www-thingiverse-com-v7ip1b.txt (9193B)
1 [1] 2 [3] 3 Challenges 4 Explore, enter and win with your own designs 5 [4] 6 Forum 7 Learn, discuss and share with other makers 8 [5] 9 Events 10 Browse or suggest open-source hardware and 3D printing events 11 [7]All Categories[8]3D Printing[9]Art[10]Fashion[11]Gadgets[12]Hobby[13] 12 Household[14]Learning[15]Models[16]Tools[17]Toys & Games[18]Other 13 [20][ ] 14 Log In 15 Join the Community 16 Small thing previews 17 2M+ Things across categories 18 Small creator previews 19 70k+ Creators 20 [22]Sign up to Thingiverse! 21 Already have an account?[23]Log in 22 23 Print-in-place - Beginners guide 24 25 Print-in-place - Beginners guide 26 27 Alexandru Pascovici [24]Alexandru Pascovici [25]Guides 28 August 6th, 2025 4 minute read 29 30 Did you see a fun articulated dragon on YouTube or at a craft fair that you 31 want to print? Or maybe a model with complex-looking hinges? How about a 32 brain-teasing puzzle with lots of moving parts? All of these can be printed and 33 assembled using glue or fasteners. But they can also be printed already 34 assembled with no extra work required! These are called print-in-place models, 35 and this article explains exactly what they are and how you can print them! 36 37 What is a print-in-place model? 38 39 Simply put, any 3D printable design that has moving or interlocking parts that 40 are built as one continuous print job falls under the print-in-place umbrella. 41 42 More precisely, in a print-in-place model, the moving or interlocking parts are 43 designed with precise clearances that allow them to be printed as a single 44 assembly without needing any post-printing assembly. 45 46 These parts are typically suspended within or connected to the main body of the 47 model in such a way that they remain stationary during printing, either 48 directly attached to the build plate or supported by small breakaway bridges, 49 joints, or supports. 50 51 Once the print is complete, a simple flex or twist is often enough to free the 52 moving parts, allowing hinges, sliders, gears or articulated segments to move 53 freely without any additional post-processing. 54 55 The main advantage of these kinds of models is that they save time, removing 56 the hassle of screws, snap-fits, glue, or various other post-processing “fiddly 57 bits” that can be especially frustrating for a beginner maker. 58 59 How do I find print-in-place designs? 60 61 Ok, cool, by now you’re sold on the idea of print-in-place designs, but you 62 don’t know what exactly to print, so here’s where we come in, if you don’t mind 63 a suggestion or two. 64 65 For everyday utility, we recommend trying out these Things (we even printed 66 some of these ourselves since they were so useful). 67 68 [phone-stand-thing] 69 70 [26]Phone/Tablet Stand - Flat fold - Print in place! 71 By: [27]jonnig 72 73 [large-display-printinplace-kaleidocycle] 74 75 [28]Print-in-Place Kaleidocycle 76 By: [29]ecoiras 77 78 [fidget-cube-thing][30]Print In Place Ultimate Fidget Cube 79 By: [31]mygadgetlife 80 81 [nozzle-box-thing] 82 83 [32] Print in Place Nozzle Box 84 By: [33]John_Wet 85 86 87 If none of these strike your fancy, try searching “print-in-place” on 88 Thingiverse to find a plethora of Things to choose from. 89 90 How do I print a print-in-place model?? 91 92 Argh! You’ve tried printing a design, and it simply didn’t come out as 93 advertised! Joints can’t be moved, bearings don’t rotate, hinges break rather 94 than bend, and so on… 95 96 To be fair, a lot of the print-in-place designs are difficult to print by 97 nature, especially on older printers, because of their tight tolerances. Any 98 overextrusion or dimensional inaccuracies will cause sections within the Thing 99 to fuse and compromise its functionality. 100 101 In order to ensure you have the best possible chances, we recommend the 102 following steps: 103 104 1. Calibrate your printer! If your printer doesn’t have an autocalibration 105 feature, Matt the Printing Nerd has a [34]great guide on how to calibrate 106 your printer, but if you want to go more in-depth, you can also check out 107 Ellis’ [35]Print Tuning Guide. 108 109 2. Check the Thing details tab; many makers provide specific instructions and 110 parameters that you should use for your print. These will probably be 111 tailored to the specific model you're trying to print and might give you 112 just the help you need! 113 114 3. Ensure first-layer adhesion. Especially for longer prints, keep an eye out 115 while the first 1-2 layers extrude. Layer shifts will ruin print-in-place 116 prints. If your prints have a tendency to unstick themselves from the build 117 plate, a good old-fashioned glue stick might just do the trick 118 119 4. Slow down! If all else fails, slowing your print speeds way down should 120 result in a more dimensionally accurate and functional print. 121 122 This might sound weird, but if you’re having issues and you already followed 123 all of the above steps, there’s one more bonus technique you can try: scale up 124 the design. 125 126 Increasing the model size means that the tolerances between the moving parts 127 become less of an issue (clearance grows with scale). While this isn’t exactly 128 a fix, but more of a workaround, it should help, so why not give it a shot? 129 130 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 131 132 That’s pretty much it. If you successfully printed a print-in-place Thing, 133 don’t forget to share it by uploading an image of it on the Thing’s page! And 134 if you want more 3D printing tips and tricks from us, [36]sign up for our 135 newsletter! 136 137 [37] [38] [39] [40] 138 139 [41]« Back to Blog 140 141 Related Articles 142 143 Low-poly models - Beginners guide 144 145 [42] Low-poly models - Beginners guide 146 147 6 minute read 148 149 July 3rd, 2025 150 151 HueForge - Beginners guide 152 153 [43] HueForge - Beginners guide 154 155 5 minute read 156 157 September 16th, 2025 158 159 Articulated prints - Beginners guide 160 161 [44] Articulated prints - Beginners guide 162 163 6 minute read 164 165 October 9th, 2025 166 167 [45]About us[46]SoulCrafted[47]FAQ[48]Blog 168 [49]Cura[50]For Developers 169 [51][52][53][54][55] 170 171 Subscribe for news, community spotlights, and more! 172 173 [56][ ] 174 Subscribe 175 [58]Advertise with Us 176 Cookies[60]Legal[61]Privacy Policy[62]Changelog 177 iiq_pixel 178 iiq_pixel 179 180 References: 181 182 [1] https://www.thingiverse.com/ 183 [3] https://www.thingiverse.com/challenges 184 [4] https://forum.thingiverse.com/ 185 [5] https://labs.thingiverse.com/events 186 [7] https://www.thingiverse.com/search? 187 [8] https://www.thingiverse.com/search?category_id=73 188 [9] https://www.thingiverse.com/search?category_id=63 189 [10] https://www.thingiverse.com/search?category_id=64 190 [11] https://www.thingiverse.com/search?category_id=65 191 [12] https://www.thingiverse.com/search?category_id=66 192 [13] https://www.thingiverse.com/search?category_id=67 193 [14] https://www.thingiverse.com/search?category_id=69 194 [15] https://www.thingiverse.com/search?category_id=70 195 [16] https://www.thingiverse.com/search?category_id=71 196 [17] https://www.thingiverse.com/search?category_id=72 197 [18] https://www.thingiverse.com/search?category_id=0 198 [22] https://www.thingiverse.com/register 199 [23] https://www.thingiverse.com/login?redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thingiverse.com%2Fblog%3Fp%3Dprint-in-place-beginners-guide 200 [24] https://www.thingiverse.com/blog?a=alexandru-pascovici 201 [25] https://www.thingiverse.com/blog?c=guides 202 [26] https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3146835 203 [27] https://www.thingiverse.com/jonnig/designs 204 [28] https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4761150 205 [29] https://www.thingiverse.com/ecoiras/designs 206 [30] https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6894971 207 [31] https://www.thingiverse.com/mygadgetlife/designs 208 [32] https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4716051 209 [33] https://www.thingiverse.com/john_wet/designs 210 [34] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikvOHPZL6Cc 211 [35] https://ellis3dp.com/Print-Tuning-Guide/ 212 [36] https://www.thingiverse.com/ne 213 [37] https://facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fshare.dropinblog.com%2Fs%2Foaxvwz 214 [38] https://x.com/intent/post/?text=Print-in-place+-+Beginners+guide%0A&url=https%3A%2F%2Fshare.dropinblog.com%2Fs%2Foaxvwz 215 [39] https://wa.me/?text=Print-in-place+-+Beginners+guide%0Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fshare.dropinblog.com%2Fs%2Foaxvwz 216 [40] mailto:?subject=Print-in-place%20-%20Beginners%20guide&body=%0A%0APrint-in-place%20-%20Beginners%20guide%0Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fshare.dropinblog.com%2Fs%2Foaxvwz 217 [41] https://www.thingiverse.com/blog 218 [42] https://www.thingiverse.com/blog?p=getting-started-with-low-poly-models-a-beginners-printing-guide 219 [43] https://www.thingiverse.com/blog?p=hueforge-beginners-guide 220 [44] https://www.thingiverse.com/blog?p=articulated-prints-beginners-guide 221 [45] https://www.thingiverse.com/about 222 [46] https://www.soulcrafted.it/ 223 [47] https://www.thingiverse.com/support 224 [48] https://www.thingiverse.com/blog 225 [49] https://www.thingiverse.com/software/ultimaker-cura 226 [50] https://www.thingiverse.com/developers 227 [51] https://www.instagram.com/thingiverse 228 [52] https://www.tiktok.com/@thingiversewastaken 229 [53] https://www.youtube.com/@thingiversewastaken 230 [54] https://x.com/thingiverse 231 [55] https://www.facebook.com/Thingiverse 232 [58] https://www.thingiverse.com/about/advertising 233 [60] https://www.thingiverse.com/legal 234 [61] https://www.thingiverse.com/legal/privacy 235 [62] https://www.thingiverse.com/changelog