How does a self-watering pot work?

The pot sits by its rim in a reservoir of water, and a wick through its floor draws water up into the soil as it dries.

What wick should I use?

A cotton cord works well. Thread it through the hole in the floor so it hangs down into the water.

Is a 3D-printed pot watertight?

Printed in PETG with 3 to 4 walls it holds water well. For a reservoir that must never seep, print a little slower or seal the inside.

Can a self-watering pot also hang, or have cut-outs?

No. A self-watering pot keeps a plain flat rim and a solid wall, so hanging holes, cut-out walls, a double wall, a wavy rim and splitting into pieces are left out. For those, use the other presets in the pot & planter maker .

Self-Watering Pot STL — Design & 3D Print Your Own Planter

Filament	PETG Handles water and sunlight better than PLA.
Walls	3 to 4 More walls keep water in.
Speed	A little slower for water-tight walls Or seal the inside of the reservoir.
Wick	Cotton cord It must reach the bottom of the reservoir.

Version 3

11 Sep 2026 Latest

Tools that remember how your own printer and filament actually print, and use it.

This is version 3. A new mark in the top-left corner of every page — and underneath it, tools that learn how your own printer and filament print.
New: Printer fingerprint. Find it in the menu under Tools → Calibration & test prints → Printer fingerprint. Print the calibration tests once for a printer and a roll of filament, type in what you read off them — best temperature, steepest overhang, longest bridge, thinnest wall, clearances and more — and they are kept, one set per printer and filament. Fill it in a test at a time: an empty box just means not measured yet. Start one.
The Print Doctor checks against your own printer. With a fingerprint in use, its wall and overhang limits come from your test prints instead of a rule of thumb, and it tells you in those terms: “0.9 mm is the thinnest wall your printer printed solid in this filament.” Pick a different fingerprint, or none, in step 2 of the Print Doctor.
Every calibration print shows your result. Under each test on Tools → Calibration & test prints → Calibration prints, you can see what your fingerprint has recorded for it, with a link straight to the box to fill in or update.
New: Print cost & quote. Find it in the menu under Tools → Sell your prints → Print cost & quote. Put in the grams and print time from your slicer — or drop in an STL for an estimate — and it adds up the filament, electricity, machine wear, your time, an allowance for failed prints and the packaging, puts your markup on top and gives you a price. Add the lines to a quote with your name, the customer and how long it is valid, then print it or save it as a PDF. Set your rates once and they are kept. Work out a price.
New: Fault finder. Find it in the menu under Tools → Calibration & test prints → Fault finder. Search for what you can see — stringing, corners lifting, lines up the side, a clicking extruder — and each entry tells you what to check, in the order worth checking it, and what to change, with a link to the test print that settles it. Supporters can also describe the problem in their own words and get an answer back from the AI, using one of their daily AI uses. Find a fault.
Downloads can come as a ZIP. On the Downloads page in the main menu, a model can now come as a single STL, a ZIP with several parts in it — the card lists what is inside — a link to where it is hosted, or all three. STLs still open in the 3D preview. Downloading needs a free account. See the downloads.
Downloads are not only models any more. Under Explore → Downloads, an item can now also be a program to install, a PDF guide or a picture — with or without an STL beside it. The button says what you are getting and how big it is. Like everything there, it needs a free account. See the downloads.
The free downloads are CC BY 4.0. Every model on the Downloads page in the main menu is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0: print it, share it, change it, even sell what you make, as long as you credit 3D-Lithophane.com. The licence is linked in the footer of every page and on each download.
The Print Doctor plans your supports. Find it under Tools → Change an STL you have → Print doctor, step 4. After the checks it works out how much support the model needs, how much of it would stand on the part and mark it, and whether tree, normal or painted-on supports suit it best — with the settings to use, taken from your printer fingerprint when you have one, and the way up that needs less. A Supports view shows where every column would stand.
Your account page, in tabs. The gear icon at the top right, once you are signed in, now opens your account in tabs — Account, Post to the gallery, My 3D models and Change password — with the site's own menu along the top. Open your account.
New: Photo to 3D, with Supporter Plus. Find it in the menu under Tools → Designers & generators → Photo to 3D, or on the front page. Turn a photo — or up to four views of something — into a printable 3D model, make a relief from a picture, or split a model into parts to print, and see the result in 3D beside your photo. Anyone can look round and see what a model would take; making them is part of Supporter Plus, which includes everything in Supporter and a monthly allowance of credits, counted from the day you pay; if you run out, a top-up pack adds more, and they do not expire. What you make is kept under My 3D models in your account.
New: Cut-out lithophane, with Supporter Plus. Find it in the menu under Lithophane → Cut-out, or Tools → Designers & generators → Cut-out lithophane. A flat lithophane whose edge follows your picture: whatever is transparent in it — or a colour you pick, like a plain white background — becomes a hole, so only the subject glows when it is lit. Loose bits are left out, and a solid strip along the bottom lets it stand. Anyone can try it and see the preview; making the STL is part of Supporter Plus. Make a cut-out lithophane.
New: Double lithophane, with Supporter Plus. Find it in the menu under Lithophane → Double, or Tools → Designers & generators → Double lithophane. Two lithophanes back to back with a hollow between them: a different photo on each side (or the same one twice), the light inside, closed over the top and open at the bottom so it drops over a lamp or a turntable. The border can sit flush or stand proud as a raised frame, and the whole job saves as a project, photos and all. It prints standing up with no supports. Anyone can try it and see the previews; making the STL is part of Supporter Plus. Make a double lithophane.
New: Lithophane Collage, with Supporter Plus. Find it in the menu under Lithophane → Collage, or Tools → Work on a photo → Lithophane Collage. Pick what it is for — a flat panel, a curved panel, a cylinder lamp or a lantern — and the collage is exactly that shape, so nothing is stretched. Add up to ten photos, start from a grid or a scattered look, then move, resize, turn and zoom each one, double-click a photo to choose which part of it shows, add names or a date with Add text, and see it lit. On a lamp the photos carry on round the join, and a lantern shows where each side folds. Right-click a photo to bring it to the front or send it back. One click opens it in the right generator with the size already filled in. Make a collage.
New: Split into tiles, with Supporter Plus. Find it in the menu under Lithophane → Split into tiles, or Tools → Change an STL you have → Split into tiles, or press Split into tiles on the Flat page. A lithophane bigger than your printer is cut into tiles that fit your bed, with puzzle joints that lock them together (or straight edges to glue). Make it A4, A3, A2 or A1 first if you like. Pick your printer and it works out how many; you get a ZIP with every tile and a map of where each one goes. Split a lithophane.
New: Puzzle lithophane, with Supporter Plus. Find it in the menu under Lithophane → Puzzle, or Tools → Change an STL you have → Puzzle lithophane, or press Make a puzzle on the Flat page. Your lithophane becomes a jigsaw: choose about how many pieces and a size up to A1, and every edge gets its own knob. The pieces print all together with a gap round each one, so they come off the bed separate — and the finished puzzle lights up. A puzzle bigger than your printer goes on more than one plate. Make a puzzle.
New: Product mockups, with Supporter Plus. Find them in the menu under Tools → Sell your prints → Product mockups, or press Make mockups on the Flat or Curved page. Photos of your lithophane for a shop listing: in a frame, on a light-up stand, or as a lamp, in a light or dark studio, a night-light room or on an evening shelf — lights on, lights off, or both side by side. Add your shop name or logo and a caption, and download at Etsy, Instagram or Facebook sizes, or as a set of four. Make mockups.
Saving designs on a free account. A free account can now keep two designs a day in the 3D Designer, and the top bar shows how many are left. Saving the same design again on the same day costs nothing, so you can work on one model all day. File → Save to file still keeps as many copies as you like on your own computer, and Supporters save as many designs as they want.
New in the 3D Designer: every tool in one place. The 3D Designer has a tool rail down the left: click a group — Shapes, Create, Draw, Place, Arrange, Combine, Modify, Text, Measure or Print — and all its tools open beside it, with their keyboard shortcuts. The top bar keeps File, Export and View; a dot on a group shows a tool of it is running, Search (press /) still finds any tool by name, and the designer now fits the window exactly, with no scrolling.
New in the 3D Designer: Move with snapping, copies and arrays. In the 3D Designer, open Place → Move with snapping on the tool rail down the left (or press Shift+M). Grab a part by a corner, an edge or a face and drop it exactly onto a corner, edge or face of another part — or onto a guide. The arrow keys lock the direction (right = X, left = Y, up = Z), holding Shift keeps it on the line it is on, and typing a distance makes it exact. Press Ctrl for a copy; straight after, type 5x for five copies at that spacing, or /5 for five spread evenly over it, and Enter.
New in the 3D Designer: draw on a face, and more room to work. In the 3D Designer, open Draw → Draw on a face on the tool rail down the left (or press Shift+R) and draw a rectangle, circle, polygon or lines straight onto any flat face — snapped to its corners and edges, with exact sizes if you type them (40,20 for a rectangle, a radius for a circle). Then Push/Pull it: push a circle in for a hole, pull a rectangle out for a boss. A shape drawn inside another one pushes and pulls on its own. The designer now fills the whole window: the site menu is gone from that page, with Home and Logout on the designer’s own bar.
New in the 3D Designer: Offset, Follow Me and a tape measure. Three more SketchUp-style tools in the 3D Designer, on the tool rail down the left. Offset (Draw → Offset a face, or Shift+O): click a flat face and move — a new outline follows the mouse, inside the face or outside it — then Push/Pull the new face to make a tray, a frame, a recess or a lip. Follow Me (Draw → Follow Me, or Shift+F): run a profile all round a face, or along one edge — round over, chamfer or groove it, or add a lip, a bead, a ledge or a cove moulding. Tape measure (Measure → Tape measure & guides, or Shift+T): click two points to measure, or start on an edge to place a guide line at an exact distance. Guides are saved with your design, and Push/Pull lines up with them.
New in the 3D Designer: Push/Pull. In the 3D Designer, open Draw → Push/Pull a face on the tool rail down the left (or press Shift+P). Point at any flat face and drag it — or click, move and click again, just like SketchUp. Pull out to add material, push in to cut a pocket, or push right through for a hole. Type a distance for an exact size, it lines up with the height of other parts as you go, and a double-click repeats the last push or pull on another face. Cutting and joining shapes in the designer is also much faster now on detailed models.
New in the 3D Designer: pack onto plates and check the build plate. In the 3D Designer under Print → Pack onto plates on the tool rail down the left, every part is packed onto as few beds as it takes — turning parts to fit more, keeping a corner free for the wipe tower, and keeping colours together if you like — and each plate downloads as its own 3MF. Print → Check the build plate shows each part’s first layer on the bed and warns about parts that float, barely touch the bed, are tall for their footprint, hang over the edge or are too big, with a button to fix it where it can.
New in the 3D Designer: exploded view, pictures and turntables, and parameters. View → Exploded view spreads a multi-part design apart to show how it goes together. View → Save picture / turntable video saves a PNG (square, wide or tall, even with a see-through background) or a spinning video or GIF for your shop and social media. And the new Parameters panel on the right lets you name measurements like wall = 2.4 and type formulas such as width - 2*wall into any size or position box — change one number and the design follows.
AI generate is rebuilt, with Supporter. In the 3D Designer under Create → AI generate on the tool rail down the left. Describe what you want and the AI now designs the real shape — curves, hollows, handles, lettering, screw holes and slots — instead of stacking simple blocks, and it lands on the bed as an editable model. A progress bar shows what the AI is doing while it works, and if the model does not come out right first time it is fixed automatically.
New in the 3D Designer: twist, loft, patterns, joints and rounded edges. In the 3D Designer, under Modify and Combine on the tool rail down the left: Twist, taper & bend reshapes a part along its height with a live preview; Pattern on a face cuts round, honeycomb, square, diamond, slot or Voronoi holes into a flat face for vents and grilles; Joint two parts adds a dovetail, a snap-fit clip or pins between two parts that touch, with the matching slot cut in the other part; and Round or chamfer an edge rounds just the edge you click. And Create → Loft blends one shape into another — a square base into a round top, solid or as a hollow adapter or funnel.
New in the 3D Designer: screw holes, fits, section view and exact measuring. In the 3D Designer: Combine → Screw hole on the tool rail down the left puts an M2–M8 clearance, countersunk, counterbore, heat-set insert, pilot or nut-trap hole on any face you click. Combine → Fit two parts sizes a peg, lid or insert for a press, snug, sliding or loose fit. View → Section view slices the view so you can see walls and holes inside. The ruler (M) now measures angles and diameters too. And while you drag the move, turn or size arrows, type a number for an exact value.
New in the 3D Designer: Scrap Pad, Model Preview and File → New. Open the 3D Designer and find Scrap Pad and Model Preview on the top bar, beside Search. The Scrap Pad is a small notepad for measurements while you design; Model Preview holds a photo or drawing of the model you are making. Both are small windows you can drag anywhere and resize from the corner, and closing them keeps your notes and image for next time. File → New starts a fresh model, and asks whether to save the current one first or clear it.
New: Paint your STL, with Supporter Plus. Find it in the menu under Tools → Change an STL you have → Paint your STL. Load any STL and paint it in your filament colours: a brush, a fill that stops at sharp edges, and height bands for layered signs and text, with undo. Download a 3MF for Bambu Studio, OrcaSlicer, Creality Print or PrusaSlicer with the colours already on your filament slots, ready for an AMS or multi-colour printer — and for a one-nozzle printer, it tells you the heights to change filament at. Paint a model.
New: the Pot & Planter Maker. Find it in the menu under Tools → Designers & generators → Pot & planter maker. Pots with working parts: a hanging planter with cord holes, a self-watering pot that sits in its own water reservoir, a jar with a lid, a jug with handles, cut-out walls (windows, bricks, slots, diamonds, round holes), a double wall with a decorative shell round the pot, a foot, a saucer, and tall pots that print in pieces and slot together. And the Vase & Pot Maker now has low-poly facets and patterns — diamonds, waves, knurl, basket weave and bubbles. Make a pot.
New: the Vase & Pot Maker. Find it in the menu under Tools → Designers & generators → Vase & pot maker. Start from a shape — classic vase, planter, bowl, bottle, tulip, star and more — set the height and widths, make it round, square, star or flower shaped, then twist it, bend it, add ribs, rings or a wavy rim. Hollow with a drainage hole and a saucer for plants, or solid for your slicer’s vase mode. It shows how much it holds and how much filament it takes. Download the STL like the other tools. Make a vase.
New: the 3D Design Service. Find it in the menu under Explore → 3D Design Service, or at the bottom of every page. Need a part or a model you cannot find? Describe it, add a photo if you have one, and we design it for you: three decades of 3D design experience, from $5 depending on the design, with a price before any work starts. Every design is test-printed, and you get a photo of the print and the files in STL, 3MF, OBJ, GLB and FBX (the print itself is not posted). No account needed: a private page follows its progress. Below the form, turn round the designs we have already made in 3D. Ask for a design.
A tidier menu bar. Downloads, Accessories, Gallery, Blog, Videos and the 3D Design Service are together under Explore at the top of every page.
New: Print-ready 3MF, with Supporter Plus. Find it in the menu under Tools → Change an STL you have → Print-ready 3MF, or press Print-ready 3MF on any lithophane maker. Your lithophane becomes a 3MF for Bambu Studio, OrcaSlicer, Creality Print or PrusaSlicer: on the bed and the right way up (a flat one stands on its edge, with a brim), with 100% infill, thin layers, slow outer walls and no supports already set on it — your own printer and filament profile stay as they are. Pick your printer, or use your printer fingerprint. Make a print-ready 3MF.
The guide, rewritten for calibration — and as a PDF. Open Help & Guide in the top menu: the new Calibrate & check chapter explains exactly how the calibration prints, the printer fingerprint, the Print Doctor and filament calibration work together, reading by reading, with a routine for a new printer and a new roll. The Download this guide as a PDF button at the top gives you the whole guide to keep or print.
See it in 3D before you download, and save more. The Cookie cutter and QR tag (in Tools), the filament strip (Tools → Calibration & test prints → Filament calibration), Split into tiles and the Puzzle now show the model in 3D, exactly as it downloads. Cut-out, Split into tiles and Puzzle (in the Lithophane menu) can now be saved as projects — the cut-out with its picture, the tiles and the puzzle with their STL.
A 3D preview that looks like the STL. Press 3D Preview on any lithophane maker in the Lithophane menu. It is now smooth and in white PLA, lit from where you are looking, like a slicer shows it. Before, the model was faceted and lit from fixed sides, so as a lamp turned, some photos looked thick where they print thin.
New: Tutorial videos. Find them in the top menu under Videos. Short how-tos on making a lithophane, getting the print right and using the tools here. Click one and it plays in a pop-up; you can download the file to keep, and give it a like. Free for everyone, with no account needed. Watch the videos.
New: the Newsletter. Find it in the top menu under Explore → Newsletter. Printing tips, project and gift ideas, and what is new on the site, an issue at a time — free to read, no account needed, and every issue has its own link to share with a friend. With an account you can get it by email too: switch it on or off under Newsletter emails on your account page (the gear icon at the top right), or with the link at the bottom of any newsletter email. Read the newsletter.
New: the 3D Designer for Windows. Download it free from the Supporter page in the top menu, under 3D Designer for Windows. It is the 3D Designer you know, as an app in its own window with your whole screen to work in. Sign in with your account: your saved designs and shapes are the same in the app and on the website, and a free account gets the same daily saves and exports as here. Get the app.

Show what you have printed

11 Sep 2026

A gallery of what members have made, and an account page that shows where you stand at a glance.

New: the Gallery. On the main menu: lithophanes, lamps, bins and everything else members have printed. Click any picture to see it full size. Have a look.
Post your own and earn Supporter days. Upload a picture or a short video from your account page. Every post that is approved adds 1 day of Supporter, up to 10 posts a month. A person checks each one first, so it appears once it is approved rather than straight away.
Your account page is a dashboard now. Your plan, Supporter days, referral days and gallery posts are figures at the top, and everything else sits in panels underneath instead of one long page.

Version 2

10 Sep 2026

A new look, menus that fit, and a run of new tools — a Gridfinity generator, stands and easels, filament calibration that feeds back into your prints, and a live preview that keeps up with you.

This is version 2. New mark in the corner of every page. Underneath it is the same site with a great deal more in it — and menus that can actually hold it all.
The menus have been reorganised. All eight lithophane shapes now live under one Lithophane menu instead of eight buttons across the bar. The nineteen tools are grouped under Tools, and each group opens to the side — so nothing scrolls and nothing is buried.
New: a Gridfinity generator. Bins, baseplates and lids for the 42 mm storage standard, built to the published dimensions so they fit anybody else's parts. Compartments, round, hex and slot pockets, a stacking lip, label tabs, a finger scoop, magnet and screw holes, and a free-size mode for a drawer that is not on any grid. There is a page on the standard itself if you want to know why every number is what it is.
Gridfinity: vase-mode bins. Choose Vase in the Gridfinity generator for a bin printed as one continuous spiral of a single wall — no infill, no layer changes. It comes as two files, because the chamfered foot has to be printed normally and glued on. Worth it for tall bins; below about four units it uses more filament than an ordinary one, and the generator says so before you print.
Stands and easels for a curved panel. The lid designer now makes the thing that holds a panel up as well as the thing that sits on top of a lamp — a slotted stand or a folding easel, sized to the panel you just made.
New: filament calibration that changes your lithophanes. Print one small strip, hold it up to the light, and note three steps: the last washed-out one, the first solid-black one, and the one half-way between. Every lithophane you make afterwards is corrected for your filament — no more guessing why one roll comes out muddy and the next is washed out.
See the tones before you print them. A histogram under the photo shows the original tones in grey and what your settings are actually doing to them in colour, updating as you drag. Optimise for lithophane sets brightness, contrast and gamma in one press if you would rather not fiddle.
The preview keeps up. Your photo appears the moment you choose it and updates as you change settings, instead of waiting for you to press a button.
The flat 3D preview shows the real thing. It was drawing an exaggerated, open sheet that looked nothing like the print. It is now a closed solid at true depth — what you see is the shape that comes out.

Refer a friend, get Supporter days

9 Sep 2026

Share your link. When a friend registers with it and confirms their email, you get 5 days of Supporter and they start with 2 days.

New: refer a friend. Your account page now has a referral link. Send it to somebody who prints — when they register with it and confirm their email, you get 5 days of Supporter and they start with 2 days.
Nothing is credited until your friend confirms their email address. Signing up is not enough, so a link that gets shared around does not quietly pay out on accounts nobody is really using.
Supporter time earned this way includes 2 AI model generations in total — enough to try it properly. Everything else it unlocks is the full thing: unlimited lithophanes, unlimited tool and Designer exports. Paying for Supporter lifts the AI allowance to 10 a day.
Your account page keeps the running list — who has joined, how many days you have earned, and how many of the 10 a month you have used. If one did not count, it says so and why, rather than leaving you to wonder.
The fine print, plainly: one payout per person for ever, you cannot refer yourself, and two accounts opened on the same connection at the same time do not count. Referred days stack on top of any Supporter time you already have — they never shorten it.

Accessories — and ask for a price on several at once

8 Sep 2026

LED bases, charging ports, stands and frames, with an estimated price on each. Ask about one, or collect several into a single quotation request.

New: Accessories. The bits that finish a lithophane off — LED bases, charging ports, stands and frames — each with a photo, what is in a pack and an estimated price in US dollars. Click a photo to see it full size.
Nothing is sold here. There is no basket to pay from and no card is ever asked for. Prices are estimates and exclude postage; you tell us what you are after and we come back with a real figure.
Asking about one product takes a moment and needs no account. Press Enquire, say where it would ship to, and it reaches us by email.
New: quotation requests. Interested in several things? Add to quotation collects them into one list with a quantity against each, and sends them together instead of as five separate emails. You get a reference back. This one needs a free account, because the list is kept on your account — start it on a laptop, finish it on a phone.
A proper delivery address. Pick your country and the state or province list fills in for it; pick a state and the city list follows. With a postal code that is enough to quote postage properly instead of guessing.
The list has a search box and two layouts: Grid for comparing at a glance, one product per row, and Gallery for browsing by picture.

Self-watering pot STL, designed your way

How to make it

Print settings

Frequently asked questions

Related tools