slingers and coreXY machines).