How do you decide what to print and what sites do you use to find free files? Im having a hard time finding 3d prints and the harder part is picking a file i like.
Printables and Thingiverse typically. Sketchfab is great for 3D scans of real objects.
Printables and sometimes thingyverse. Cult and yeggi to get in the right direction
None of the sites are completely free from enshittification, but printables seems the least bad. Prusa has a better track record with supporting an open community, at least for now. Bambu+makerworld is an example of a company trying to close as much as possible to lock people in. Now I can’t download without a login? No thanks.
I’ve been using thangs which used search everywhere, but now it defaults to searching only models hosted on itself so I’ve stopped using it.
Anything in particular you are looking for?
I always start with printables and then branch out to cults as needed.
McMaster Carr for small parts.
I believe i mostly like little hand tools or anything that could be useful. Im pretty new to the world of 3d printing i would say.
Consider starting with organizational aids. 3d printing is great for things that hold other things. Start with simple modifications like resizing models to fit your needs and branch out to more complex customizations and cad building from there.
Most site (not stl search site) have “collection” or “tags”, when you find something you like, check if it under some collection/tag.
Exemple: https://www.thingiverse.com/search?q=Hand+tool&page=1&type=collections
Yeggi for general search, printables is my go to spot for posting files.
Yeggi is my go to as well when I couldn’t find it at printables or makerworld.
My go to is Cults3D, since I print a lot of miniatures.
For functional prints, I almost always whip them up myself in F360.
Now that it’s a thing, I always try checking the public Manyfold instance first! Do those federate here yet? Prolly something like @q8vfvg1f7m3k@3dprint.social ?
mostly thingiverse. I’ll look at others if i can’t find it there but i rarely have to. it has the largest library ime. the search and discoverability ui takes some getting used to though
i mainly print functional things. ex. i just got a dewalt planer and looked for models associated with it and found a dust collection attachment that will work with my vacuum and parts that allow me to wrap the cable to the planer itself
some things i just design myself. i broke one of the arms on my sunglasses so i designed and printed a brace i could use with some super glue and heat shrink tubing to fix it.
all this was just yesterday
Printables. Thingiverse is dead to me.
Why?
(I’m literally on day one with the printer)
probably because they removed ghost guns.🤷
I mainly use my printer as a tool to solve problems, so my decision process is very much grounded in arriving at a solution as opposed to just finding something to keep the machine busy.
My usual approach is to cast a wide net and go through all the models* that might do what I’m looking for. If I’m lucky, I’ll find something that I like enough to print. If not I’ll use it as a brainstorming session and either pick out a model or two that I can adapt (or at the very least pull critical dimensions) or get a feel for what I’d like to do differently. From there, it’s off to CAD where I’ll fire off slivers and prototypes until I’m happy with the fit and function of my part.
*printables is my go-to, but sometimes I’ll wander over to thingiverse if I want more options (and know I’m not working on something bespoke)
Feels like most high quality results are on printables these days. Thingiverse used to be the go-to so they’ve got a lot of models from the early days, so it’s worth checking.
Makerworld seems to be drawing a lot of the newer crowd due to their huge sponsorship push on influencers, so they have a growing audience as well.
If you’re looking for a functional part (not strictly art or models) it’s probably on one of those three.
Edit: see response for extra context and bad news.
Thangs aggregates other sites, or so I’ve been told.
They originally showed items hosted anywhere and free first, but once people got used to it they changed all the defaults. If you go there now and search, you have to manually set the source or it only shows you results from thangs itself, and pushes paid models and memberships to the top.
I only use it as a last resort now, and it’s typically pretty bad.
Oh damn. I had no idea.
Just use yeggi, the interface is meh but it properly searches everywhere.
How do you decide what to print
I find a need for something. I need to attach my shop vac to this tool, so I’ll print an adapter. I need a bracket for this part on my ancient blinds. I’ll print a bracket. I need a case for a circuit board I just bought, I’ll print them.
What sites do you use to find free files?
At this point, Printables, though I don’t do that very often, I tend to model what I need in CAD.
If I can’t find it for free on Thingiverse, I just make it myself.
