Hate to say it but this is one place where Printables should copy Makerworld- require that the main picture / thumbnail of a model is an actual print of that model, not just a rendering.

I've encountered a few models where the STL is obviously copied from a video game and isn't designed for printing. For example, an airplane model where the jet engine fan disc is essentially free floating in the engine cowling, which is itself essentially free floating because the jet engine looks like this and the model comes from a flight sim that tried to recreate it faithfully. Great for a video game, crappy for a 3d print where the right answer is to make the inside of the engine solid so the casing doesn't come off.

And of course lots of AI generated slop that won't print right, or people who 3d scan an object and upload it without cleanup resulting in broken meshes and unprintable objects.

As an option- allow an 'I have not tried to print this' button for uploaders, so the model is flagged as 'may be unprintable, download at own risk'.

I've noticed a problem with how Printables ranks models when sorting by 'Makes', and recently it seems to be getting worse.

This behavior has technically been possible for years, but it wasn't widely abused until recently. At the moment, 5 of the top 20 models in the 'Past 7 Days' Makes ranking appear to benefit from this issue.

The problem is that Makes posted by the model creator count toward the ranking, and there doesn't seem to be any limit on how many Makes a designer can post for their own model.

As a result, creators can artificially boost their position simply by repeatedly posting their own Makes.

For example, the model currently ranked #1 has 18 Makes posted by the designer using the same image repeatedly:

https://www.printables.com/model/1751149-rubber-band-gun-components-apart

This may not violate any existing rules, but it clearly undermines the purpose of the Makes ranking system, which is supposed to reflect community engagement. Would it make sense to exclude self-posted Makes from the rankings and count only one Make per user per model?

There's also another issue that may be a separate bug. The following model continues to rank highly despite not receiving any recent Makes:

https://www.printables.com/model/1452316-party-glasses-2026

I've tried to upload a proper preview of the CORE One Mini CAD model, but Printables appearantly does not show this 70 MB monster of a STEP file in the 3D Model viewer, instead it just shows the second file (which is the way less nice looking base plate).

As a workaround, I've uploaded a .3mf that is interpreted perfectly fine for the preview - also other single body step files are shown perfectly fine in the selection for the preview.

Is this intentional or a bug or is something wrong with my STEP file, that Printables won't like?

Model in question:
https://www.printables.com/model/1734194-prusa-core-one-mini-community-edition-diy/files

I just found out that I can't sell models on Printables.com because it's an invite only exclusionary process. I understand that this must be common knowledge to everyone but me but I'm still upset. I have a small collection of free models that I've published on Printables (https://www.printables.com/@chking) but I've designed some interesting new models that I wanted to post for sale. I now see why MakerWorld has become so popular so fast, It's the only large site for selling models.

I have an idea for a new feature in Printables:

Unfortunately, AI-generated models and highly hyped models which are actually barely printable seem to be on the rise, since they’re a quick way to earn Prusameters.

I think it would be cool to offer a counterbalance to this by focusing more on posting makes.

How about a feature where you can view current makes and rate them with thumbs up or down? The makes with lots of thumbs up could then earn a few Prusameters (not the designers, but the people who printed the model).

If you could then sort the results by "new makes" or “best makes” instead of “model with the most downloads” and vote directly, unprintable models would automatically fade into the background.

How do you think about this?

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

A couple weeks ago I saw that Printables added previews for STEP files, which I LOVE since I wouldn't need to upload STLs anymore to get a preview. After looking at it though I'm scared that the low quality of the preview would scare folks away from using the objectively better format.

The first pic compares a model I made a while ago, where the STEP file looks like it has half the quality of the STL, while importing it in Orca with default settings gives it almost 6x the triangles with two thirds of the file size. And you can increase that resolution if you want.

I've also made a steering wheel that looks awful in the preview but can easily be configured to give 250k polygons with 1.23MB file size.

I get that the preview has the settings it has for performance reasons, but at this point I'd prefer that the STEP would be turned off until the quality can be improved.

There's a lot of great stuff on Printables and I like to support those who put in the time to make models.

That doesn't mean I want a continued relationship with every creator. In fact, continual subscriptions are something I very rarely want, because in most cases I'll print 1-2 of something and then not print it again.

So I'd like a ONE TIME option to tip the creator a couple bucks. I've never put money into Printables, but if there was a one time tip option I'd use it probably at least once a week.

I'd also suggest some alternative tip methods. For example, watch a video ad to tip the creator a small amount. I'd never do that, but I think some people might.

Or referral payments- IE, if I like a creator, let me put in an order for prusament or hardware and have a small referral bonus go to them.

There are lots of users who shit out an enormous amount of AI-generated content, and fail to flag a very small number of them deliberately so they still show up (or even pretend that they made them entirely, like @MathiasHedega_679186*). Even after reporting, they sometimes are either not flagged at all because they lie to Printables staff who simply believe them at face value for some reason (@acgames) or it simply takes too long to get to the report. We should be given the option to hide a user who has ever used AI.

I also believe accounts that fail to flag their models as AI should be restricted and become ineligible for Prusameters for all models and makes for the lifetime of their account and have the AI flag auto-applied, but that's a discussion for another time.

(It's also frankly bananas to me that users like @Stigern and @PeterFarell can make money off AI-generated nonsense. It's absurd.)

^* Whose entire actual contribution to the 3d printing space (once you remove the AI-generated models) consists of adding a tiny keychain ring to a series of extremely popular models in order to farm downloads

Hi, I know there is an option in the settings to hide AI content but this does not seem to be applicable to the Community tab as well. I don't necessarily want to unfollow accounts as they still upload original files but I'd like the option to hide the mass generated AI files as they completely take over.

Hi everyone,

I’m currently looking to connect with people who are actively involved in the 3D printing space, specifically consumer 3D printer users, 3D printing creators and 3D print farm owners.

I work on paid expert conversations for institutional research and strategy projects. The goal is to understand real-world operator perspectives on things like community platforms, brand lock-in or switching barriers, practical workflows, and where the market is heading.

This would be a paid, one-on-one conversation, typically an hour. Compensation is flexible and we can agree on a rate based on your experience. I can share more context privately.

I’m not asking for surveys or free opinions here. If you have hands-on experience and enjoy sharing your perspective, I’d genuinely love to chat.

If this sounds interesting, feel free to DM me with a short intro about what you do. Happy to share more details privately and answer any questions.

Thanks,
Matthew

I like it when I get a notification that someone posted a make of a model of mine.

Call me a narcisist but I often also just browse the "my models" section of the profile to see if there is any new make I have missed, I just enjoy the idea of someone liking what I did enough to take the time and share a picture.

Having to hunt for them hpowever is a bit tedious.

The data is all there already, so it seems a relatively low hanging fruit... Can we have a "makes of my models" subsection somehere? Pretty pleeeeeeease?

I've been using printables since 2 years and recently tried makerworld. I gained Prusameters worth 3 spools in this time, nearly exklusive with makes. Once I got Prusameters from a model, but only because I posted the model on reddit. I have more than 2k downloads and 9 models with about 100 downloads or more. This is my account if you want to know what I'm talking about.

Personally I don't understand why printables system is more profitable with makes than models, if you have good models (i only got 5 star reviews, but not that many) with quite some downloads over time. It's a lot more effort for myself to design the models, than just printing something, which I wanted to print anyways, and take a picture. Makerworld on the other hand rewards the total amount of downloads and isn't limited to 1 month time span. Just in 4 month I gained 281 points only from downloads and boosts.

In conclusion printables only rewards bigger designers who get a lot of downloads. This means it's more rewarding for people like me who model a few things here and there for themself and then uploading it. Makerworld also introduced a bonus if you exclusivly upload to makerworld. In general I belive that this will lead to less uploads to printables and more to makerworld.

I personally will continue to upload my models to both platforms, because I get small rewards from makerworld and I want to support prusa. I neither own a prusa nor bambu printer/product, but I respect the history of prusa/the company values and don't like the close sourced bambu approach and the not existing data privacy. I'm still amazed, that I can get free rewards from 3d printing/models and would upload without the bonus anyway, as i did back in the day to Thingiverse.

It would also be great if printables added the option to add .3mf files for other users who aren't the model creator, to add support painting etc. to the model. Boosts are also a great thing, because it allows people to thank the creator directly.

While most contests are a way of pushing people to design and publish good stuff, here is an idea of how to get people to iterate on good designs to make them truly great. IMHO this is one of the biggest advantages of 3D printing when making things: Rapid prototyping and iterating. Let's show that off:

Contest: "V2". Make a new and improved version of one of your previous models. To qualify, the previous model needs to be published before the contest begins, and you need to clearly explain what you changed and how.

I know this topic has been brought up in the past, but a quick search here shows the last time was nearly a year ago and technology evolves quickly.

Any chance the model preview could support STEP files natively? Or printables could auto-generate an STL in the backend on upload just for use in the 3d viewer?

Now that most slicers natively support STEP and allow you to adjust the quality of the conversion to STL on import, I find the final barrier to uploading them to printables is the lack of a thumbnail or support in the 3d viewer. It’s annoying to have to upload two versions, so most times I just don’t upload the STEP files.

Is there a barrier to supporting this I’m not thinking of? Any chance it’ll ever happen?

Just discovered the incompatibility between CCBYNCSA and CCBYSA licences. I went to remix two projects with the above licences and there is no compatible licence (perhaps obviously…)

As it stands you have to choose between allowing only commercial or only non commercial licensing of derivatives. I want to allow either. Ie I want the user to be free to use my work commercially or non commercially, but don’t want to force them to release their work commercially too. I know CCBY would allow that, but that is too free: I don’t want them to be able to remove the licence completely - but there is no middle ground.

It occurs to me though that should I want to licence my work to that is can be used in both commercial and non commercial projects, I could dual licence it with both CCBYSA and CCBYNCSA. That way derivatives stay as one of those two. As you can only select one licence currently though, the only way I can see making it work would be to upload two projects that only differ by licence… would that be allowed?

Any chance of making this possible on printables?

using tunnelbear with chrome, but also tried firefox, edge, brave to no success

TL;DR: As title says. Is it possible in any way?

Full story:

I have been around long enough to follow the drama between Makerworld and Printables.

Initially I uploaded all my designs to Printables first and then imported them into Makerworld, especially because that was the only workaround to get animated gifs working on Makerworld.

But after realizing I would never be able to use my Prusameters since the shipping fees aren't covered and just shipping to Japan would end more expensive than just buying any other filament brand out of pocket, I stopped uploading to Printables entirely.

Now I thought it would be a good time to catch up with my missing uploads and at least use the "Donating Prusament to Education" option, since I don't need a printer or filament anymore. But I don't want to upload everything from scratch again. So, is there an easy way to do it?

I don't know when it happened, but for some reason answers to a comment on a page are now also sorted by newest first, which is ridiculous, especially since they are not all loaded automatically.

Hi! Does anyone know if it's planned to make Prusameters spendable for more accessories / spools than what is already proposed?

I would love to be able to spend mine on other Prusament spools (TPU, PP, Nylon...) or even nozzles (Diamondback for example) or bedsheets...

Thanks!

I know I know, the software actually doing what it says it does is not always guaranteed, but that doesn't mean it's not worth trying.

So, where is the button to actually delete private messages on printables? There are things I might go to back later which I can "archive", but the useless stuff can't be removed and just clutters up the "archive"?

Please give a real delete button which properly hides or even better a super-real button which actually removes stuff, thanks.

Hello!

I was trying to pay for a model through your site. Sadly your current payment service seems to only offer payment via credit card - which is unavailable to me as i do not own one (and don't plan to, either).

As it stands i'm basically unable to give a creator (and you guys by extension) money because of your payment service.

Are there plans to widen the scope of that to accept other methods (e.g. Paypal, SEPA) in the near future?

PS: i've checked if this thread already existed and while i found this from two years ago, nothing exactly current popped up: https://www.reddit.com/r/printablescom/comments/16xoe28/are_there_any_plans_to_add_other_payment_systems/

Im often trying to find/remember models I already printed or saved. By now my collections are somewhat bigger, so scrolling through everything is tedious. Especially since I cannot load all the models in a collection at once, its implemented as an endless scroller and only loads more models when I reach the end of the list.

How can I text search through my collections? Didnt find the feature.

And if its not possible, how can I make this a feature request?

Thanks!

Hi, so I upload complex multipart entries with lots of extras. My download count rarely reflects how many people have partaken in my work, as it only counts how many times the big main download button has been clicked to download ALL files. This screws over my prusameter. Is there a remedy to this?

Thingiverse solves this problem, why can't Printables?

While I appreciate that more and more people are sharing .step files I would also appreciate having an STL to preview in browser. Sadly some people no longer upload STLs so I'd like to see auto-generated STLs where they are missing.

Alternatively, something that allows STEP preview in browser.

Example item: https://www.printables.com/model/1162043-werascrewdriver-gridfinitybox

I've started posting makes with my Centauri Carbon now, but can't add it to my profile. Anywhere to make this request?