Advanced 3D Printing

A desktop UV printer prints full-colour, 3D-textured graphics straight onto acrylic, wood, glass, metal and more. Here's what UV printing is, what you can make and sell, how it differs from a UV laser, and a look at the xTool O1 Omni — available to pre-order now.

Choosing an industrial MSLA resin printer? This buyer's guide covers heated chambers, engineering and certified resins, the specs that actually matter, full-plate throughput, post-processing, traceability, and where the Prusa Pro SLX fits.

Choosing a dental 3D printer? This practical guide covers resin vs FDM, certified biocompatible workflows vs adapted printers, how to read specs, total cost per model, post-processing, and where the Original Prusa Medical One fits.

Castable resin or real casting wax? A practical guide to where each 3D printing route wins for jewellery casting — burnout, detail, support removal, cost and production fit — and why many workshops run both.

A practical buyer guide to recycled rPET pellets for pellet-based and large-format 3D printing: what they are, who they suit, how they compare to virgin PETG and PLA pellets, and how to choose a European supplier. European-made, food-contact safe, ship-from-stock.

Almost every 3D printing problem has a known cause and a reliable fix. We've put together a complete set of practical guides covering the issues makers actually run into — from a first print that won't stick, to dialling in a perfect filament profile. This page is the index: find your symptom, jump to the guide, fix the problem. Bookmark it. Start Here: New to 3D Printing If you're just getting started, begin with the fundamentals and work outward as problems come up. PLA Settings & Your First Print — the complete beginner's guide: settings, a pre-print checklist, and how to read your first layer. Best Print Settings for PETG, TPU & ASA — when you're ready to move beyond PLA. Bed Adhesion & First-Layer Problems The most common failure of all — and the foundation of every successful print. First Layer Not Sticking? Fix Bed Adhesion — Z-offset, levelling, bed temperature, cleaning, adhesives, and brims. Surface & Quality Defects Prints that stick but don't look right — strings, blobs, gaps, ripples. Fix Stringing & Oozing — those wispy threads between parts. Under-Extrusion — gaps, thin walls, and weak layers. Over-Extrusion, Blobs & Zits — rough, swollen, oversized prints. Layer Shifting & Ghosting — prints that jump sideways, or faint ripples near corners. Warping & Engineering Materials The challenges specific to ABS, ASA, and other high-shrinkage materials. How to Stop Warping (ABS & ASA) — curling corners and cracked layers, and how to prevent them. Calibration: From Good to Great Once your prints are reliable, calibration is what makes them excellent. These tests dial in your printer and filament. Orca Slicer & Orca-Flashforge Calibration — the full sequence: temperature, flow, pressure advance, retraction. Temperature Tower — find your filament's ideal temperature. Flow Test — get extrusion amount and dimensions accurate. Retraction Test — eliminate stringing at the source. Extruder Calibration — confirm your extruder pushes the right amount. Find Your Problem Fast What you're seeing Go to Print won't stick / first layer is a mess Bed adhesion Wispy threads between parts Stringing Gaps, thin or weak walls Under-extrusion Blobs, zits, oversized parts Over-extrusion Print jumped sideways / surface ripples Layer shifting & ghosting Corners curling up / cracking (ABS, ASA) Warping Prints OK but want them perfect Calibration Just getting started PLA & first print The Common Thread: Good Filament You'll notice a theme across these guides: a lot of "random" problems trace back to filament — damp, brittle, or inconsistent in diameter. Consistent filament removes those variables so the settings you calibrate actually hold. Our PLA, PETG, TPU, ABS, and ASA are made in Spain to tight ISO/REACH tolerances and sealed dry. Pair good material with the guides above and most problems simply don't appear. Still Stuck? If you've worked through the relevant guide and a problem persists, get in touch with your printer, material, and a photo of the issue — we're happy to help troubleshoot. And if you're starting to think the real fix is a better-suited printer, browse our Flashforge, Prusa, and Bambu Lab ranges or ask us for a recommendation.

Warping is the curse of engineering materials. You set up a print in ABS or ASA, come back hours later, and the corners have curled up off the bed — or worse, the whole part has cracked along a layer line. It's the number-one reason people give up on these otherwise excellent materials. The good news: warping is well understood and largely preventable once you know what's actually happening. Why Warping Happens Warping is a thermal problem, not a bed-adhesion problem (though it looks like one). As molten plastic cools, it shrinks. When lower layers have cooled and contracted while upper layers are still hot, the uneven shrinkage pulls the part — lifting corners off the bed and, in tall prints, splitting layers apart. Materials with high shrinkage, especially ABS and ASA, feel this most. PLA shrinks little and rarely warps; PETG is in between. The Core Principle: Keep It Warm and Even Every effective warping fix comes down to one idea — slow and even cooling. If the whole part stays at a stable, warm temperature until the print finishes, there's no uneven shrinkage and no warp. Everything below serves that goal. The Fixes, Most Important First 1. Use an Enclosure This is the single biggest factor for ABS and ASA. An enclosure traps heat around the print, keeping the whole part warm and cooling evenly. For anything beyond small ABS/ASA parts, an enclosure isn't optional — it's the difference between success and a cracked, curled mess. This is exactly why enclosed printers like the Flashforge Adventurer 5M Pro or Bambu Lab P1S handle these materials so reliably — the warm chamber does the hard work for you. Larger enclosed machines like the Flashforge Guider 3 Ultra extend this to big industrial parts. 2. Turn Off (or Right Down) Part Cooling For ABS and ASA, the part cooling fan is the enemy — it forces the uneven cooling that causes warping. Run it off or very low. (This is the opposite of PLA, where you want full cooling.) Let the chamber heat, not the fan, control the temperature. 3. Eliminate Draughts A cold draught from an open window, a door, or air conditioning blowing across the printer causes localised rapid cooling and warping — even with an enclosure if it isn't sealed. Site the printer away from draughts and keep the enclosure closed during printing. 4. Get the Bed Hot Enough A hot bed keeps the lower layers soft and bonded so they don't contract and lift. ABS and ASA want 90–110 °C. Too cool and the base releases. See our material settings guide for full ranges. 5. Use a Strong Adhesion Aid Mechanical grip on the bed resists the warping force. A purpose-made adhesive like Magigoo Original holds the base down firmly while the print is hot and releases cleanly when cool — particularly effective for ABS and ASA. 6. Add a Brim and Design Out Sharp Corners A brim adds surface area at the base, giving corners more grip to resist lifting. In design, sharp 90° corners concentrate warping stress — rounding corners or adding fillets at the base helps. A raft is a stronger (if wasteful) option for badly warping parts. 7. Increase First-Layer and Chamber Temperature for Big Parts The larger and taller the part, the more warping force builds up. Big ABS/ASA prints benefit from an actively heated chamber (not just a passive enclosure) — machines like the Flashforge Creator 5 Pro hold an actively warmed chamber for exactly this reason. Quick Diagnostic Symptom Most likely cause First fix Corners lift off the bed Uneven cooling / no enclosure Enclosure, fan off, brim Part cracks along a layer line mid-print Chamber too cold (tall part) Enclosure / heated chamber Only happens on big parts Warping force scales with size Active chamber heat, brim Started after moving the printer New draught Block draughts, close enclosure Base releases entirely Bed too cool / no adhesive Raise bed temp, adhesive Material Choice Matters If you don't strictly need ABS, ASA is usually the better choice — it has the same strength and heat resistance but is more UV-stable and a little more forgiving to print, and our Spain-made ASA is engineered with reduced shrinkage versus standard ABS and enhanced interlayer adhesion, which directly helps with warping and cracking. For parts that don't need the heat resistance, PETG warps far less than either. Choosing the right material for the job is half the battle. The Right Printer Makes ABS/ASA Easy Most warping problems trace back to an open-frame printer trying to do an enclosed-printer's job. If you regularly print engineering materials, an enclosed machine pays for itself in saved failed prints. Browse our Flashforge range of enclosed printers, or tell us what you're making and we'll recommend the right tool. As an authorised Flashforge distributor, we can help you match printer to material.

PLA is where almost everyone starts 3D printing, and for good reason: it's the easiest filament to print, needs no enclosure, barely warps, and is forgiving of mistakes. If you've just unboxed a printer, this guide gets you from spool to successful first print — the right settings, what to do before you press print, and how to read the result. Why Start With PLA PLA (polylactic acid) prints at low temperatures, sticks easily, doesn't smell much, and produces crisp detail. It's the best material to learn on because it removes most of the variables that make other filaments tricky — no warping battles, no enclosure needed, no fumes to manage. Master PLA first, then step up to PETG, TPU, or ASA once you're comfortable (see our guide for those materials). PLA Print Settings Setting Starting value Nozzle temperature 200–215 °C Bed temperature 50–60 °C Print speed 50–100 mm/s (slower while learning) Cooling fan 100% (after first layer) Retraction (direct drive) 1–2 mm Retraction (Bowden) 4–6 mm First layer speed 20–25 mm/s (slow = better adhesion) Enclosure Not needed These are reliable starting points. Every printer and spool is a little different, so once you've got a successful print you can fine-tune with a temperature tower. Before You Press Print: A Checklist Level the bed / set Z-offset. The single most important step. The nozzle should be the right distance from the bed so the first layer squishes slightly. Most printers have an automatic or guided routine — run it. Clean the bed. Wipe with isopropyl alcohol. Finger grease is the most common reason a first print won't stick. Check the filament is seated. Make sure it's loaded, gripped by the extruder, and the spool turns freely without tangles. Use the right slicer profile. Pick your printer's PLA profile in your slicer (Orca, Bambu Studio, PrusaSlicer, etc.). Don't print an unknown profile. Start with something small. A calibration cube or a small model prints fast and tells you a lot before you commit hours to a big one. Watch the First Layer The first layer makes or breaks a print, so stay and watch it. A good first layer looks like flat, even ribbons fused side by side, with no gaps and no scraping. If the lines are round and loose, the nozzle is too high; if they're squashed and torn, it's too low. Stop and adjust the Z-offset rather than letting a bad first layer ruin the whole print. Our first-layer and bed-adhesion guide covers this in depth. Your First Print Went Wrong? Quick Fixes Problem Likely cause Guide Won't stick to the bed Z-offset, dirty bed, cold bed Bed adhesion Wispy threads between parts Stringing Fix stringing Gaps, thin or weak walls Under-extrusion Under-extrusion Blobs, rough or oversized Over-extrusion Over-extrusion Print jumped sideways / ripples Layer shift / ghosting Layer shifting When You're Ready to Dial It In Once you've got reliable prints, calibration takes them from good to great. The full sequence — temperature, flow, pressure advance, retraction — is in our Orca Slicer calibration guide, and you can confirm your extruder is accurate with the extruder calibration guide. Choosing Your First PLA Beginner frustration is often really bad filament — damp, brittle, or inconsistent in diameter. Our PLA filament is made in Spain to a tight ±0.05 mm tolerance and sealed dry, so it behaves predictably while you're still learning. For a low-sheen finish that hides layer lines, try our Matte PLA, and browse the full filament range as you expand. New to all this and not sure what to buy? Ask us — we're happy to point beginners in the right direction.

If under-extrusion is too little plastic, over-extrusion is too much — and it brings its own set of problems: rough, bulging surfaces, parts that come out larger than designed, blobs and 'zits' on the walls, and elephant's foot at the base. The good news is that over-extrusion is one of the most directly fixable defects, because it almost always comes down to calibration. Here's how to dial it out. What Over-Extrusion Looks Like Watch for: walls that look swollen or rough rather than crisp, top surfaces that are bumpy or 'over-filled', dimensions coming out oversized, blobs and pimples (zits) on the surface, stringing combined with excess material, and elephant's foot — the bottom layers bulging out wider than the rest. Fix It in This Order 1. Calibrate Flow Rate (Extrusion Multiplier) The number-one cause. If flow is set too high, every line puts down too much plastic. Run a flow-rate calibration and reduce the multiplier until walls come out crisp and dimensions are accurate. This single step fixes most over-extrusion. Our flow test guide and the two-pass method in the Orca Slicer calibration guide walk through it. 2. Check Filament Diameter Setting Your slicer assumes a filament diameter (usually 1.75 mm). If that figure is wrong — or your filament is inconsistent and actually runs thicker — the printer pushes too much. Confirm your slicer's diameter matches your filament. Consistent filament matters here: our Spain-made filament holds ±0.05 mm tolerance, so the 1.75 mm setting is accurate spool to spool. 3. Lower the Temperature Printing too hot makes plastic runnier, so it oozes and spreads more than intended — contributing to blobs and rough surfaces. Drop the temperature in 5 °C steps; a temperature tower shows the cleanest setting. 4. Tune Pressure Advance / Linear Advance Blobs and zits often appear where the nozzle starts, stops, or changes direction — pressure builds in the nozzle and releases as a blob. Calibrating pressure advance (linear advance) evens out that pressure for clean corners and seams. The Orca Slicer calibration guide covers this step. 5. Enable Coasting and Wipe In your slicer, 'coasting' stops extrusion just before the end of a line to release pressure, and 'wipe' moves the nozzle over the printed line to clean off excess. Both reduce blobs and zits at the seam. 6. Fix Elephant's Foot Specifically If only the base bulges, it's a mix of over-extrusion and a bed that's too hot or a nozzle too close on the first layer. Lower the first-layer flow or bed temperature slightly, and use your slicer's 'elephant's foot compensation'. Our first-layer guide covers Z-offset, which interacts with this. Quick Diagnostic Symptom Most likely cause First fix Walls swollen, parts oversized Flow too high Calibrate flow rate Blobs/zits at corners and seams Pressure advance / coasting Tune PA, enable wipe Rough, over-filled top surface Flow too high / temp too high Lower flow, then temp Only the bottom bulges out Elephant's foot First-layer flow, compensation Dimensions consistently too big Flow or filament diameter Calibrate flow, check diameter Over vs Under: The Same Calibration Solves Both Over- and under-extrusion are two ends of the same dial. If you've read our under-extrusion guide, you'll recognise the tools — temperature tower, flow test, pressure advance — because dialling them in correctly is what keeps you in the sweet spot between the two. Get the calibration right once on consistent filament and both problems disappear. Start With Filament You Can Trust Accurate flow calibration depends on filament that's actually the diameter it claims. Our PLA, PETG, TPU, ABS, and ASA are made in Spain to tight tolerances, so once you calibrate flow, it stays correct. Fighting blobs or oversized parts you can't tune out? Get in touch and we'll help.