There are so many things you can print with your 3D printer. While there are tons of designs out there for you to sift through, many of them come with steep fees. To save you time and money, here’s a list of the five best websites for free 3D designs.
1. Thingiverse
This website has a universe full of free 3D designs. Downloading designs from them is as simple as going to their website and choosing a model to download. There’s no registration or log-in prompt.
The website lets you search for a design, browse through designs, or create your own. It almost resembles Pinterest in appearance. While it doesn’t have the cleanest user-interface, it has an incredible volume of designs. You could spend hours browsing through designs you’ve never even imagined.
2. Pinshape
Another mostly free site loaded with designs is Pinshape. Although it’s free to download some designs, you do need to create an account first. There are thousands of designs to choose from, and you can sort through them with several filters. To look for the free designs, you can sort by the lowest price.
Pinshape has a user-friendly design and makes browsing for designs fun and simple. The designs come with ratings, allowing you to pick designs that have been tried and tested.
3. Cults 3d
When it comes to downloading 3D designs, Cults ticks all the boxes. The website offers both free and paid designs, and the selection of free designs is impressive. The website is easy to use and allows you to sort by price, downloads, and even “likes.” You can view photos from other users who have made the design and uploaded their photos of it. Cults is as much a community for 3D print enthusiasts as it is a place to find new designs.
4. CG Trader
This website may not have the most impressive website design, but it has some great 3D designs. With well over 10,000 designs, the site has a huge selection. Not all of the designs are free, but many of them are.
This site is different from many of the others on this list in that the site isn’t geared solely towards 3D printing. However, you can search through an impressive printing database. The size of CG Trader’s database makes it too good to pass up.
5. Yeggi
Instead of searching only one database for your 3D printing designs, you can search through many databases with Yeggi. The website searches design databases and gives you access to over one million 3D designs. You type your keyword into the search bar, and then Yeggi does all the work.
Yeggi gives you both free and paid results, but there’s an easy way to sift through them. For free models, you can check “free” in the options tab. All of your results will be free to download.
3D Printing Designs
You don’t need to limit your 3D printing to what you know. There are plenty of resources out there for people looking for 3D printing designs. Browse through the sites to find new ideas, or upload your own 3D models.
