So you found a shiny new 3D printer under your Christmas tree. What do you need to know?
With sales of desktop 3D printers booming, and the incredibly improved ease of use on modern machines, there could be the most Christmas 3D printers ever unwrapped today.
Today’s equipment tends to be mostly fully assembled, with any required steps due only to the need to fold up the machine for shipping. Fortunately, assembly instructions have mostly improved from most 3D printer manufacturers, although you will be subject to “Engrish” from time to time.
If this is your first 3D printer, it’s almost certainly a FFF device — the type that uses plastic filament. The other commonly found style is a resin 3D printer, which you definitely should NOT be your first 3D printer. Resin 3D printers can print with better resolution, but have a slew of safety concerns. The workflow to use resin 3D printers is more complex than you’d think, and I’d advise you to avoid resin equipment until you have more experience with FFF 3D printing.
What can you expect with your new FFF 3D printer?
Failures
Even though your machine is brand new, you WILL experience print failures. They are not like a 2D paper printer that works each and every time. It’s very possible to set up print jobs incorrectly, and they will fail with no fault by the machine.
Print Quality
Achieving the best print quality is a gradual affair. Even though you may be using the default print settings from the manufacturer, they may not be optimal. Manufacturers tend to provide extremely conservative settings that prioritize print success, not print quality. Once you get familiar with operations, you can begin tweaking the settings yourself.
Learning
As you might guess at this point, desktop 3D printing is not an instant skill. There is always something more to learn, and you can’t learn it all at once. Consider your efforts as a long-term commitment to learning something new every day. You won’t run out of things to learn anytime soon, and each failure is an opportunity to learn something new.
First Layer
All FFF 3D printers print in layers. By far the most important layer is the first one, because that’s what holds the print to the print plate. If it doesn’t go down properly, then the job will almost certainly fail.
It’s best practice to watch the first layer to completion to ensure it works. Once that first layer is down, the rest of the job is very likely able to finish properly.
Safety
While some will say that desktop FFF 3D printers are perfectly safe, they are correct, mostly. However, there are a couple of things to be concerned with.
As filament is heated, it tends to emit volatile organic compounds, some of which may be toxic. The levels emitted tend to be low, but even so, you should consider ventilation. Under no circumstances should you set up a machine in a bedroom, particularly for children.
The machine does have hot parts, as the nozzle can reach up to 250°C (almost 500°F). That can instantly cause burns when touched, so keep small children and pets away from the machine. This is less important if the 3D printer has an enclosure, but doors can still be opened.
3D Models
Most new 3D printer operators are not skilled in 3D design. This means that you will have to find pre-made 3D models to print on your new 3D printer. Fortunately, there are plenty of sources.
Many desktop 3D printer manufacturers provide their own online repositories of 3D models, some with huge inventories:
Prusa Research: Printables
Bambu Lab: MakerWorld
Anycubic: MakerOnline
Ultimaker: Thingiverse
There are multiple independent sources as well:
And there are plenty more like these. Try to avoid 3D model sites that provide visual 3D assets, which are used for videos and are often not printable. Stick to the sites dedicated to 3D printing.
Learning CAD
At some point, you’ll encounter two problems with online 3D models. First, you will realize it is almost impossible to find what you want because there are millions of 3D models that are improperly tagged. Search is now quite challenging. Secondly, the 3D model you want might not exist.
The alternative is to make your own 3D model. This is done with a 3D CAD (Computer Aided Design) software tool. There are lots of options, some of which are quite expensive or require months of training and experience. A good place for newbies to start is Autodesk’s Tinkercad. It’s a web-based tool that provides a Minecraft-like approach to designing 3D models that you can download and print on your own printer.
Printer Modifications
Many of the inexpensive desktop 3D printer models have large online communities that develop modifications for their machines. These are often 3D printed on the machine itself and address inadequate cooling, maintenance methods, or something else.
As a new 3D printer operator, I’d recommend you do not focus on these modifications, at least until you have a lot more experience. There are plenty of tech-handy folks that can dig right in, but the majority of new 3D printer operators don’t have those skills. If that’s you, then just keep the stock machine and use it as the manufacturer intended until you really know what you’re doing. Otherwise, you risk breaking your 3D printer.
That said, feel free to print non-invasive accessories, like tool holders, poop catchers, and similar: they can’t break your machine.
Sounds
Today’s 3D printers are incredibly quiet, as compared to earlier machines. This is because they use advanced stepper motor drivers that result in very quiet operation. However, there are some polite noises you will notice.
Pay very close attention to these sounds. Get accustomed to how the 3D printer sounds when it is working. That’s because at some point in the future, you will hear a different sound. It might be a knock, click, screech, or crash. This is your signal that something is very wrong with the current print job and that you need to intervene right away to avoid disaster.
Listen to your 3D printer.
Attendance
3D printer jobs can be quite long, often lasting hours or even more than a day for larger objects. While the 3D printer may seem to be doing its thing all by itself, you should never leave the machine unattended.
Today’s machines are as reliable as they’ve ever been, but that does not mean they can’t fail, and they often do. If something goes wrong, like the print falls over, it can be tossed around by the rapidly moving toolhead. That can damage the machine or anything nearby.
Be nearby whenever you are printing.
And that was ten things to know about your new desktop 3D printer.
