3D Printing 101, Part 1: Welcome to the World of Making Things

3D Printing 101 is a 13-part series that takes you from "I have no idea what any of this means" to designing, printing, finishing, and troubleshooting real objects on real machines. Part by part, you'll build a complete mental model of how this technology works, what it's good for, and how to stop wasting filament on prints that fail at layer 47. Every article assumes you've read the ones before it. Start here.

So You Want to Print Things in 3D (Welcome, Friend)

What Even Is 3D Printing?

Imagine a hot glue gun. Now give that hot glue gun a computer, a precise motorized frame, and the ambition to build anything you can model in software. That's basically 3D printing: a process that takes a digital file and produces a physical object by depositing or curing material, one thin layer at a time, until the whole thing exists in the real world.

No molds. No factories. No minimum order of 500 units. Just a file, a machine, and raw material.

The technology isn't new. Industrial 3D printers have existed since the mid-1980s, and for most of that history they cost anywhere from $50,000 to well over $200,000. They lived in aerospace labs and medical research facilities. Regular people didn't touch them. Then, around 2009 and 2010, the open-source RepRap project cracked the consumer market open. Prices collapsed. Communities formed. By the early 2020s, you could buy a capable desktop printer for under $300.

Why This Technology Actually Matters

People are printing prosthetic limbs for kids in developing countries. Aerospace engineers are printing titanium fuel injectors that couldn't be machined any other way. Artists are printing sculpture. Cosplayers are printing armor. And someone, somewhere, is printing a very specific drawer organizer that fits exactly the weird junk drawer they have in their kitchen.

That number isn't abstract. It means the skill you're building right now sits inside one of the fastest-growing manufacturing sectors on the planet. Whether you want to make art, build functional parts, or just finally have a phone stand that doesn't wobble, you're in the right place.

Two Tribes: Filament vs. Resin Printing

FDM Printing: The Lego-Layer Approach

FDM stands for Fused Deposition Modeling. The name sounds complicated. The concept isn't. A spool of plastic filament feeds into a heated nozzle, melts, and gets deposited onto a build plate in a precise pattern. The platform drops a fraction of a millimeter. The nozzle deposits the next layer. Repeat until you have an object.

Think of it like a sculptor building with clay, except the clay comes out of a very precise nozzle and the sculptor never sleeps.

FDM printers are durable, relatively safe to use in a home or office, and capable of printing large objects in engineering-grade materials. They're the workhorses of the desktop printing world. Throughout this series, the FDM machine we'll use is the FlashForge Inventor: an enclosed, dual-extrusion printer with a beginner-friendly software ecosystem and a build volume large enough to print genuinely useful things.

Resin Printing: Liquid Light Magic

MSLA resin printing works on a completely different principle. A vat of liquid photopolymer resin sits above an LCD screen that projects UV light in precise patterns. Each exposure cures one layer of liquid into solid plastic. The build plate lifts, the next layer exposes, and over time a detailed object emerges from the vat.

If FDM is a sculptor with clay, resin printing is a sculptor with light. The results are extraordinary. Resin prints capture details that FDM physically cannot reproduce.

That gap is visible to the naked eye. For miniatures, jewelry, dental models, and anything where surface quality matters more than size, resin wins without argument. The machine we'll use is the Anycubic Photon S: a UV LCD resin printer known for high-detail output and a straightforward workflow.

Which One Should a Beginner Care About?

Both. That's the honest answer, and it's exactly why this series covers both. FDM teaches you the foundational mechanics of 3D printing: layer adhesion, support structures, material behavior, calibration. Resin teaches you precision, post-processing discipline, and what's possible when detail is the priority. They're not competing technologies. They're complementary tools. By the end of this series, you'll know when to reach for each one.

Meet Your Machines: The Gear We're Using in This Series

The FlashForge Inventor: Your FDM Workhorse

The FlashForge Inventor is an enclosed FDM printer with dual extrusion, meaning it can print with two materials simultaneously. That opens up possibilities like soluble support structures and two-color prints that would be impossible on a single-nozzle machine. The enclosure keeps temperatures stable, which matters more than most beginners realize. The software ecosystem, built around FlashPrint, is one of the more approachable slicer environments available. We'll go deep on FlashPrint in Part 3.

The Anycubic Photon S: Your Resin Detail Monster

The Anycubic Photon S is a UV LCD resin printer with a build volume well-suited to miniatures, detailed figurines, jewelry masters, and precision mechanical parts. It uses an FEP film on the bottom of the resin vat as the release layer between cured prints and the screen below. The Photon S earned a strong reputation in the miniature and tabletop gaming communities for a reason: the detail is genuinely impressive at this price point. Software options include Photon Workshop and Chitubox, both of which we'll cover in Part 3.

The Anycubic Wash & Cure Machine: The Unsung Hero

Resin prints don't come off the build plate ready to use. They're coated in uncured liquid resin that needs to be washed off and then fully cured under UV light. Skip either step and your prints will be tacky, brittle, or both. The Anycubic Wash & Cure machine handles both steps in a single device, which makes an otherwise messy and inconsistent process manageable and repeatable.

The Full Journey: What This Series Covers

Your 13-Part Roadmap at a Glance

How Each Article Builds on the Last

This series is cumulative. Part 5 assumes you've read Parts 2 through 4. Part 9 assumes you've printed something before. That structure is intentional, because 3D printing is a skill that compounds. Each concept you learn makes the next one easier to absorb.

"You learn to print by printing. Not by reading about printing. This series gives you the knowledge, then immediately gives you something to do with it."

Fifteen projects across thirteen parts means you're building something in almost every article. Reading without doing only gets you so far.

What You'll Actually Build: The Project Preview

Beginner Projects (Parts 2–5)

The first projects are small on purpose. A calibration cube teaches you more about your printer than almost any other single print: you'll measure it, compare it to spec, and adjust until the numbers match. A simple phone stand introduces you to support structures, bed adhesion, and the satisfying moment when a functional object comes off the build plate and immediately does its job.

These aren't throwaway exercises. Every setting you learn to tune in Parts 2 through 5 is a setting you'll rely on for every project that follows.

Intermediate Projects (Parts 6–9)

The middle of the series is where things get genuinely interesting. You'll print a functional bracket or wall mount that goes into actual use in your space. You'll tackle a multi-part assembly that requires tolerances tight enough for the pieces to fit together without glue. You'll run a dual-extrusion print on the FlashForge Inventor that would be impossible on a single-nozzle machine.

By Part 9, you'll be printing on the Anycubic Photon S, and the quality difference will be immediately obvious.

Advanced Projects (Parts 10–13)

The final arc is where the skills compound. You'll print a high-detail resin miniature that shows you exactly what the Photon S can do when settings are dialed in correctly. You'll print a functional engineering part designed to handle real mechanical stress. And you'll design at least one original object from scratch in CAD, then print it, then hold it in your hands.

That object you design yourself? That's the goal. Not because designing one thing makes you an expert, but because the moment you hold something you designed and printed yourself, the whole technology clicks into place in a way that no amount of reading can replicate.

Part 2 covers hardware setup and safety for both machines. We'll get the FlashForge Inventor and the Anycubic Photon S physically configured, talk through what resin safety actually requires in practice, and make your first test print before the article is over.

This series is your complete beginner's guide to 3D printing, built from the ground up. Over 13 parts, you'll learn how FDM and resin printers work, how to set them up safely, how to find and prepare files, how to design your own models, and how to troubleshoot the inevitable weirdness that comes with the territory. By the end, you'll have the vocabulary, the habits, and the hands-on experience to print almost anything you can imagine. You don't need to own a printer yet. You don't need to know anything yet. Start here.

Do You Need to Be Technical to Do This?

Busting the 'I'm Not an Engineer' Myth

The number-one thing that keeps people from starting is the quiet assumption that 3D printing is for engineers. It isn't. It never was. The tools have matured enormously, and what once required a background in CAD and a tolerance for command-line interfaces now runs on touchscreens with guided setup wizards and pre-sliced test files right on the included SD card.

You don't need an engineering degree. You don't need CAD experience. You don't need a $2,000 budget or a workshop full of tools. What you need is patience, genuine curiosity, and a willingness to treat a failed print as information rather than defeat. That's it. Those are the actual prerequisites.

Think of it like learning to cook. Nobody hands a beginner a blank cutting board and says "make something." You start with recipes. You follow them closely. You burn a few things. Then, slowly, you start to understand why the recipe works, and that's when you start improvising. 3D printing follows exactly the same arc.

What You Actually Need to Get Started

CAD anxiety is real, and it's worth naming directly. The idea of designing a 3D model from scratch sounds intimidating because it is, at first. But here's the thing: you don't start there. You start by downloading files that other people have already designed, and you print those. Part 6 of this series will walk you through designing your first original model, step by step, with no assumptions about prior experience.

You're also not doing this alone. There are millions of people in active 3D printing communities right now who were exactly where you are. Part 12 covers exactly where to find them and how to ask questions that get useful answers.

The Mindset of a Maker: How to Get the Most From This Series

Embrace the Failed Print

Before you touch a printer, get this into your head: failed prints are not failures. They are data points. Every experienced maker has a box of shame prints sitting somewhere, a collection of stringy blobs and warped bases and supports that fused to the model in spectacular fashion. That box isn't evidence of incompetence. It's a record of learning.

Your first print will probably look like it was designed by a caffeinated raccoon. That's fine. What matters is that you note what went wrong, adjust one variable, and try again. One variable at a time. That discipline will take you further than any hardware upgrade ever will.

Document Everything

Keep a print log. It doesn't have to be elaborate: a notes file, a spreadsheet, even a physical notebook. Write down the settings you used, the result you got, and what you changed next. This habit pays off faster than you'd expect. When something finally works, you'll want to know exactly why.

Take photos at every stage. A photo of a mid-print failure tells you something a finished print can't. Progress documentation is also just motivating. Watching your early prints improve over a few weeks is genuinely satisfying.

Build Your Workspace as You Go

You don't need a dedicated lab. A sturdy table in a well-ventilated corner is enough to start. If you're working with resin, ventilation isn't a preference: it's non-negotiable. The fumes from uncured resin are not something you want to breathe regularly. Part 2 goes deep on this, with specific guidance on what "adequate ventilation" actually means in practice.

Start simple. Improve the workspace as your needs become clear. Most makers do exactly that.

A Quick Glossary: Words You'll Need to Know

Think of this section as your 3D printing Rosetta Stone. These terms will appear throughout the series, so it's worth spending five minutes here now to save yourself confusion later. Bookmark this page. You'll come back to it.

FDM Terminology

FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) is the most common printer type: it melts plastic and deposits it in layers. Here are the core terms:

• Filament: The plastic material, typically sold on spools. PLA is the most beginner-friendly.
• Extruder: The mechanism that feeds filament into the hot end and melts it.
• Nozzle: The small opening at the tip of the hot end where melted plastic exits. Think of it as the pen tip.
• Layer height: How thick each deposited layer is. Thinner layers mean finer detail and longer print times.
• Infill: The internal structure of a print. 20% infill means 80% of the inside is hollow.
• Support structures: Temporary scaffolding printed beneath overhanging geometry, removed after printing.
• Bed adhesion: How well the first layer sticks to the print surface. Poor adhesion causes warping and failed prints.
• Slicer: Software that converts a 3D model into printer instructions. Think of it as the translator.

Resin Terminology

MSLA (Masked Stereolithography) printers cure liquid resin layer by layer using a UV light source and an LCD mask.

• FEP film: A transparent film at the bottom of the resin vat. Cured resin releases from it between layers.
• Exposure time: How long the UV light cures each layer. Too short and prints fail; too long and detail is lost.
• UV curing: The post-print process of hardening the resin fully under UV light.
• Build plate: The surface the print adheres to and lifts from.
• Wash and cure: The two-stage post-processing workflow for resin prints: washing in isopropyl alcohol, then UV curing.
• Supports: Similar to FDM supports, but critical for resin prints and often placed manually.

Universal Terms

These apply regardless of printer type:

• STL / OBJ: The most common 3D model file formats. STL is the standard; OBJ supports color data.
• G-code: The machine instruction language your printer actually reads. The slicer generates it.
• Slicing software: The application that turns your model file into G-code. Examples include Bambu Studio, Chitubox, and PrusaSlicer.
• Post-processing: Anything done to a print after it comes off the machine: sanding, painting, removing supports, curing.
• Calibration: The process of tuning your printer so it prints accurately. You'll do this often, especially early on.

Your Part 1 Action List: Before You Read Part 2

You've read the introduction. Now do something with it. These seven tasks take less than an hour total, and they'll set you up properly for everything that follows.

When you're done, drop a comment below and tell us where you're starting from. First-time printer owner? Curious but still on the fence? Already have a machine gathering dust? We want to know.

What's Coming in Part 2: Getting Your Printer Set Up

Next time, we actually plug things in.

Part 2 covers the full physical setup for both the FlashForge Inventor and the Anycubic Photon S: unboxing, assembly, leveling, and first-boot configuration. It also includes a dedicated resin safety deep dive covering gloves, ventilation requirements, proper disposal of waste resin and IPA, and a clear list of things you should never do with uncured resin in an enclosed space. Workspace best practices for both printer types are covered in detail, and each machine gets its first test print by the end.

This series is designed to build on itself. Each part assumes you've read the ones before it. Start at the beginning, work through it steadily, and by Part 13 you'll have a genuinely solid foundation under your feet.