MyMiniFactory is home of a wonderful initiative. In the volume sense, they are not a rival for Kickstarter, but it is clear that they are growing their share in the TableTop Gaming and “Print & Paint” market niches. MyMiniFactory helps to run fundraising campaigns. Incidentally, probably as a victim of its own success, Thingiverse had significant outages (long loading) in 2018-2019. Thingiverse groups have a slightly limited functionality compared to the traditional forums but the goal is the same. In some cases, remixed versions get even more attention than the original versions. In relation to the previous point, Thingiverse has the best system for remixing the existing models. This approach greatly benefits open source movement. Under these terms, such files are not only free but also can be altered in any way. Thingiverse encourages to publish the files under Creative Commons License. MakerBot Thingiverse – The Best Open Source Open to everyone and, in rare cases, for a specific 3D printer or filament only. We would recommend to use such files (FFF-tagged thumbnails) with an extra caution and make sure that you use the recommended 3D printer and filament. A rare and brave case when the Gcode file sharing is encouraged. Printables Badges and Prusameters Reward System Publishing models, sharing makes, generating likes, and other activities reward members with Prusameters – points, that can be exchanged for real products, including filament. Designers and makers can level up their profiles by earning various badges. Another update on Printables is the introduction of gamification. They kept their promise and the big rebranding happened recently. Joseph Prusa and Prusa3D team have been assuring the community that their file repository would be more neutral and less brand-related. Some designers have all of their designs animated with the GIFs.

Such GIFs make the models, like Flexi articulated, for example, better presented. When browsing through Cults, you can find a lot of models displayed with the GIF animations. This gives hope to independent designers for 3D printing and encourages them not to be afraid to put a price tag on the models. A few talented designers managed to earn a substantial amount of money by selling their designs. We labeled the website as “The Best for Designers” as we witnessed the real success stories taking place there.

The high popularity of print in place articulated dragons pushed Cults to the first place in our ranking system. However, their vast collections contain a big amount of 3D printable files nevertheless. Such repositories as Sketchfab or CGTrader, for example, have a different focus. Not all file repositories were built in order to provide free or paid STLs for 3D printing in the first place. More Ways to Find Quality Files for 3D Printingįile Repositories – Free and Paid Files for 3D Printing.

Stl file 3d printing