The most overlooked 3D printing setting is E-Step calibration (Extruder Steps). While slicer settings like layer height and infill are popular topics, E-Step calibration ensures that when your slicer requests 100 mm of filament, the hardware actually delivers 100 mm. Ignoring this setting leads to chronic under-extrusion, weak layer bonding, and failed prints that are […]
Affiliate Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. If you buy through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend products that make sense for the topic and for makers who want better results with less guesswork. Most beginners treat slicer settings like a checklist. Layer height.
Most beginners blame “the printer” when prints fail. They blame the bed. The slicer. The filament. The weather. The brand. But on most FDM machines, the real culprit is quieter and far more predictable: What is the hidden bottleneck in most 3D printers? The hidden bottleneck is consistent melt flow through the hotend. In plain
Raising print speed triggers a chain reaction: volumetric flow limits, vibration, and cooling problems. Learn what changes, why prints fail, and how to go faster without losing quality. But speed isn’t a single setting. It’s a trigger. The moment you print faster, you also change how quickly your hotend must melt filament, how hard your
Changing a nozzle looks like a small upgrade. In reality, it changes how your entire 3D printing setup behaves. On most 3D printers, the nozzle controls flow, pressure, layer bonding, print speed, and how forgiving your printer is with different 3D printing filament types. That’s why beginners are often surprised when a simple swap suddenly
Most beginners think temperature is a “quality knob.” Turn it up, prints stick better. Turn it down, prints look cleaner. Simple. But once you’ve printed for a while, you realize temperature is less like a knob and more like a domino. Change your nozzle temp by 10°C and you didn’t just change “heat.” You changed
You can own a great 3D printer and still “mysteriously” lose prints. Not because you’re bad at 3D printing—but because tiny weak links (dirty build plates, damp 3D printing filament, sloppy first layers, clogged nozzles, wobbly spools) quietly sabotage the job. The good news: you don’t need a new machine. You need a small toolkit
You just unboxed a fresh spool of 3D printing filament. It’s vacuum-sealed with a desiccant pack, so it must be ready to print, right? Wrong. The most common rule makers break is assuming new filament is dry filament. This single oversight is responsible for roughly 70% of “unexplained” print failures, from messy stringing to brittle
Multicolor 3D printing used to be a tradeoff: you could have color, or you could have simplicity. Creality’s new SPARKX i7 is trying to break that deal by making multicolor feel less like a hobby inside a hobby—more like a push-button upgrade for everyday makers. This is a first-look launch guide built from official product
