3D printing

Work out what a print costs from the grams of filament it used and the price of the spool it came from

Work out the length and weight of filament a print will use, from the plastic volume your slicer reports and the material

Work out how much plastic a given infill percentage adds to a print and the weight it costs, against printing it fully solid

Find the Z axis resolution for a stepper motor and lead screw, and which common layer heights it can actually hit exactly

Scale a model to hit a target size on one axis and see what that does to the other axes and the printed volume

Work out the maximum print speed a nozzle and layer height allow before you outrun how fast the hotend can melt plastic

Give a rough print time from the plastic volume, layer height, print speed and infill, ignoring travel moves and acceleration so treat it as a ballpark rather than the number your slicer would give

Plan the temperature steps for a temperature tower and the Z height each band starts at, so you know when to trigger a change in your slicer

Suggest a retraction distance and speed to start tuning from, based on your extruder type, filament and bowden tube length

Turn a calibration cube measurement into a scale factor that counters a material shrinking as it cools, one axis at a time

Work out the resin volume and cost for an SLA print, including the supports and the resin lost to waste and cleaning

Work out the hole diameter and surrounding boss size for a heat set threaded insert, from the insert dimensions on its datasheet