3D Printing

3D printer shelf (2024)

Before using our printers, please attend the monthly introductory 3d printing workshop. You can register at https://tickets.mumalab.org/courses/.

3D printers

There's a number of 3D printers at the space:

• Prusa Mini - Two beginner friendly Original Prusa Minis for printing PLA
• Ultimaker "Ulrich" Unlimited Z - Advanced printer with an extremely large Z height
• Artillery Sidewinder X2 - Advanced big format printer with a build area of 300mm x 300mm x 400mm as results of 3dprinter4lab poll.
• Prusa i3 MK3S - Advanced printer with decent print area and high-temp nozzle lent to the space by Terry
• BambuLab P1S with AMS - Fast enclosed printer with multi Filament holder (up to 4) which enables multicolor printing

Rules

• Do not modify the printers in any way. Do not change the nozzles by yourself. Never flash any firmware.
• If there is a problem or you need to do a nozzle change: Ask in the #3d_printinting channel on slack beforehand or ask someone from List of Contacts
• Do not print unsupervised. Check on your print at least every half hour or so. We really want to avoid damage to the printers and the potential fire hazard.
• Do not scrape with anything sharp on the build plates
• Do not use anything other than isopropyl alcohol on the build plates
• Do not print abrasive materials (containing additives like glass/carbon fibres, metals, glow in the dark, wood or stone)
• Power off printers after use

Costs

The 3D printers are free to use, but please bring your own filament. We recommend you use original Prusament filament. There is a spool of public "fair use" filament available that you can use if you are just getting started.

The printers are provided with space funds and our own free time, so please clean up after yourself and notify someone (e.g. in Slack or at List of Contacts) if something goes wrong.

Slicing

To get good results we recommend using PrusaSlicer (also see PrusaSlicer on our wiki).

Useful Resources

Sites for sharing 3D models

• Thingiverse: The most established site with the largest library. Search function used to be pretty bad.
• Printables by Prusa: The new kid on the block

Metasearchengines for 3D files

• Thangs: Can search for names and related geometry.
• Yeggi: CAn search for tags over a vast amount of 3D File Hosts.
• STLFinder: This is a meta search engine. It mostly returns results from Thingiverse, but they are quite often better than those of Thingiverse's own search.

Youtube Chanels

• The YouTube channel CNCKitchen has very scientific and useful overviews on how slicing parameters affect the print, and much more.

• 3DMakerNoob: General Tipps and Tricks for 3D printing in an easy to understand way
• Teaching Tech: tutorials on 3D modelling, 3D printing, calibration and more.

Software to Fix STL Files

• Meshmixer: a bit old but it does the job
• Fusion 360: Yes it got a new feature for fixing meshes
• Meshlab: A bit complicated but it has a verry large feature set for fixing 3D Models
• Aspose: An automatic free online service for fixing 3D Files

Design Software

• Fusion 360: The most know and common CAD Software quite easy to learn
• OpenSCAD: If you like programming and are masochistic you can use this and no chatGPT doesnt give you good results
• Tinkercad: The easy 3D Online CAD so easy a Prescooler can use it
• OnShape: Only the free tier is limited
• Blender: There is CAD and 3D Printing plugins but the learning Curve is quite Steep
• Free CAD: Its a free cad software you get what you pay for
• plasticity: Easy to use but its like 99$ if you need it for more than 30 Days. It has a different aproach to modeling its like fusion360 mixed with blender

Dedicated Filament Stores

• Das Filament: PLA, PETG made in Germany
• Material4Print: The common filaments for a good price
• Filamentworld: Every filament under the sun
• Princore: Filament produced in Germany