So, 3D printing, just like regular printing, relies on ink to produce things. Now, we call the ink for 3D printers filaments. Filament is just a thermoplastic, and that's a plastic that changes its properties, its physical properties, as its temperature changes. So, we take a thermoplastic, we draw it out into a big, long cable tube of about 1.75 to 2.85 millimetres. They're the two standard diameters we see. And then we push it through our hot end and produce a melted plastic. You see a bunch of different types of filaments, different brands, different compounds, and they all have different uses. But don't fret, there's a ton of them, and it's really useful to know. So, you'll get used to the idea of having different types of plastic to print with.

Now, some ideas for plastics lately that we're seeing aren't just for modeling. They're not just for printing solid objects. There's actually some really cool plastics coming out that have great uses. ProtoPasta has actually produced a conductive filament. It's not the greatest, but it can conduct electricity, so that's really cool. You've also got the ability to print nylon alloys, which are really strong, durable plastics that don't really degrade in any sort of way over time. You've also got carbon fiber filaments, so they're a really strong and lightweight plastic alloy, so to speak. And finally, we see flexible, rubber-like materials. So, that's literally what you're expecting. You can bend, shape it how you want. So, once you've printed it, you've got a flexible shape, which is cool.

Now, we're going to look at all the popular compounds, all those ones I just talked about, and maybe a couple of extra ones, especially some of the basic filaments that we use for 3D printing later on in the filaments chapter. I just wanted to give you guys a quick briefing on what I'm talking about with filament, and particularly extrusion, which is when we're pushing that out of the nozzle. So, let's jump into actually what makes up a 3D printer, what's exciting, what's cool about a 3D printer, how it all works together to produce our models.