3D Print Tools

Printing tips, project ideas and what is new on the site.

• 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. Read the newsletter.
• Get it by email. With an account you can have the newsletter sent to you: switch it on or off under Newsletter emails on your account page, or with the link at the bottom of any newsletter email.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.