5 3D Printer Accessories You Can 3D Print

3D printers are a DIYer’s dream, not just because they can upgrade anything from your office to your garage, but because they themselves are heavily upgradable. The list of accessories you can get for your 3D printer goes on and on. Better yet, they’re kind of like an Ouroboros (that’s the snake that eats its own tail) because they can print themselves. Yes, people have printed 3D printers with 3D printers. In the same vein, you can use the 3D printer you already have to make more parts for it.

This list could be as long as a book if we wanted it to be. So, in the interest of keeping things simple, here are five 3D printer accessories you can make with your device. For the most part, these should be simple projects that don’t require tricky, multi-run prints but which still add a ton of utility to the printer you already own. We won’t be including prints compatible with all 3D printers, of course, but the concept is generally universal, and you can probably find a design for your model of printer or make your own.

Removing a 3D print that’s stuck to the bed can be a surprising challenge. You likely will be forced to chop away at the base even just a little bit or put pressure on the print until it eventually comes loose. For a (possibly) delicate design that might have taken hours to print, this sounds like a surefire way to break it. Try instead a tool made specifically for the purpose, with more forgiving plastic blades, like this Bambu Lab Scraper by Stephanos.

This scraper in particular, compared to most on MakerWorld, has a removable blade design that only requires two screws to assemble. There’s only one catch: The design doesn’t come with a model for the blades themselves. Instead, the creator recommends that you buy injection-molded ones in bulk as cheaply as you can from an online retailer. Also, keep in mind that the screws that this model uses are meant to work with the ones on the Bambu scraper. Otherwise, try the M3 version.

If this particular scraper doesn’t quite fit your needs, then you won’t have any trouble finding an alternative. Check the Mini Bed Scraper by Jonas Daehnert. It might not have replaceable blades, but printing a replacement due to wear should be fast and require minimal material. If you choose to use metal blades with your scraper tool, then consider a protective cap for it. This Bambu Lab Scraper Cap by exopunk should do the trick.

Filament can come unwound from its spool. It happens. Or perhaps you bought a refill that you need to transfer to your printer’s spool. Whatever the case, you will likely at some point need a filament respooler or spool winder tool. The Simple Filament Respooler For Drill by timon.nabholz does that simple job well with minimal parts. The respooler is comprised of a threaded clamp to secure the spool to whichever cordless power drill you have on hand. It’s only the drill clamp that’s included, so we’d recommend something like this spool roller by Jakub Lattenberg to hold and spin the second spool to make the process easier.

A more complex alternative (but easier and more convenient to use) is this Pastamatic Filament Spool Winder by GekoPrime. GekoPrime’s version is a full geared assembly that holds and turns both spools, requiring again only a standard power drill to drive it. It’s a lot of pieces and does require a couple of minutes of assembly (there’s a video guide showing you how), but the creator claims that the design is ultimately as simple and robust as you can get for this kind of winder/respooler setup. We recommend this latter option only if you’ve been doing a lot of respooling. The simple respooler is probably more than enough for people who print only once in a while.

3D printers do something known as “purging,” where they eject melted and warped pieces of filament out the back end to clean out the nozzle and change filament. In the 3D printing community, this purging is humorously referred to by a word we prefer not to use because of how SEO works, so we’ll just say “junking.” Anyway, after a print, you might see a whole bunch of this purged material on the floor unless your printer includes a means to catch it. Build yourself a chute and/or a bin to gather it up.

The X1C/P1S/P2S Junk Chute Tube by ImBadAtCad directs the material out and down into a receptacle below — for example, into a waste bin under the table where the printer is situated. If you typically do smaller prints that don’t require as much purging, you can probably get away with something like this Flashforge Adventurer 5X Junk Bin by Molodos. It’s a simple square receptacle that can be easily removed for dumping. Some designs, like the X1C P1P P1S Junk Chute Bin by eclien, are a sort of chute/bin combination for a printer that might be pressed up against the wall where you can’t easily access the backside. And if you’ve got a big print or you’d rather empty out the bin less frequently, then big junk bins like this Anycubic Kobra X Printer Junk Bin by Spezi will be more of your style.

In case it wasn’t clear, these designs are all for different types of 3D printers. Finding a design that’s been made for yours shouldn’t be too difficult, though. If anything, we’re just giving you inspiration on what sorts of chutes and bins are available to you — and perhaps inspiration to design your own.

Swatches are indispensable if you use a lot of different filaments and colors for your prints. They’re sort of like those free paint color samples you get at a Home Depot paint department, albeit as a 3D-printed tester square that shows you how the color actually looks once it’s printed, how strong (or bendable) it is, and how transparent it will be when printed thin. A lot of enthusiasts will keep an entire catalog of them to quickly check the filament they have in mind to determine if it’s up for the job. To facilitate this process, a whole bunch of clever users have made swatch holders to store them.

Our personal favorite is this spinning filament swatch box by TheChrisgamer. Swatches sit in their own individual slots (organized by color) on a turning carousel that raises up a handful of swatches to be plucked out. A ball bearing isn’t necessary — you can print one directly in — but it will help. We like this one because it’s compact and looks really slick.

Buddz’s Linear Filament Swatch Holder V2 uses the same concept, albeit in a straight line. This design is probably ideal if the carousel design isn’t really your vibe or if you need a more storage-friendly solution. If you want something closer to those Home Depot paint color samples we mentioned earlier, then the Modular Filament Swatch Palette by Valera Perinski is an excellent choice. The palette design is modular, therefore able to support as many (or as few) swatch catalogs as you’d like.

3D printers use a lead screw and linear rails to move the printing assembly up or down, and left or right. Both are metal parts that need precise movements and therefore lubrication to ensure smooth operation. However, if you’ve ever lubed mechanical parts, you know the lube quickly finds its way onto your hands and feels next to impossible to clean off. Make your 3D printer maintenance a whole lot easier with a so-called “lube helper.”

A lube helper is an angled half-circle notch with a handle. Squirt the lube inside the notch, then drag it along lead screws and linear rails. Simple, easy, and keeps your hands clean. This P & X Series lube helper by SavageLau is our recommendation for an easy-to-print yet effective solution. Another version by the same creator helps reach screws and rails that the former cannot.

Before applying lube, you may need to clean the screws. There’s a tool to facilitate that process as well. Try the Bambu Lead Screw Cleaning Tool by WileyWicks, which is basically just a clamp to squeeze an alcohol prep pad tightly enough against the screw to dislodge whatever debris is stuck between the threads. Some users in the comments complained about the lack of clamping force, and the creator created a version 2 to address that — though we can’t link it here due to licensing issues. Nonetheless, both the lube helper and the screw cleaning tool are going to be game changers during maintenance.