3D Printing Holiday Gift Guide: What to Buy for Makers in 2025

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Buying gifts for someone who owns a 3D printer can feel surprisingly tricky. Makers are picky about their tools, and not every gadget on the market is actually useful. Whether you're shopping for a beginner with their first machine or a seasoned hobbyist who already has a crowded workbench, this list highlights practical, high-impact gifts that every 3D printer owner will appreciate.

Filament Connector from Sunlu

Filament Connector

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Sunlu, $42.99

What do you do with those scraps of filament at the end of the spool that are too short for anything important? If you have an AMS, you could set all your nearly empty spools on sequential mode and let the printer handle them. But it’s way more fun to weld the ends together and create a custom spool. The Sunlu Filament Connector is the only tool I’ve seen that will easily melt the ends to filament together without leaving lumps that could clog your nozzle. This tool heats up to 240°C, so it can splice together everything from PLA to Nylon. Just don’t splice your PLA to Nylon, that will never stick.

Nonsticky Nozzle Stuff from Slice Engineering

Nonsticky Nozzle Stuff

Slice Engineering, $14.99

Nozzles don’t have to get sticky and gross with filament build up, not when you have Slice Engineering’s Anti-Stick nano-coating. Paint the transparent repellent on a clean nozzle and it will stay clean for weeks…or months, depending on how often you print. A clean nozzle can prevent many types of print fails and keep filament from forming a blob on the toolhead. The coating works up to 300°C and is suitable for printing all materials. One bottle can hold over 100 coats.

Heat Set Insert Press from Mintion

Heat Set Insert Press

Mintion, $56.99

When your 3D printed project needs a bunch of screws to hold everything together, heat-set inserts are a must. These little metal fittings are warmed up and pressed into printed parts to create strong, reliable threads that won’t strip out like plastic can. You could install a few by hand with a soldering iron, but if you're doing a lot of inserts (or you want every one of them at a perfect 90-degree angle), a small heat-set insert press makes the job fast and neat. This kit comes with a soldering iron, stand, and 30 brass threaded inserts of assorted sizes.

Sticky Build Plates from BIQU

Sticky Build Plates

BIQU: $18.99 and up

Modern 3D printers come with pretty good build plates these days, but BIQU has them all beat with the CryoGrip Glacier and Frostbite. These plates can work at cooler temperatures, hence the frosty names. The Glacier is an all-purpose plate, while the Frostbite is only for PLA and PETG. Either way, prints stick like mad to these plates, which solves most of your first layer problems. They work wonders for anyone trying to print articulated models, so they are a must have for any beginner who prints a lot of fun fidgets and toys. The plates come in assorted sizes to fit every brand of 3D printer out there, so if you’re buying as a gift, make sure you know what type of machine it needs to fit.

Filament Dryer and Storage Box from PolyMaker

Filament Dryer and Storage Box

PolyMaker: $63.99

There are a lot of good filament driers on the market, but the PolyDryer by PolyMaker is one of my favorites. This system uses a removable box that doubles as a storage container, so filament can stay inside the box indefinitely. Hot air from the Dryer Dock is blown through openings in (and drawn out of) the bottom of the storage box. Extra boxes cost $25.49 each (or 4 for $93.49) which can be a bit pricey for storing all your filament, but you can certainly keep a few special rolls nice and snug. The boxes are more than just cereal containers with spool holders: each has its own hygrometer, a spot for color changing desiccant, and a port to feed filament out of so you can print directly from the box. The Dryer Dock gets up to 70°C, enough to dry ABS/ASA and Nylon.

Vacuum Bags and Pump from EIBOS

Vacuum Bags and Pump

EIBOS: $38.99

Once you dry your filament, you want to keep it dry. A cheaper alternative to boxes are reusable vacuum bags with zipper tops. I like the ones by EIBOS, which come with a USB powered pump with an easy use valve on the bag that screws onto the pump, so you don’t need to keep pressure on the pump. It takes about 56 seconds to remove all the air, for a nice dry environment. The bags are custom-made for 1KG filament spools, with plenty of room to spare.

Silica Gel Packets from Dry & Dry

Silica Gel Packets

Dry & Dry: $8.99

Silica packets are incredibly helpful for keeping your filament dry. You can tuck them into filament storage bags and boxes, and every multimaterial box will have a cubbyhole to stuff with packets of desiccant. Though you could reuse the packets that come with new filament, Dry & Dry packets with orange indicator beads are better. The orange beads will turn green when they are saturated with moisture, letting you know it's time to dry them in the oven to revive them. It only takes 2 hours in the oven or 12 minutes in the microwave to get them good as new.

Nozzle Maintenance Kit from Wham Bam

Nozzle Maintenance Kit

Wham Bam, $17

Sometimes the tools that come with a 3D printer aren’t enough. Wham Bam makes a full service kit that fairly brand agnostic and will come in handy whether you have an old Ender or a brand new Bambu. You get a set of nozzle wrenches, needles, and ram rods style nozzle cleaners to force stuck filament out of your way. There’s also a mini silicone “Slap Mat” to protect your bed, a coil of cleaning filament and my favorite tool, a pneumatic depressor to get those pesky collets (or push connectors) to unclench from your Bowden tubes.

Gloop! from 3D Gloop!

3D Gloop!

$14.99 and up

It's not glue, it’s Gloop! Gloop is the perfect gift for any maker because even if they have some, they could use some more. Gloop is a specially formulated “science sauce” that chemically bonds plastics together by melting them a bit. This is way stronger than any glue on the market, as proven by 3D Gloop’s tug of war contests at 3D printing festivals. Due to the chemical interactions, there are specific formulas for the most popular plastics: PLA, PETG, and ABS/ASA. Gloop has a limited shelf life when exposed to air, so only buy the giant vat-o-gloop if you need to assemble a huge model.

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Denise Bertacchi is a Contributing Writer for Tom’s Hardware US, covering 3D printing. Denise has been crafting with PCs since she discovered Print Shop had clip art on her Apple IIe. She loves reviewing 3D printers because she can mix all her passions: printing, photography, and writing.

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