Practical 3D printing, one project at a time
I share the prints, ideas, and experiments that work in real homes. From small gifts to useful everyday tools, this is my workshop log.
What I am printing right now
Big news on the bench this week: there is a second printer in the workshop. The Anycubic Kobra X arrived after a 10% Amazon discount dropped it to £234 — a price that was impossible to argue with. It is set up, calibrated, and already pulling its weight. The first test prints have been clean, it is noticeably quieter than the A1, and the touchscreen and app integration are better than expected. A full head-to-head comparison with the Bambu A1 is coming — but first impressions are very strong.
Having two printers on the desk has already paid off. The Yoshi figure — printed as a follow-up to the Mario and Luigi figures that went down so well with my godson — ran colour jobs on both machines simultaneously, cutting the overall build time considerably. Yoshi is now on the shelf completing the Super Mario set. The questions about what comes next in the series have already started.
The Grinch is also progressing. ENIQUE3D’s Not-So-XL build is a substantial multi-day project and it is still in progress — parts are accumulating and assembly is being planned. It will be worth it. These seasonal builds always are.
On the radar this week: the Anycubic Kobra 4 has been announced, sitting in a confusing position alongside the Kobra X with the older ACE 2 Pro external system rather than the integrated ACE Gen 2 architecture. The post is up if you want to dig into why that is an odd move. Also watching the Bambu Lab vs OrcaSlicer situation closely — the ecosystem closure concerns are real and worth understanding if you are a Bambu user.
Head to the Projects section for the full build logs, settings, and honest notes on what worked and what did not.
What’s New & Worth Knowing
Printers, tools, and products worth knowing about. Honest editorial from an experienced hobbyist — covering new releases, considered purchases, and anything on the 3D printing radar worth your attention.
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Bambu Lab R1 Laser Engraver & Cutter — What Do We Actually Know?
Bambu Lab has announced a new product category for the first time since the H-series brought a laser module to the printer lineup, and this one is genuinely different in kind rather than another printer variant. The R1 is a standalone laser engraver and cutter — not a module bolted onto a 3D printer, but…
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Bambu Lab Is Researching AI That Splits Models Into Parts — Here’s Why That’s a Bigger Deal Than It Sounds
All3DP’s Carolyn Schwaar reported on August 10, 2026 that researchers from Bambu Lab and three Chinese universities have published an open-source AI system called SegviGen, capable of automatically identifying the individual components inside a 3D model — a piece of research covered in Bambu Lab Researchers Are Teaching AI to Split Models Into 3D Printable…
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Is Adding the Laser Module to a Bambu H2D Actually Worth It?
The H2D was always the machine sitting at the top of the Bambu range that I had no immediate use case for — a large-format dual-nozzle printer already covers most of what I need beyond the A1 and A2L, and the idea of bolting a laser onto a 3D printer sounded, on first hearing, like…
Recent prints from the workshop
A mix of functional home items, small gifts, and experiments. All printed on the A1 unless noted.
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Building a Live Plane Radar for the Desk — Where This Hobby Stops Being Just About Plastic
Every so often a project comes along that reminds me why I got into this hobby in the first place, and it is never purely about the plastic. The 3D printer is a brilliant tool, but the most satisfying projects are the ones where it is one component of something bigger rather than the entire…
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A 3D-Printed Bambu Lab Status Display Using a £10 Touchscreen — Where Two Hobbies Collide
This post is directly inspired by a piece published on the Adafruit blog on July 9th 2026, which featured the CYD Desk Buddy project by MakerWorld designer annaglyph. Full credit to Adafruit and annaglyph for the original — the links to both are at the bottom and I encourage anyone interested to visit both. What…
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Eight Colours on the A1: Why I Bought Two BCMUs and What I’ve Found So Far (Part 1)
This is part one of what will be an ongoing multi-part series. I have just bought two BCMU units, the A1 has detected both of them as AMS A and AMS B, and things look very promising — but I am not far enough into the setup to write the definitive guide yet. What I…
Materials I use every day
I print mostly in PLA and PETG. TPU when needed, and resin only when the job requires very fine detail. These notes come from practical use and real results, not datasheet theory.
PLA
Reliable, versatile, and ideal for most home prints. Easy to dial in and great for gifts.
PETG
Tougher and more temperature resistant. Useful for mechanical parts.
TPU
Flexible and fun. Ideal for bumpers, grips, and soft components.
Guides and workflow notes
Short walkthroughs based on real use. Settings that work, slicer approaches that help, and fixes that save time.
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Best Alternatives to Benchy for Test Prints
Benchy has been the default test print for so long that printing one is treated almost as a rite of passage — unbox a new machine, print a Benchy, post it online. As of February 2025, the model was formally released into the public domain by Creative Tools, the studio that designed it, which if…
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Bambu Studio Support Settings, Properly Explained
Supports are one of those settings panels most people leave on Auto forever, and for a lot of prints that is genuinely fine. But the moment a model has overhangs that are catching support in the wrong places, surfaces that are getting scarred where they should stay clean, or supports that will not release without…
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Can You Polish PLA? Yes — Here’s the Actual Guide (and the Acetone Myth to Ignore)
Yes, you can absolutely polish PLA to a smooth, glossy, layer-line-free finish. The bit that trips people up before they even get started is a piece of advice that circulates constantly and is simply wrong: acetone vapour smoothing, the technique that works so well on ABS, does not work on PLA. Search this topic and…
About 3DBite
I started 3D printing more than fifteen years ago with a kit that needed constant tuning. Modern printers like the A1 make things far easier, but the engineering mindset still helps. 3DBite is where I share the projects, the materials, and the workflow that have worked for me.