40 terms, explained plainly

A unit holding four filament spools that lets one printer switch between them mid-print, producing genuinely multi-colour parts in a single job.

Why it matters. Colour goes all the way through the plastic instead of being painted on. Cost scales with the number of colour changes rather than the number of colours, so grouping colours by height is much cheaper.

The largest box a printer can build inside. Ours are 256 mm and 300 mm cubes.

Why it matters. A part longer than 300 mm has to be split into sections and bonded. We design the split at a sensible seam rather than improvising it.

A sealed box around the printer that keeps the air inside warm.

Why it matters. ABS, ASA and polycarbonate shrink as they cool. Without an enclosure they warp, lift off the plate and crack. Both our machines are enclosed, which is what makes those materials reliable rather than merely possible.

Fused deposition modelling. A printer melts plastic filament and draws your part one thin layer at a time, each layer welding to the one below it.

Why it matters. It is the process we run, and the reason parts are strong along the layers and weaker across them. Orientation on the build plate therefore changes how strong your part is.

How thick each printed layer is, from 0.08 mm at our finest to 0.35 mm at our fastest.

Why it matters. Thinner layers look better and capture more detail, but there are more of them, so the print takes proportionally longer and costs more. Most functional parts do not need the finest setting.

Everything done after printing: removing supports, deburring edges, sanding, priming.

Why it matters. It is manual labour, so it is the part of the price that scales with how good you need the surface to look.

When a printer swaps filament, it pushes the old colour out of the nozzle before printing resumes. That flushed plastic is waste.

Why it matters. It is the entire reason multi-colour parts cost more, roughly 45% extra material and 35% extra time.

Converting your 3D model into the layer-by-layer instructions a printer follows.

Why it matters. It is where orientation, infill, supports and speeds are decided. We do it by hand per part rather than accepting a generic preset, which is a large part of what the setup fee pays for.

Temporary scaffolding printed underneath overhanging parts of your model, removed by hand afterwards.

Why it matters. Supports cost material and time, and they leave witness marks where they were attached. Designing overhangs shallower than about 50° avoids them entirely.

Stronger in one direction than another.

Why it matters. A printed part can be roughly half as strong across the layers as along them. This is the single biggest thing separating a printed part from a moulded one, and why we ask which way your part is loaded.

ABS with the UV-vulnerable component replaced, giving genuine resistance to sunlight and weather.

Why it matters. The only filament we stock that survives outdoors. Everything else yellows and goes brittle within a season in Indian sun.

The plastic wire an FDM printer melts. Sold on spools, usually 1.75 mm thick.

The temperature at which a plastic stops being rigid and starts to soften and deform under load.

Why it matters. It is the number that decides whether your part survives its environment, and it is almost always lower than people expect.

A steel nozzle that resists abrasion, needed for any filament containing carbon or glass fibre.

Why it matters. Carbon fibre grinds a normal brass nozzle away in hours, and a worn nozzle prints badly long before it fails outright. Both our machines run hardened nozzles as standard.

High-temperature nylon with chopped carbon fibre mixed in. The strongest material we print, usable to 120 °C.

Why it matters. Excellent stiffness-to-weight and fatigue life, so it is the metal-replacement candidate. It is also the most expensive, and over-specified more often than any other filament.

A tough, water-resistant filament from the same family as drinks bottles. Handles about 75 °C.

Why it matters. The sensible default for functional parts. It bends before it breaks, unlike PLA which shatters.

The cheapest and easiest filament. Excellent detail, almost no warping.

Why it matters. It softens at about 55 °C, which a parked car or a sunny windowsill reaches easily. Fine indoors, wrong for anything hot or outdoors.

A genuine rubber-like elastomer for gaskets, grips, seals and bumpers.

Why it matters. It prints slowly and from an external spool, so it cannot be combined in a multi-colour job.

A horizontal span printed between two points that already exist. Works up to roughly 50 mm because the plastic stretches taut between the anchors.

The deliberate gap between two parts that must fit together.

Why it matters. Two parts modelled to nominal will not fit. A sliding fit needs about 0.3 mm total, a snug fit 0.15–0.2 mm.

Adjusting a design so it prints well: wall thicknesses, overhangs, hole sizing, orientation, splitting oversized parts.

Why it matters. Most files we receive were drawn for machining or moulding. A handful of changes makes them dramatically better as printed parts. The review is free with every quote.

The slight outward bulge on the first few layers, caused by the nozzle squashing them into the plate for adhesion.

Why it matters. Usually 0.1–0.2 mm and harmless, but it stops a part seating flat in a pocket. A 0.5 mm chamfer on the bottom edge fixes it.

A small brass bush with a metal thread, pushed into a printed hole with a soldering iron.

Why it matters. Printed threads strip and self-tapping screws only survive a couple of insertions. An insert gives a real metal thread that takes hundreds of cycles. This is the right answer for almost anything that gets unscrewed.

The lattice inside a printed part. At 20% infill the interior is 20% plastic and 80% air.

Why it matters. People raise it to make parts stronger, but for bending loads the outer walls do nearly all the work. Adding perimeters is usually cheaper and more effective.

A surface that leans outward with nothing beneath it. Past about 50° from vertical it needs support.

Merging what would have been several assembled components into one printed part.

Why it matters. Printing has no draft angles or undercut limits, so a nine-piece welded assembly can often become a single part. Fewer fasteners, no leak paths, less assembly labour.

The solid outer walls of a printed part, built from a whole number of nozzle-width passes.

Why it matters. This is where a part gets most of its stiffness. Asking for more perimeters beats raising infill nearly every time.

The common 3D file formats. STL is a mesh of triangles; STEP is a proper solid model that can still be edited.

Why it matters. Send STEP if you have it, because it can be modified. Our estimator measures STL files directly in your browser, so you get a price without uploading anything.

How far a finished dimension may differ from the model. We hold ±0.20 mm, or ±0.3% on larger features.

Why it matters. On a 200 mm span that is ±0.6 mm. If two mounting holes must line up with a metal chassis, design one as a slot.

How thick the solid walls of your model are, ideally a multiple of 0.4 mm.

Why it matters. Ask for 1.0 mm and the printer cannot fit a whole number of passes, leaving a gap or an over-extruded bulge. A 1.2 mm wall is stronger than a 1.4 mm one.

A model with no holes or gaps in its surface, so the software can tell inside from outside.

Why it matters. Non-watertight files cannot be sliced reliably. Models exported from architectural and rendering software are frequently not watertight, and need repair first.

Layers coming apart, leaving a clean horizontal split through the part.

Why it matters. Often invisible until the part is loaded. Caused by the same cooling stress as warping, which is why chamber control matters.

Measuring the first part of a production run against your critical dimensions before making the rest.

Why it matters. Stops us producing forty parts that all share the same fault. Standard on every production batch.

A physical part kept from each qualified production run.

Why it matters. If a reorder is ever questioned months later, there is something to measure against rather than an argument about what the part used to be like.

Fine threads of plastic left between features as the nozzle travels.

Why it matters. Cosmetic rather than structural, and removed during finishing.

A part pulling itself off the build plate or bending as it cools, because plastic contracts as it solidifies.

Why it matters. The main failure mode with ABS, ASA and PC. Controlled by an enclosed chamber and by avoiding large flat areas.

Making real production parts by printing, in the volumes between prototyping and injection moulding.

Why it matters. Lets you ship and sell before committing capital to a tool, and change the design between batches for free.

Mass production by injecting plastic into a steel tool. Very cheap per part, very expensive to start.

Why it matters. The crossover with printing usually falls somewhere between 1,000 and 5,000 units, but the real trigger is whether your design has stopped changing.

The smallest amount we can invoice, ₹350.

Why it matters. Below it, the labour of quoting, slicing, scheduling and packing costs more than the job earns. Almost every Indian bureau has one.

A flat per-job charge covering file review, slicing, plate preparation and inspection.

Why it matters. Charged once per job, not per part. Ordering ten of something splits it ten ways, which is why batching is the biggest saving available.