I Automated Pressure Advance Using a Bed-Leveling Sensor
Automatic Pressure Advance calibration with a Prusa nozzle load cell: how a bed-leveling sensor can tune K values, find max flow, and monitor prints.
CNC Kitchen
3D printing experiments, material tests, hardware reviews and maker projects by Stefan Hermann.
Latest posts
Half a Million Views Later… BumpMesh Is Way Better
BumpMesh update: mesh checks, remeshing, undo, project saving, 3MF export and a five times faster exporter — three months of community-driven changes.
Is This Laser the 3D Printing Solution We Needed?
Can a laser cleanly mark 3D printed parts? I tested UV, MOPA fiber and blue diode lasers on PLA, PETG, ASA, TPU and PC — pigments matter more than the polymer.
Bambu A2L: My Honest Review After 400 Hours
Bambu Lab A2L review after almost 400 hours: build volume, print quality, the cutting module, and whether it really earned the 2 in its name.
Bambu Lab X2D Review: Affordable Dual-Nozzle Printing, with a Catch
Bambu Lab X2D review after 250 hours: dual nozzles from $649, a heated chamber, and why the bowden-fed auxiliary hotend is the real compromise.
Stop Using Fuzzy Skin - I made something better!
BumpMesh is my free, browser-based tool for real displacement textures on STL, OBJ and 3MF files — hide Z-seams, add grip and stiffen vase mode prints.
Are Our Heat-Set Insert Datasheets Wrong?
Our own datasheets recommended hole sizes that make inserts hard to fit. Size the hole so the insert just pre-seats: that's easy installation and full strength.
Anti-Aliasing for FDM 3D Printing Is Finally Here (Micro-Non-Planar Printing)
Z Anti-Aliasing smooths FDM stair-stepping by varying layer height inside a layer. Ra drops from 80 to 25 µm on shallow slopes — measured, plus the limits.
The Beginner 3D Printing Guide I Wish I Had
A 3D printing beginner's guide from 10 years of experience: printer setup, filament types, slicing basics, your first print and fixing common problems.
The H2C Review: Better Than a Toolchanger?
Bambu Lab's H2C swaps six induction-heated nozzles instead of flushing filament. Teardown, print times and waste compared to the Prusa XL and Snapmaker U1.
What Prusa Got Right (and Wrong) with the New CORE One L
The Prusa CORE One L doubles the build volume to 300x300x330 mm for €1,699. Print quality, VFAs, noise, chamber heating — and the annoyances they fixed.
Stop Printing Flat: The 45° Secret for Stronger Parts
Print orientation decides how strong a part is. Tensile tests at 0°, 30°, 45°, 60° and 90° show what angling really buys you — and where it backfires.
The P2S Is the Upgrade No One Expected – But Everyone Wanted!
Bambu Lab P2S review: quick-swap nozzles, a clever new cooling system, HD camera and touchscreen — and why it makes the X1 Carbon completely obsolete.
This FREE AI Tool Auto-Generates Gridfinity Bins!
TooltraceAI turns a photo of your tools into custom Gridfinity bins for free — no CAD needed. How it works, my settings, and printing them in two colors.
Bambu Lab H2S – The XL Printer Everyone Asked For
Bambu Lab H2S review: the H2D's big build volume without the dual nozzle, $800 cheaper, 340 x 320 x 340 mm — and what the single-nozzle head costs you.
Carbon Fiber Nylon in 3D Printing: PA6 vs PA12 Tested
Carbon fiber PA6 vs PA12 tested: stiffness, strength, impact, creep and heat resistance, and how much moisture and annealing change the results.
High-Temperature Resin Curing for More Strength
I honestly don’t print a ton with resin, yet when I do I’m always impressed with the amount of details this process can achieve.
I Tested the Bambu Lab H2D – And It’s More Than I Expected…
The Bambu Lab H2D reviewed: dual-nozzle printing, a heated chamber, the new AMS 2 Pro and AMS HT, plus a 10W laser and drag knife in one machine.
How to use our Threaded-Insert Removal Tool
Our Insert Extractor pulls heat-set inserts back out. Set the iron about 20 °C above printing temperature, and don't reuse a PLA insert in a PETG part.
Brick Layers - Make 3D prints stronger!
Slicers stack flat layers, so parts split along them. I re-ordered the print moves into an interlocking brick pattern: PLA got 14% stronger, PETG 10%.
Calibration Cubes are BAD! This is how you calibrate your 3D Printer
Tuning steps/mm with a calibration cube probably made your printer worse. They're too small to measure well and can't detect skew. Here's what I use instead.
Recycling Plastic Cutlery into 3D Printing Filament
I washed, shredded and extruded used plastic cutlery into filament. It works if you sort and clean properly, and virgin pellets keep it from going brittle.
Does a HEATED CHAMBER make your 3D prints STRONGER?
I tested ABS and PC Blend at different chamber temperatures. Every extra degree helped layer adhesion, and an enclosure alone already gets you most of the way.
10 AMAZING 3D Printing Projects: Rocky Mountain RepRap Festival 2023
Ten projects that stuck with me from the Rocky Mountain RepRap Festival: a chocolate printer, co-extruded carbon fiber filament and a rotary resin caster.
E3D Revo High Flow Review
Revo High Flow keeps up with Bondtech's CHT in my tests, and the numbers give a handy rule: budget about half a watt of heater power per mm³/s of flow.
Who would even buy a new Prusa MK4 in 2023?
Prusa's MK4 costs $1099 assembled. After 200 hours it's a better MK3 in every way, but slower than a Bambu Lab X1 and it launched without input shaping.
CHT High Flow nozzle for the BambuLab X1 & P1P
I fitted a CHT nozzle to my Bambu Lab X1 and P1P. With the stock hotend, layer strength peaked near 36 MPa at 12 mm³/s and then slid to 31 MPa as flow went up.
Which Glow in the Dark filament is the best?
Glow filament eats nozzles: one lost 0.18 mm of tip in a single test, another barely wore at all. Overture Green glowed best, colorFabb glowFill looked nicest.
Which is the strongest 3D printing Extruder?
I measured the pushing force of a dozen extruders, from the basic Ender feeder to the belt-driven ProperExtruder, to see which one grips filament hardest.
Arc Overhangs in PrusaSlicer*
3D printing is often called a disruptive technology where anything is possible and engineers have total design freedom. Complexity is free.
How the color of PLA filament influences 3D printed part strength
Color does change PLA strength, though not by much. The bigger surprise was annealing: silver and white warped 4 to 7%, while natural distorted by 19%.
Impressive 3D Printing Technology at FORMNEXT 2022
What stood out at FORMNEXT 2022: a company that recycles your printing waste into filament, a variable-diameter nozzle, and an induction-heated hotend.
Testing a $2 High-Flow nozzle from Aliexpress
A $2 high-flow nozzle from Aliexpress with a copper insert you can easily fit backwards. Assembled right, it kept up with far pricier nozzles in my tests.
Arc Overhangs - A new way of printing without Supports
Steven's ArcOverhang script prints overhangs as concentric arcs instead of straight lines, so they hold in mid-air. Still a proof of concept, but it really works.
Conical Slicing: A different angle of 3D printing
Conical slicing tilts the layers into cones instead of stacking flat planes, which lets you print steep overhangs without support. The catch is your printhead.
A Guide on how to use Conical Slicing
A step-by-step run-through of the ZHAW transformation scripts for conical slicing, including the slow speeds you need: 15 mm/s on perimeters, 25 on infill.
How To use Threaded Inserts in Resin 3D Prints
Heat-set inserts work in resin prints too, if you glue them instead of melting them in. Superglued inserts held 52 kg, close to screwing straight into the resin.
The RotBot: 4-Axis Non-Planar 3D Printing
“Complexity is free” is a sentence that’s often used for marketing 3D printers and 3D printing technologies.
Building a VORON 2.4 R2 in 2022 (LDO Kit)
I built a VORON 2.4 R2 from the LDO kit. Assembly, Klipper setup, and what I'd criticize after living with it: great prints, but a few rough edges in the kit.
Transparent FDM 3D Prints are Clearly Stronger!
Printing PETG with parameters tuned for transparency gets you almost perfect layer adhesion. The parts look great and they're significantly stronger and tougher.
Can Acetone Glue Layers of 3D Prints together?
Filament based-3D printing is a great technology - not only for prototypes but also for real functional parts.
Volcano Hotends are Obsolete: Just use Nuts!
Stacking nuts on a nozzle gets you most of a Volcano. The V6 topped out at 14 mm³/s while both the real Volcano and my nut stack reached 20 mm³/s.
What's STRONGER - 3D Prints or Wood?!
I built my studio benches from wood, then wondered if I should have printed them. A PETG hook at 100% infill held 110 kg, and here's how that compares to timber.
How to set Extruder Tension?
Almost nobody sets extruder tension properly. If it isn't grinding, leave it alone: in 95% of cases the real problem sits after the extruder, not in the gears.
Tool SWAPPING with the WhamBam MUTANT V2 - Review
WhamBam's MUTANT lets you swap toolheads by hand. Print quality stayed flawless, but on my Ender-3 it cost about 30 mm of height and a chunk of the bed as well.
Extrusion System Benchmark Tool for fast Prints
Chasing a fast Ender-3 profile in PrusaSlicer, jerk turned out to matter more than acceleration. Going from 8 to 20 mm/s fixed the corners and cut 12 minutes.
E3D RapidChange REVO Review
Revo swaps nozzles by hand in seconds, and up to 15 mm³/s it matches a V6. But the part cooling fan pulls the temperature down hard, and one core failed on me.
MEKANIKA EVO CNC Router REVIEW
Mekanika's EVO is a belt-driven CNC router that handles wood and plastics well. The belts cost you a few tenths of a mm in accuracy, and z clearance is tight.
CNC Kitchen Volcano Adapter: Anleitung
So installierst und entfernst Du unseren Originalen Volcano Adapter, und warum Du ihn nie über 240 °C anziehen darfst: Das Messing verliert an Festigkeit.
CNC Kitchen Volcano Adapter: Manual
How to install and remove our Original Volcano Adapter, and why you must never tighten it above 240 °C: the brass loses strength and the adapter can break.