Did you grow up wishing you could make real 3D objects from your computer, maybe if you're British you remember the cartoon 'Penny Crayon'? Well, in this modern world we live in, you can do all of that with a 3D printer.

Our guest is friend of the show and all-round self-hosting nerd, James Smith, who has been working on Manyfold which is a self-hosted project you can use to manage all of your 3D model files.

Of course, none of that will make any sense if you don't know your Z-Axis from your extruder, and so James and James attempt to give a comprehensive guide to 3D printing, with an unintentional bias towards filament based printing.

Have you gotten into 3D printing yet, maybe you've got some horror stories to share of prints gone wrong, or want to share your amazing creations? We'd love to hear from you, so please send us a note to [email protected], or why not come join the discussion on our Discord server.

If you liked this episode or any of our content, we’d greatly appreciate any little bit of support you can throw our way over at our Ko-Fi page.

"Don't you people backup? I backup, and I don't even know what backing up means!" - Nicola Murray, Secretary of State for the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship

If you have any kind of file that's important to you, be that a treasured family photo, your latest research paper, or just the list of the co-ordinates of your best places in Minecraft, you'll want to make sure it's kept safe, right? Well, just syncing that to the cloud isn't really enough, you need a proper backup strategy too.

Part of a good backup strategy is having a backup that isn't in the same place as your computer, and this is where a good cloud backup service is so important. Our friends at Backblaze provide simple, reliable, and affordable backup options for your Mac or Windows PCs for just $9/month. You can get a 15 day free-trial when you follow this link to sign up.

Need to host your own instance of Manyfold, or any other app or service that can run on Linux, then check out Hetzner, with hosting in the EU and great rates on both AMD and Ampere powered ARM servers, as well as great pricing on storage including object storage and hosted NextCloud.

James Smith on Mastodon

Manyfold: Website / Mastodon / Public Instance

Benchy - Public domain 3D printer test model

Ender-3 V3 SE

Bambu Labs Cloud Dependancy - Louis Rossman on YouTube

Slicers:

OrcaSlicer

Slic3r

3D Design

TinkerCad - Free web based model creation from AutoDesk

FreeCad - Open-source CAD software for Mac, Linux, and Windows

Online Model Sites:

Thingiverse

Printables

Mentioned models:

NES Switch Cartridge Case V2 by flyingpurplecow - Thingiverse

Fusion 360 IKEA Skadis Peg Models by Rkimmell73 - Thingiverse

OctoPrint

Klipper

Sea Dog Game Studios - Table top gaming by Jae's sister and brother-in-law, lots of 3D printing

00:00:04: Introductions

00:03:39: What is 3D Printing?

00:08:17: A Resin PSA - Wear Gloves

00:10:16: Filament Printing

00:20:08: Open Hardware

00:29:13: Calibration and Setup

00:31:31: Bambu Labs

00:38:34: Slicers

00:44:00: 3D Modelling

00:50:01: Manyfold

01:03:24: OctoPrint & Klipper

01:11:23: Troubleshooting Prints

01:21:28: Multi-Colour Prints

01:30:07: Random Thoughts

01:37:23: Wrapping Up

Intro and outro theme: Ace of Clubs by RoccoW