Shrinkage Compensation Calculator

Materials that shrink as they cool do it predictably enough to scale around — get the scale factor to hit a real target dimension.

Scale factor vs. per-part compensation

Most slicers let you set a horizontal scale factor globally or per-model, which is the easiest way to apply this — enter the percentage below into your slicer's scale field for that model, rather than resizing the model itself in your CAD software. That keeps the original file untouched and makes it easy to reset if you switch to a different material later.

These percentages vary by brand and part geometry

Shrinkage isn't perfectly uniform in every direction, and it's more pronounced on larger, flatter parts and parts with big changes in cross-section than on small, simple ones — a small cube will typically shrink less proportionally than a long thin bar of the same material. Treat this as a starting compensation, print a test piece with a known dimension, measure it, and adjust the scale factor from there if precision actually matters for the part.

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