3D printing news roundup: late October 2026
By Dynafabs
From Nike's 3D-printed vortex generators to Bambu Lab's first scanner and Formnext — what caught our eye this week.
A busy few days for additive manufacturing: a British Olympian raced in a suit with 3D-printed aero parts, desktop brands stretched beyond printers, and Formnext's November dates edged closer. Here is what we noticed while reading the trade press — with sources named so you can dig deeper.
Nike's speed suit for Keely Hodgkinson
On 29 October 2026, 3Dnatives reported that Nike unveiled a custom racing suit for Keely Hodgkinson, the Olympic 800-metre champion. The British athlete wore it for the first time at Athlos London and won the 800 metres in 1:56.80.
The suit is a black full-body design with a hood and open back. Small triangular, delta-shaped raised pieces — Nike calls them vortex generators — sit on the fabric. Nike says they are aerodynamic devices made with 3D printing, and describes them as the fastest of their kind the brand has developed so far.
According to the same report, the pieces are not identical: size and orientation vary by body area, with placement calculated through computational design. They sit on the shoulders, thighs, torso and hood. Nike has not disclosed the printing technology, the material, or measured drag figures — so those details remain unknown for now.
For anyone who designs small functional features, the story is a useful reminder: 3D printing shines when every tiny part can be unique. That is the same idea behind custom grips, labels and one-off fixtures we print every week at Dynafabs.
Desktop hardware: Bambu Lab's S1 scanner and multi-tool printers
Also late this month, 3Dnatives covered Bambu Lab's first 3D scanner, the S1, due in November 2026. Specs and pricing are not yet public; the company has shown design imagery and the slogan "Easy in Hand. Pro in Every Scan," plus a signup form for updates. The same piece notes Bambu Lab's recent R1, a 55 W CO₂ laser cutter and engraver, as part of a wider move beyond printers alone.
Separately, AP Design's October 2026 roundup (updated 28 October) summarised Creality's K3 — an FDM printer with four nozzles and a claimed nozzle swap of about five seconds, with international pre-orders from mid-October at under 900 dollars — and Bambu Lab's H3C, a filament printer with nine tools, to be presented on 3 November. Those announcements matter for multicolour and multi-material builds; they do not change how we quote a single solid part, but they do show how quickly desktop tooling is moving.
Formnext and Formlabs' Form Studio 1
Formnext, the large additive manufacturing fair in Frankfurt, runs 17–20 November 2026, as noted by AP Design citing 3Dnatives. If you follow industrial materials, jigs and shop-floor applications, it is the week to watch the show-floor coverage.
AP Design also summarised Formlabs' Form Studio 1 resin printer: built on the same technology family as Formlabs' professional machines, from 780 euros in Italy, with orders open and shipping from 16 November, and Alpha-line resins from 36 euros per litre (sources listed as Formlabs' press material and 3DPrint.com). Lower-cost resin hardware tends to push more fine-detail prototypes into small offices — useful context if you are deciding between filament and resin for a display model.
Research and medical: stronger composites, cleared implants
On 28 October 2026, 3DPrinting.com reported that Old Dominion University engineer Oleksandr Kravchenko received a $400,000 National Science Foundation award for hot powder bed compaction (HPBC) — a post-process that uses heat and pressure in a powder bed to densify printed thermoplastic composites without moulds. Early student prototypes included Formula race-car pedals that matched aluminium strength under 350 N while weighing 43% less, according to that report.
A few days earlier, 3DPrint.com's 24 October briefs noted FDA 510(k) clearance for Providence Medical Technology's CORUS PCSS 3D-T posterior cervical implant, which pairs the CORUS PCSS design with 3D-printed porous titanium intended to support bone ingrowth. Medical clearances are a different world from consumer filament — but they underline how additive manufacturing keeps expanding into regulated parts.
What this means if you are ordering parts
Trade-show calendars, new scanners and aero suits are interesting on their own. For day-to-day projects they mostly reinforce three practical points:
1. Unique geometry is normal — whether that is a vortex generator or a custom bracket. 2. Material choice still matters more than the brand of printer — PLA, PETG, ABS/ASA and TPU behave differently in use. 3. Fine detail and structural strength are different jobs — resin-style detail and engineering filament each have a place.
If you have a file ready, we can turn those choices into a real slice and price on dynafabs.uk/quote.
FAQ
Is Dynafabs linked to these product launches? No. This roundup is industry news we read and summarised. We print customer files in the UK; we do not sell the machines named above.
Where can I read the original articles? Links in each section point to 3Dnatives, AP Design, 3DPrinting.com and 3DPrint.com. Always check the source for the latest updates — especially where specs or prices were still unreleased at the time of writing.
Can you print sportswear or medical implants? We are a UK fabrication service for customer models (miniatures, figurines, prototypes and functional plastic parts). Regulated medical devices and apparel production are outside that scope.
Ready to print something of your own? Upload your STL, 3MF, STEP or ZIP at https://dynafabs.uk/quote — no account needed for a quote.
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