Prusa HT Hotend: 400°C Turns the Core One Into a PPS-CF Printer
Prusa's $199 HT Hotend takes every Core One to 400°C for PPS, PPA, and carbon-fiber nylon. What it unlocks for 3D printing, what it can't, and who should buy.
Sunlu i10 Filament Dryer Review: $180, Ten Spools, and PETG That Actually Stops Stringing
The $180 Sunlu i10 dries ten spools at once. After months of PETG, PLA, TPU, and PA testing, PETG stringing dropped sharply. Is this filament dryer worth it?
Prusament PLA Lightweight Is 65% Lighter Than Regular PLA — By Foaming While It Prints
Prusament PLA-LW uses active foaming technology: heat activates additives that expand the extruded polymer, reducing part weight by up to 65% and making one kilogram print 2–3× as many models as standard PLA. Available in five colors at $56.99/kg. Print settings are specific: 0.45 extrusion multiplier, 230°C default, no retractions.
3devo's Filament Maker X10: Desktop Filament Production at 36 Kilos Per Day
The 3devo FMX10 brings precision filament extrusion to universities, research labs, and 3D printing farms — with ±30µm diameter tolerance and PEEK-level temperature range.
MeltCalc: A Polymer Chemist Built the Hot End + Material Database FDM Printers Always Needed
Robert Samples built MeltCalc to replace manufacturer flow rate claims with thermodynamic modeling. 64 hot ends, 36 polymers, open source. Here's why realistic specs change how you set up your printer.
Desktop Filament Market 2026 Part 4: Bambu Lab's Bet on Becoming the OS for Reality
The final installment of the 2026 desktop filament market series argues Bambu isn't building a printer company — it's building the operating system for physical manufacturing.
Desktop Filament Market 2026, Part 3: When 'Premium' Is Just the Old Normal
The third installment of the filament market series exposes the 'Special Hamburger Meat' problem — reformulated filaments sold at premium prices for hardware-induced compatibility issues that should never have existed.
Lyten's Graphene Filament Powers Modovolo's 3D Printing Platform
Lyten's PA1205 graphene filament claims 2x the tensile strength of standard carbon-fiber PA12 — now default on Modovolo's US-built aerospace 3D printer.
Polymaker HT-PLA Pro: A Heat-Resistant PLA That Skips the Enclosure
Polymaker's HT-PLA Pro doubles impact strength over standard HT-PLA and hits a 107.6°C HDT after annealing, without requiring an enclosure or hardened nozzle.
AI Research Missed the Biggest TPU Innovation in the Filament Market
3DPrint.com's filament report shows AI research tools confidently missing the market's actual leaders — a warning for anyone using AI for competitive research.
Prusament PA11: The Filament That Doesn't Care Which Way You Print It
Prusament's new PA11 Natural nylon posts the highest anisotropy resistance of any Prusa material — meaning gears and moving parts hold up no matter which axis they're printed on.
The Desktop Filament Market in 2026: Bambu's Data Strategy Changes Everything
With ~10 million desktop 3D printers potentially sold in 2026, the filament market is restructuring around data advantage rather than price or chemistry. Bambu Lab is the facehugging AI.
Hembased's Palm Leaf Filament Composts at Home — But Is It Truly Sustainable?
Hembased's new PHA filament made from palm leaf waste degrades in under a year at room temperature — unlike PLA's industrial-only composting. The sustainability math is more complicated than it looks.
Palm Leaves, Cold Compost: Hembased Brings Sustainable Filament to FDM
Hembased converts palm leaf waste into cold-compostable filament that degrades at 20–30°C within a year. Here's what the material actually delivers — and the context it's entering.
CheapSpool: The Filament Pricing Aggregator Tracking 90+ Brands Across Three Regions
CheapSpool.com aggregates filament prices from 90+ brands across the US, Canada, and UK — updated daily, covering manufacturer storefronts and Amazon, with full affiliate link disclosure. Here's what it does and when it's worth using.
What to Do With Opened Filament Rolls: A Practical Storage Guide for Bambu Printers
Moisture is the main enemy of filament shelf life. Here's how Bambu Lab users actually store partially used rolls to maintain print quality — from dry boxes to AMS integration strategies.
Bambu Smooth Build Plate vs. Textured PEI: Which One Actually Fits Your Prints
The Bambu community is split: switch to the smooth build plate and never look back, or stay with the textured PEI that works reliably for everything. Here's how to decide based on what you actually print.
Prusament PLA High Speed: Up to 40% Faster Print Times for Rapid Prototyping
Prusa's new PLA High Speed filament hits 28 mm³/s volumetric flow and a tensile anisotropy coefficient of 0.60 — making draft prints faster and stronger without sacrificing surface finish.
Bambu PLA Pure: 3D Printing Filament Built for Homes, Not Workshops
Bambu Lab's new PLA Pure prioritizes safety certifications and ingredient transparency over performance metrics — a deliberate shift as desktop 3D printers move from hobbyist workshops into family homes.
A Bike-Powered Shredder Turns 3D Printer Waste Into Feedstock — and Reveals Why Recycling Plastic Is Hard
Educator Brogan M Pratt built a stationary-bike-powered plastic shredder for his students in the Netherlands. The 15kg flywheel and gear reduction process 3D printing waste into shredded feedstock for filament re-extrusion or compression molding. The educational point lands harder than the hardware.
Bambu Handy's Latest Update Turns Your Phone Into a Filament Inventory System
Bambu Handy's next-gen UI update adds automatic AMS-enrolled filament tracking with RFID spool recognition, cloud-synced remaining weight, and foldable screen support—closing the gap between desktop and mobile print management.
Prusa ColorMix: How a CMYKW Halftone Model Unlocks Dozens of Colors From Four Filaments
Prusa ColorMix uses the Yule-Nielsen halftone equation to mix CMYKW filaments into ~40 color combinations — open source in PrusaSlicer 2.9.6 and EasyPrint.
FDM Printer Fumes: What the Science Actually Says About UFPs and VOCs
Even 'safe' PLA emits formaldehyde. ABS produces styrene. A Hackaday investigation rates FDM emissions by filament and identifies what mitigation works.
AtomForm Palette 300: 12 Dedicated Nozzles That Cut FDM Waste by 90%
AtomForm's 12-nozzle Palette 300 assigns one nozzle per filament path, cutting multi-color FDM waste by 90%. Here's what the OmniElement architecture changes.
HP IF 600HT: Open Materials Take On Stratasys in Industrial FDM
HP's IF 600HT debuts at AMUG 2026 — open 1.75mm filament, 500°C extruder, PEEK-class materials, priced directly against Stratasys F370/F450 with lower TCO.
Prusa MMU3 Firmware 3.0.4: 20% Faster Filament Changes, 9 Hours Back Per Print
A 9-second improvement per filament swap sounds small. On a 3,777-change multicolor print, Prusa's MMU3 firmware 3.0.4 returns nearly 9.5 hours — compounding at every layer with no new hardware.