3D printer forums?

A friend is wondering about getting a 3D printer, and I wondered if there are any dedicated forums dealing with the topic that people would recommend (other than this one of coure!)?

The *** Prusa Forum *** is quite informative if a little biased. The *** Cura / Ultimaker *** forum is similarly biased. *** All3DP *** is a useful info source. Haven't any knowledge of *** 3D Printing Forum *** might be worth a look

John

Edited By Journeyman on 08/02/2022 10:48:48

I have not come across a "general" 3D printing forum - they seem mainly to be for users of particular machines or software / firmware, or appended to other forums.

Before I dived in & bought mine I mainly used YouTube for background information :

Thomas Sanladerer & Stefan (CNC Kitchen) are both German & have very good, professionally produced, English language channnels covering many aspects of 3D printing.

Teaching Tech & Maker's Muse are both Australian, both having a mix of topics at various levels.

3D Printing Nerd & CHEP (Filament Friday) are both American & also cover many topics at verious levels, but Joel @ 3D Printing Nerd is a bit more strident than the others.

There are many others, but those are the channels I seem to keep following. IIRC they all have a dedicated "so you think you want a 3D printer, but want to know more" type video that walks you through the basics

I managed to glean enough information from the above to feel reasonably confident about the process, setting up the printer & getting to grips with slicer software so that getting up and running when the machine arrived was relatively painless.

Nigel B.

I'll second Thomas Sanladerer his *** Utube channel *** is very informative.

John

Reddit is generally a good place to check for these sorts of things.

r/3DPrinting

On the right hand there are "Related communities" that are more specific.

Probably two different groups of forums.

One group ( call them HOW) covering the techniques and issues associated with actually printing. As John said in the second post, most of these forums are printer specific although there are some more general ones.

The other group (the WHAT) are associated with creating or acquiring the things that you want to print. The biggest in this latter group is probably Thingiverse - Digital Designs for Physical Objects although there are others e.g. 3D Models for Free - Free3D.com

Beyond these "libraries" you get into the forums dedicated to software that allows you to create your own 3D designs and again these will depend on the software you use to create the things you plan to print. That opens up the whole "which 3D design package" religious wars can of worms.

My experience - get a printer, use YouTube (if required) to help you put it together, set it up and get started by grabbing things from Thingverse, then graduate to designing your own. Use forums to help solve particular problems.

Thanks everyone - lots of suggestions for browsing there.

Take a look on Facebook. There are a number of forums depending on the machine you have.

I would split the 3D printing sites into three categories. The first is news sites, with useful articles, reviews, tutorials and guides, such as 3Dnatives and Makershop
The second category is simply forums where people can ask questions, find answers, participate in discussions or share their experiences in 3d printing. These are sites like 3dprintingforums, Shapeways, Formlabs.
The third category is the repository sites where you can find and download a lot of 3D models. These are Sketchfab, 3D Warehouse, Turbosquid, Artec3D and many others.
If you know any other sites like that, you can share some more in this thread.

Accoeding to my knowledge There are definitely a lot of resources available online to help people get started with this technology. Here are a few articles and below forums that I would recommend checking out:

Reddit's r/3DPrinting - This is a very active community with over 300,000 members, so there's always a lot of discussion happening here. It's a great place to ask questions, get advice, and see what other people are printing.

3D Printing Forum - This is a very comprehensive forum with a wide range of sub-forums dedicated to different aspects of 3D printing, such as hardware, software, and materials. There are also sections for buying and selling printers and accessories.

Ultimaker Community - If your friend is specifically interested in Ultimaker printers, this forum is a great resource. It's run by Ultimaker, so there are a lot of experts on hand to answer questions and offer advice.

Thingiverse - This is less of a forum and more of a repository for 3D models that people have created. However, it's a great place to browse for inspiration and to find models that can be printed on a wide range of printers.

I hope these recommendations are helpful!