I’ve Collected Dozens of 3D Printing Accessories Over 10 Years. Here Are the Ones I Use Daily

No, this isn’t a best list for hair products. This water-based hairspray creates a thin adhesive layer that helps your prints stay stuck to your build plate. It’s easily washable and very cheap, making it one of the best accessories you can get. I always have a stockpile of Aquanet and use it on almost every print.

Simply spray a light dusting on your plate before you print — preferably outside the printer so you don’t get it on the mechanisms — and let it dry. From there, it’ll help keep the corners of your print from curling up.

While most filaments don’t really need warming up before you use them, some popular ones, like TPU, will print better if they are warm and dry. The Sunlu filament dryer is a great way to take the roll of material you’re using and keep it warm and dry as you print with it. It can keep an even temperature all around the roll, keeping the moisture level even across the length.

3D Gloop is the best way to fuse models that you’ve printed in pieces into one giant print. The chemical composition doesn’t just stick to the plastic; it chemically fuses them together, and the resulting piece is so strong that it’s almost impossible to break. Note: 3D Gloop is not for sticking prints to the build plate; that’s what Aquanet is for. It’s uses specifically to bond plastic together.

I fought a robot at tug-of-war to see if we could break the 3D Gloop bond, and it wasn’t possible. In fact, the plastic in the layers of the 3D print gives way before the Gloop does. This stuff is amazing.

These little storage caddies are incredibly helpful for more than just storing shower products. The separate compartments make it easy to store all your hex key wrenches, scrapers and filament cutters in a way that makes it easy to move them around your workspace with the handy handle. I have three of these in my workshop, and I use them to store 3D-printing tools, assorted glues and sandpapers with different grits. It makes life a lot easier.

You should probably buy a bunch of these for handy organizing in general, honestly. We also use them for movie nights to store candy and popcorn.

These build plates might help your prints stick to the bed better, but that’s not really what makes them so great. The holographic graphics you can see on the surface transfer over onto the bottom layer of your print without removing them from the plate itself. Well, actually, it will remove them over time, so you can think of these plates as a consumable product, but they last through dozens, if not hundreds, of prints.

It’s a fascinating process and one that can elevate a lot of your prints, especially if you’re printing a lot of flat images or walls. These circles are not the only choice either. There are hearts, stars, and all sorts of cool effects. They also come in different sizes, depending on your print bed area so make sure you choose the right one.

A digital caliper is a helpful 3D-printing accessory, especially if you’re creating your own models. Most can measure details down to a thousandth of a millimeter, which lets you design with a high degree of accuracy. I like to use my 3D printer to fix broken things around the house, and to do that, I need correct measurements wherever possible.
Having a set of calipers also helps you measure your prints to make sure they’re printing in the correct size and shape.

This may come as a surprise, but nozzles don’t last forever. Even melted plastic can be rough, especially exotic materials like carbon fiber’s glow-in-the-dark filament. That roughness sands away at a nozzle changing its diameter and ruining it over time.

The E3D ObXidian is a specially coated nozzle that resists grinding. It lasts far longer than any standard steel nozzle and is the perfect upgrade for your Bambu Lab A1 or A1 Mini and you can even get them for your P1P, P1s, or X1C too.

These shelves, made in the USA, are designed to hold round filament spools without collapsing into a nest of broken filament. Their construction is solid, and they all have a rotating base that makes spinning them around to find the right spool a breeze.

This shelf holds up to 24 one-kilogram spools, but a larger version is available that can hold up to 20 spools and includes a rolling base to make moving around your workshop easier. Those with print farms will find this extremely helpful for refilling filament across multiple machines.

Note: Home Depot has updated the look of these stackable storage cupboards, but the price and usability remains the same.

Having a central place to store your materials is important to keeping them safe and dry. These expandable and easy-to-build cabinets from Home Depot are perfect for stacking filament or resins safely. The cupboards are themselves stackable, so you can expand as your material collection grows.

For my garage, I have a small portable dehumidifier that I keep in the cupboard to help maintain a good moisture level in spite of the swamp-like conditions in Virginia.

Magigoo is like a glue stick on steroids. It’s specifically designed to hold 3D prints to the build plate while printing, but it comes loose easily when the bed is finally cooled. It’s satisfying to print models that are barely touching the build surface but that act like they’re held down with cement. A small bottle goes a long way too, so it’s worth the price.

When models first come off the build plate, they often have sharp edges, especially if you’ve used a brim to anchor them down. A deburring tool like this smooths those edges with a simple swipe across the corner. It takes a little getting used to, and the blade spins freely, so be careful, but if you’re making something for people to handle, a deburring tool is a must, especially if you’re looking to sell your wares.

If you live here in the US, you may well have a set of hex wrenches you use for most things. However, 3D printers are made using metric measurements, not inches, so your US wrenches will either be loose and damage the nut or not fit at all.

While all 3D printers come with some small wrenches, they are easy to lose, so having a large set that you can easily see and use is well worth the little extra money you’ll pay.