What do you need for 3D printing

First of all, you obviously need a 3D printer. These come in many shapes and sizes, but in our opinion the Bambu brand is really good. Besides your 3D printer, you need the "ink". In the 3D printing world, this is called "Filament".

Filament

Filaments come in a huge variety of materials, think of PLA, PET, ABS, ASA, PA, TPU, etc. But for most consumers, PLA, PET or ABS is actually the most interesting. The differences between all materials have to do with how strong they are, how easy they are to print, whether they work on your printer.

But if you're just starting with 3D printing, we recommend starting with PLA. This is because it's the easiest material to print with, it's very forgiving if you make mistakes. Please note, it's possible that your 3D printer doesn't support the material you want to print. For example, with ABS you often need an enclosed case, not all printers have that.

Software

Once you have your Filament and printer installed at home, you can start with your creativity. What do you want to make?

The famous 3D Boat? Maybe an Octopus? Or of course something from your own creative mind!

Once you've chosen something to print, you can download an STL file. STL stands for "Stereolithography", an easy name. But it's a format to describe a 3D object. What does this look like exactly?

Unfortunately, this is NOT enough to send to your printer.

A 3D printer doesn't understand anything about the 3D object. What a 3D printer can do is print layer by layer. In other words, the STL file needs to be cut into slices. In the 3D printing world, they call this "Slicing". There's special software for this, sometimes this software comes with your printer itself, or you can download fantastic free alternatives. Like for example OrcaSlicer

Although these programs seem very difficult, it's actually not that complicated. You need to set 4 important things:

Set the right 3D printer

OrcaSlicer has a huge collection of pre-configured 3D printers. If you don't deviate too much, yours will definitely be among them!

Right Filament

Every Filament is different, but also not really. With the most well-known brands you'll see that they're in there. Otherwise there's always a "Generic PLA"

Temperature

This is a part that can sometimes be tricky. Usually it says on your purchased Filament at which temperatures you can best print. Often you need to set the bed and extruder temperature. A bed is often around 50 - 60 degrees for PLA, and an extruder between 200 and 220. But especially check your Filament for this.

Supports

If something needs to be printed layer by layer, and the 3D printer has to print something in "mid-air", then that can't work and your print will collapse! Fortunately, there are solutions for this, these are called Supports. If something of your 3D print is hanging in the air, like a bridge, then it's wise to print supports. You can set this automatically in practically all slicers!

That's it!

Now that you've set everything up, the only thing you still need to do. Click on PRINT. Let's go!