3D printing case studies – see what we have already printed
Below are 15 jobs that give a good sense of the range of our work – from a single, unique spare part for a classic car, through promotional models and competition trophies, to runs counted in thousands against a hard deadline. Every photo is a real job, not a rendering.
What have we printed, and from what? All 15 case studies at a glance
Every row links to the full write-up with photos. Material was chosen for the conditions the part works in, not for the cost of the print.
| Case study | Scope of work | Material | Price, net |
|---|---|---|---|
| Handguard for the Springfield Armory Kuna pistol | FDM 3D printing, Printed from the client's file | PA6-CF nylon | PLN 250 (~€58) net print + support removal |
| Event bracelets with the VISA logo for the Plej agency | Batch printing, 3D design | PLA, two-colour | PLN 6 (~€1.4) each net run of 350 |
| Trophies for the KUL Academic Sports Club | Batch printing, Prototyping | PLA Silk | PLN 45 (~€10) each net run of approx. 100 |
| EGR throttle gear – Dodge | FDM 3D printing | ASA / PA6-GF | PLN 200 (~€46) net design + print |
| Speedometer gear – 1970s Pontiac | FDM 3D printing, Prototyping | ASA | PLN 200 (~€46) net design + print |
| Webasto window adapter – KIA Sportage | FDM 3D printing, Prototypes | PETG | PLN 150 (~€35) net print only |
| Valentine's decorations | FDM 3D printing, Prototypes | PLA | our own product |
| Case for a Lenovo ThinkCentre Tiny mini PC | FDM 3D printing | PETG | PLN 110 (~€25) net |
| Housings for an employee time and attendance system | FDM 3D printing | PETG Matte | PLN 250-300 (~€58-69) each net |
| Vacuum cleaner gearbox | FDM 3D printing, 3D scanning | ASA | PLN 150 (~€35) net scan + print |
| Scanning the third brake light – Fiat Ducato | 3D scanning | scan only, no printing | quoted individually |
| Trophies for a figure skating competition | FDM 3D printing, Prototypes, Batch printing | PLA | PLN 45 (~€10) each net |
| Gate drive gear | FDM 3D printing, Prototypes | ASA | quoted individually |
| Shuttle lever bushing – New Holland TD5 tractor | FDM 3D printing, Prototypes | PA6 | PLN 200 (~€46) net design + print |
| Windmills for a board game | FDM 3D printing, Batch printing | PLA | quoted individually |
Amounts from jobs actually delivered, excluding VAT. We invoice in PLN and euro figures are indicative, converted at the current rate. Every quote is calculated individually – treat these as a reference point, not a price list.
Handguard for the Springfield Armory Kuna pistol
An individual customer sent us a finished model of a handguard for the Springfield Armory Kuna pistol – the design was on their side, ours was the print itself and the settings behind it. The part was made from PA6-CF nylon, that is PA6 with added carbon fibre. Heat resistance decided it: the handguard sits right against the barrel, which heats up during shooting, while ordinary PLA already starts to soften at around 60 °C. The carbon fibre stiffens the print and limits shrinkage, so a long, narrow part does not warp as it cools. PA6-CF also offers something no ordinary filament can match: the matte, fine-grained surface looks like a casting and the layer lines are practically invisible – with no sanding or painting. We printed it standing upright, with tree supports under the mounting slots and the rail; once those were removed the part needed no further finishing.
Event bracelets with the VISA logo for the Plej agency
The Plej agency came to us with a brief for the VISA brand: several hundred personalised bracelets for a promotional event, on a deadline measured in days. We designed the model in CAD with an embossed logo – shaped so that it stays legible at a small print scale, with a hole matched to the cord diameter and proportions that look right on the wrist. The print is two-colour: a PLA body in the distinctive Visa Blue with the logo itself in white – the contrast keeps it legible despite the small scale. Once the sample was approved we printed the entire run – with no injection mould, so no tooling cost and no minimum order threshold. That is where our part ended: the adjustable cords and the assembly were handled by the agency, who tied the bracelets onto guests at the stand.
Trophies for the KUL Academic Sports Club
The starting point was nothing more than an old, blurred photograph of the club’s patron, Professor Czesław Martyniak – no scan, no reference model. With the help of AI we reconstructed his features as a 3D model, and designed the figure itself to look right from every angle. The plinth was printed separately and bonded on, and the trophy was positioned at an angle to the build plate – which cut down the time needed for supports. The first batch ran to more than 70 pieces against a fixed club event date; a year later the club came back for another round.
EGR throttle gear – Dodge
This one looks unremarkable, but it solved a real problem: without this gear the EGR throttle in the Dodge would not work at all, and the part was not sold separately. The customer had looked into importing the complete throttle body from the USA – over PLN 1,600 (~€370) plus weeks of waiting for shipping and customs clearance. We printed a replacement in ASA; when the customer reported that the component was working under a heavier load than we had assumed at the outset, we produced a second version in PA6-GF – glass-fibre reinforced nylon – for greater durability.
Speedometer gear – 1970s Pontiac
A classic 1970s Pontiac very nearly ended up in the garage for good over a single broken speedometer component – exactly the sort of failure where the original part simply cannot be bought anywhere any more. Working from the worn component, we produced a replacement in ASA, a material that stands up to the mechanical loads inside a speedometer. The car went back on the road without having to hunt for an assembly discontinued decades ago.
Webasto window adapter – KIA Sportage
A job where time was the main consideration: the customer sent a few dimensions of the pipe and the window opening, and the next day had a finished adapter for routing a parking heater line through the glass of a KIA Sportage. Printed in PETG, with no unnecessary revisions – a simple design, delivered quickly and without dragging it out.
Valentine’s decorations
Not every project in our portfolio is an answer to someone’s breakdown – sometimes it is our own idea, made from scratch in our own workshop. We designed and printed a series of Valentine’s decorations: hearts, a three-dimensional “love” lettering piece and a version with balloons, all in PLA. A good illustration that our fleet copes equally well with commercial orders and with purely creative projects.
Case for a Lenovo ThinkCentre Tiny mini PC
The customer already had a print-ready file – our job was to produce, precisely, a case that improves cooling on a small Lenovo ThinkCentre Tiny. Despite its compact dimensions the machine has a genuinely powerful specification: an i7-8700T processor, 64 GB of RAM, a 1 TB NVMe drive and an RX 6400 graphics card – so the PETG case had to shed heat well, not merely look good.
Housings for an employee time and attendance system
RCM Control needed not a prototype but a fully functional, deployment-ready housing – with heat-set threaded inserts allowing repeated assembly and disassembly without stripping the thread. The argument for 3D printing was the arithmetic of the project: an injection mould to start series production would cost around PLN 150,000 (~€34,600), whereas a single printed housing costs PLN 250-300 (~€58-69). We chose the material – PETG Matte – deliberately, so that the finished product would have a muted texture and not betray that it came off a 3D printer.
Vacuum cleaner gearbox
The worn gearbox had one specific problem: the lower hole for the rectangular drive pin was so worn that the part no longer held the drive, and a replacement could not be bought separately. We solved it in two stages – the upper geometry was digitised with a Creality Raptor 3D scanner, the lower section was designed from scratch in CAD, with tolerances matched for a press fit. The customer put the finished component side by side with the original using callipers and confirmed it matched to the millimetre.
Scanning the third brake light – Fiat Ducato
Not every job ends in a print – sometimes it is purely about a precise scan. The customer was planning to fit an additional reversing camera into the rear light of a Fiat Ducato and needed the exact geometry of the third brake light in order to plan the cut-out without risking damage to the original housing. The 3D scan produced a full reference point cloud – a safer starting point than cutting into the light by eye.
Trophies for a figure skating competition
The organisers of the Biellmann Cup in Krynica-Zdrój came to us with a deadline that all but ruled out a complex design – five days until the competition began. We went for simplicity: a flat, instantly recognisable skater silhouette that could be printed quickly and in large numbers simultaneously across several machines in our fleet. In the end 75 trophies made it to the podium – and the competition went ahead as planned.
Gate drive gear
A small component, but critical to the whole drive working – a gear with a 20 mm lower diameter and 10 mm upper toothing, inside an entrance gate drive. With details this fine we used a 0.2 mm nozzle so that the teeth would be reproduced accurately enough. The result: the owner replaced one gear instead of the entire drive unit.
Shuttle lever bushing – New Holland TD5 tractor
The original shuttle lever bushing was fitted by thermal press fit – without the right workshop equipment that simply cannot be repeated in an ordinary garage. So we designed a two-piece, split bushing which, despite the different fitting method, holds just as firmly as the original. The repair cost a fraction of the price of a new lever – the customer saved over PLN 1,000 (~€230).
Windmills for a board game
This job reached us as an emergency – another supplier could not keep up with production, and the advertising agency had a hard, immovable delivery date for the board game. More than 2,000 small windmills still had to be printed; we took on 1,000 of them, putting our entire available printer fleet to work immediately, while the second supplier finished the rest. The time pressure left no room for lengthy planning – what counted was how fast we could react.
Frequently asked questions about these case studies
Can you print something similar to the case studies on this page?
Yes. Every job here started with photos or a file sent in by the customer. We print from a single piece, with no minimum quantity, and send a binding quote within 24 hours. If you are not sure which material to pick, describe the conditions the part works in and we will choose it for you.
Do you print these yourselves, or subcontract the work?
Everything you see in FDM was made on our own fleet of 7 Bambu Lab printers – from the quote, through modelling, to packing. The only thing we pass on is SLA printing, to a verified technology partner, because FDM is our specialisation. Either way, you deal with us and nobody else.
I have no 3D model – can I order something like this from photos?
Yes, and it is our most common scenario. Clear photos from several angles plus dimensions measured with callipers are enough. You can also send the broken part as a physical reference – we will model or scan it and send it back together with the print.
Will I get the 3D file of the model you make for me?
Yes, if we agree on it – we then hand over the STL file. Settle this at the quoting stage so the terms are clear on both sides.
Will my job end up on this page?
Projects covered by an NDA are never published. If the job is the customer’s own design – particularly for a larger company – we ask for permission before publishing. We publish without asking only when the design is generic or came from us.
How much does a job like the ones above cost?
The price comes from the material and from how much work the project needs. Printing from a ready file starts at around PLN 110 net, a single part that needs CAD modelling is usually PLN 150-250 net, and on runs the per-piece price drops – the event bracelets came out at PLN 6 net each across 350 pieces. The figure for each individual job is in the table above.
Who carries out the work at Drukujemy3D.pl?
Drukujemy3D.pl is a 3D printing service run by AP2Media Sp. z o.o., based at ul. Miodowa 5 in Czerwin, Masovian Voivodeship, Poland, working for companies and private customers across the country. It is run by Adam Piersa, who has worked in 3D printing for 7 years and handles every job personally – from the quote, through modelling and printing, to shipping. The equipment is 7 Bambu Lab printers (P1S and A1, 256×256×256 mm build volume) and a Creality CR-Scan Raptor scanner for reverse engineering. VAT ID (NIP) 7582396091, company register (KRS) 0001106484, REGON 528672529.