What is 3D FDM Printing?
Ever wonder how those cool plastic prototypes or custom parts are made? Well, Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) 3D printing is a process where a printer precisely melts and extrudes thin strands of plastic filament, layering them on top of each other to build a three-dimensional object from the ground up. Think of it like a super-controlled hot glue gun building your design layer by layer.
Have you ever been working and one small part of your equipment breaks? You go online to find a replacement only to find out that particular part is almost as expensive as replacing the entire item, or worse; it's no longer made!
Have you ever grown tired of settling for product designs that just don’t suit your needs? Want to design your own solutions and bring them to life in the physical world? Let our 3D printers be the tool to help take your idea from your mind into reality!
HackPGH has a completely new 3D Print Farm in 2024, including a new dedicated Slicer computer with multiple slicing programs including Bambu Studio, Prusa Slicer, and Cura. We currently have five active FDM (filament) 3D printers available for all members to use, each with their own capabilities depending on the project you are working on. All of our printers are less than a year old as of 2024. Hack has a variety of filaments available, ranging from basic PLA to flexible TPU to Nylon filaments. And we’re not just talking boring standards like gray, black, and white - but a wide variety of color filaments as well as cosmetic textures like galaxy, silk, dual/multi-color, and glow in the dark!