Bed Adhesion Advisor

Because Warping Risk moves in steps rather than continuously: it only increases once your model's bed coverage crosses the 30% or 50% thresholds, or once your bed temperature deviates more than 10° or 20°C from the material's recommended value. A small change to model dimensions or bed temperature that doesn't cross one of those thresholds leaves the risk score exactly where it was.

Because ABS is printed at a much higher extrusion temperature and shrinks significantly more as it cools to room temperature, which pulls corners and edges up off the bed -- this calculator's baseline risk score reflects that real material property difference (ABS starts at 8 out of 10, PLA at just 2). PETG and Nylon fall at points in between and above that baseline, respectively, based on their own typical shrinkage behavior.

Material choice alone -- this calculator recommends an enclosure only for ABS and Nylon, the two materials prone enough to warping that a heated, draft-free chamber meaningfully helps by slowing and evening out the cooling rate. Model size, bed coverage, and bed temperature do not change this recommendation; it is a fixed property of which filament you selected.

The suggested Brim Width starts from a material-specific baseline (0mm for PLA and TPU, up to 10mm for Nylon) and is then raised further, but only once the model's footprint exceeds 50 or 100 square centimeters -- below those thresholds, model size does not change the suggested brim width at all, since the baseline material recommendation is assumed to already be adequate for smaller prints.

No -- it is a rule-of-thumb heuristic built from common 3D-printing slicing practice: known relative shrinkage behavior by material, bed-coverage thresholds, and temperature-deviation thresholds. It does not simulate your specific printer's cooling fans, ambient room temperature, draft exposure, or bed surface material, all of which meaningfully affect real-world warping outcomes.