19 Printers Printing: A Quick Closeup of 3D Printing Extruder Heads

Mike Senese is a content producer with a focus on technology, science, and engineering. He served as Executive Editor of Make: magazine for nearly a decade, and previously was a senior editor at Wired. Mike has also starred in engineering and science shows for Discovery Channel, including Punkin Chunkin, How Stuff Works, and Catch It Keep It.

An avid maker, Mike spends his spare time tinkering with electronics, fixing cars, and attempting to cook the perfect pizza. You might spot him at his local skatepark in the SF Bay Area.

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August 2nd, 2014

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIvv57IGODs]

One of the great things about producing Make’s annual 3D printer guide is seeing such a rare collection of desktop machines all in one place. And while most of the printers utilize the same general principle for production, they all have their own unique elements for laying down layers of plastic to build your model.

While running through this year’s tests, we grabbed this closeup peek at the various machines’ extruder heads doing their thing — this isn’t every printer we’re testing, but it does show the variety of the looks and sounds of what’s current in 3D printing.

How many can you identify?