The makers of the Lychee Slicer now have a major new product: the Lychee Library.
If you’re not familiar with Lychee, it’s a third party slicer designed for resin 3D print jobs, but in 2022 added the ability to process FFF jobs as well. It’s made by the French company formerly known as “Mango 3D”, which rebranded last August to become “Lychee”.
The new product is the Lychee Library, a growing repository of well-designed 3D models. It’s directly integrated into the Lychee Slicer, where users can easily call up models for direct 3D printing. This puts Lychee Slicer on par with several other popular slicing systems that have integrated their own 3D model repositories into their products.
I spoke with a representative from Lychee to find out more about the Lychee Library.
Fabbaloo: How many models are in the library?
Lychee: We have over 800 high-quality FDM and resin models in the library, spanning various categories. The benefit for users is that many of these 3D models are already pre-supported.
Fabbaloo: Are all models “free” to download after subscribing?
Lychee: Yes! When a user subscribes to the Library edition, they gain unlimited access to all models from all creators and the Plus version of our Slicer. They can print anything without limits.
Fabbaloo: How do you recruit designers?
Lychee: At Lychee, we’ve been fortunate to connect with talented FDM and resin designers through our ambassador program. We’ve always admired their work, and it’s clear that hobbyists from around the world love it too. Now that many of them have joined the Library, we’re excited to showcase their models to the 3D community.
Fabbaloo: How are designers paid for their contributions?
Lychee: Designers are compensated based on the number of slices their models generate. The more popular a model is, the more the designer earns.
Fabbaloo: Are you seeking more designers for the library?
Lychee: Absolutely! We’re always on the lookout for more creators, especially those who can provide pre-supported models that enhance the value of the library. Since launching the library, many designers have reached out to join, and we’re truly grateful for that.
Fabbaloo: Are some models in the library made by Lychee internally, or are they all from professional designers?
Lychee: We have talented graphic designers and creators on our team, including Polyworkshop, a skilled creator from the Library who also serves as our CPO. While we prioritize featuring external talent, we take pride in our own contributions to innovation!
While the library is integrated with the slicer, it does require a separate subscription. The slicer is available in a free “lite” version, and a more advanced version requires a subscription of €9.99 (US$10.80) per month. The Lychee Library is priced separately at €14.99 (US$16) per month.
While a paid subscription to a 3D model library might seem out of normal given the presence of Thingiverse, Printables, Makerworld and other free online repositories, remember that Lychee is paying top-level designers to provide these 3D models for download. If you were to download even a couple of 3D models per month you’d likely be ahead of buying them individually from the designers directly.
I took a look at the library and found they’ve divided the collection into several categories:
- Miniatures and Tabletop
- Game & Toys
- Gadget
- Figurines & Fan Art
- Home & Household
- Fashion & Cosplay
- Art & Design
- 3D Printer
As of this writing, they also have a temporary collection for “Halloween”. They will likely add similar seasonal categories as the year passes.
I could not inspect all of the 3D models, but the ones I did look at were typically very high quality. If you imagine seeing the occasional super-detailed figurine model in, say, Thingiverse, the Lychee Library is almost entirely filled with similarly detailed models.
Many of the models require printing of multiple parts due to the complexity of their design. Many models also come with pre-designed supports, which is a huge benefit: organizing proper support structures for resin 3D prints is a critical step that is often difficult, especially for new 3D printer operators.
The integration works pretty well; you simply import the models into Lychee Slicer and set up the print job.
Models typically have a couple of variations, perhaps for resin and FFF 3D printing. Some variants might be split into parts, and some not. Some offer thicker supports and some variants have thinner. You get the idea: they want to enable the 3D models to be used in a wide range of equipment and materials.
All models are marked “Certified by Lychee”, which is a good thing, but likely a lot of work for Lychee. Larger 3D model sites just don’t do this, and you end up with a lot of poor quality models. Sometimes it’s hard to find good 3D models on larger sites, but that’s not the case in the Lychee Library.
I wondered about the security of these 3D models, as good designs tend to be stolen and resold on questionable third party model sites. Some sites literally have their entire collections grabbed by robotic agents. Could this happen to the 3D models in the Lychee Library? This is a major concern for 3D designers.
One way to do this would be to import the 3D model into the slicer and then “Save As STL” to gain a copy of the 3D model. However, Lychee Slicer prevents this:
This is incredibly good news for designers, who have to suffer with their models being constantly stolen when offered on other platforms. The Lychee Library offers a level of security that isn’t often found elsewhere.
While browsing I came across a 3D model where the images didn’t seem to load:
But reading further, it seems that this 3D model was marked as NSFW. That’s a good step by Lychee, as some may be offended by the material. However, it seems that the designers themselves must designate items with this tag. Some designers seem to be quite aggressive in their assessments, while others are less so. There seems to be a somewhat higher proportion of this type of material than I’ve seen on other sites.
I’m quite impressed with the Lychee Library. It’s filled with many outstanding 3D models that will keep your 3D printer busy.
The Lychee Library competes with vastly larger alternative sites, and it will be challenging for them. However, they have the advantage of paying designers for each download, which should continue to attract more designers to the system.
Via Lychee
