3D Printing Quick Start Guide

Make your 3D file

You need a file to print before you can start. Export your file as an STL or a 3MF from your favourite CAD software, or download a ready-made file from a website like Makerworld, Thingiverse, or Printables.

Find a printer

Go to the Print Hive and find a printer that’s not busy printing something. Retrieve the memory card or USB stick from the front of the machine.

For printers with an SD card, press on the SD card to pop it out. Don’t take the memory card out of a machine that’s printing.

Make a note of the make and model of the printer you will be using, this could be an “Ultimaker 2+ Extended” or a “Bambu Labs X1E”.

Open the slicer

If you are using an Ultimaker printer you should use Ultimaker Cura, if you are using a Bambu Labs printer you should use Bambu Studio.

Both are available on Apps Anywhere, or can be installed on your own laptops if you wish.

Make sure you select the correct printer and build plate when you are getting everything set up.

  • How to use Ultimaker Cura
  • How to use Bambu Studio

Slice your file

Drag and drop your parts into the build volume and arrange them in the way that makes most sense. Think about overhanging features, and having a secure attachment to the build plate. Don’t forget about supports!

Save the sliced file

Insert the memory card or USB stick into the PC. There’s a memory card reader on the front of the PC tower that you can use.

Save the sliced file from Cura or Bambu Studio. Make sure you give it a good name because that’s what you’ll be looking for on the printer

  • Saving files from Ultimaker Cura
  • Saving files from Bambu Studio

Log your print

Fill in the log form to tell us you’ve started a print. This information helps keep the prints you’re making free.

Set your print running

Take the SD card or USB back to the printer, plug it in and select your file from the list.

  • Starting a print on an Ultimaker 3D printer
  • Starting a print on a Bambu Lab 3D printer

1 – Get a File

You need an STL or an OBJ file. These can be exported from your 3D modelling software of choice, such as Autodesk Fusion 360, Solidworks, Blender, etc.

Using Sketchup to design models for 3D printing is explicitly not recommended.

If you don’t have a particular design you want to print but want to learn the process, take a look at some of the design aggregator sites to find something that takes your interest. It’s recommended you start with something simple and straightforward – don’t print a 100-piece clockwork mechanism or a tiny, highly detailed figurine your first time around!

If you find the list of files daunting, try taking a look at sides like All3DP which sometimes have run-downs of the high-quality models available.

Once you have your STL file, save it somewhere you will be able to access from the Maker Space computers. This could be on the F drive, or on a USB disk.

2 – Choose a Printer

Come to the Maker Space and head straight in to the Print Hive. You’re looking for a printer that’s ready and waiting to be used, or has finished printing and can be made ready for use. Make sure the printer has a suitable build volume for the size of part you are trying to print – small parts can print on a large printer, large prints won’t fit on a small printer!

Don’t stop, abort, or otherwise cancel a print that is already running unless there is an obvious error with the print (such as spaghetti!)

Don’t remove the SD card or USB drive from a printer in the middle of a print – it will cause the print to abort.

If you’ve found a printer you simply need to remove the storage.

Take the storage back to a PC in the CAD suite. The card readers are located on the front of the PC tower.

3 – Prepare For Printing

The 3D printers can’t do anything with the 3D model you have downloaded or exported – unfortunately it’s not a case of just copying the STL file onto the SD card and hitting the print button. Instead, we need to slice the 3D model into a series of layers.

This slicing is done by specialist software. We use Ultimaker Cura, a free and open-source slicer maintained by the manufacturer of our printers. Because it’s free you can download and install it onto your own PC or laptop and prepare your files from the comfort of your own home.

  • Open Ultimaker Cura on the PC, you can find this in the Start menu. It sometimes takes a few minutes to open so don’t worry if nothing happens immediately.
  • When the software starts agree to the licence conditions. You don’t need to create an Ultimaker account, so don’t bother signing up.
  • Select “Add a non networked printer” from the window and select the appropriate option from the list.

For a brief overview on using Cura, watch this short 3 minute video from our YouTube channel.

4 – Position Your Files

An exaggerated example of modifying a design to eliminate support structures. The teal material on the left- hand component indicates support material holding up the flate face of the overhang

Things To Consider

Support structures & overhangs

The printer can’t reliably print in mid-air. The molten plastic will droop and sag, and potentially cause a failed print. The solution to this problem is to use sacrificial support material that can be removed later on. Angles up to 60 degrees or so can be “self supporting” so a slight model change may give you a better solution.

Sometimes eliminating supports isn’t an option, but you should at least try to make things easy for yourself.

To turn on supports, check the “Support” box in the print profile box in the top right had dropdown.

Orienting parts differently may remove the need for support material.

Print orientation matters

The support structure illustration brings us to the next point. Can we orient the print in a manner that makes it easier to print? By lying the print on it’s back the need for supports is removed entirely.

Typically, you want featureless flat surfaces to be facing the build plate. Play around with the rotate tool (in particular the “align face to build plate” utility) and see if you can arrange your files in a way that will provide the best support to your designs.

Infill Percentage

The amount of infill is the simplest way to affect the strength of your parts. More infill, typically, means a stronger part. It also leads to more material use and more time taking to print. The defaults of 18-25% are fine for most use cases, and it’s unusual that you would go above 50%.

Layer Height

The profiles that use 0.15 mm layer height are great starting point. A finer layer height (or thickness) affects how fine a vertical resolution your parts have but will increase print time drastically. A coarser layer height will print faster but prints may look rougher.

Build Plate Adhesion

The “adhesion” checkbox will add a brim of material to your parts. This may help reduce warping, or provide additional stability when printing tall, slender structures.

Material Usage

We don’t charge for the fair use of 3D printing materials, but there are practical considerations. A full reel of material is 750g, so using more than that will cause the printer to either run out and fail (Ultimaker 2+ printers) or stop and wait (Ultimaker S5 printers, most of the time…)

You can find how much material you will be using by checking the bottom right of the screen once you have clicked the Slice button.