Printing

First Print

The microSD image contains a sample print: Robot.g which makes for a fun first print. Here is a suggested workflow from powering on the Fisher 3D printer.

Click on heater 1 to heat up the nozzle (or send ‘T0‘). The hot end active temperature is set to 200C in the config.g with the line:
G10 P0 S200 R0 ; Set tool 0 operating and standby temperatures
You can also set the temperature manually by entering the appropriate value. If you want to turn off the hot end, click on heater 1 again to set it to ‘standby’ (or send ‘T99‘).
fisher-heater1-button
Click on Home All (or send ‘G28‘). fisher-homeall-button
Click on Auto Bed Compensation (or send ‘G32‘). fisher-compensation-button
Navigate to the G-Code Files tab and click on Robot.g to print it. If you’re connecting to your printer via USB, and using Pronterface, select SD > SD print and select ‘robot.g’. robot-file

 

Preparing your own files for printing

Having celebrated your success and shown all of your friends and family, you can  now move on to preparing you own 3D models for printing. There are three steps to the printing process:

  1. Obtain 3D model
  2. Process 3D model to create a print file containing all of the instructions the machine will interpret in order to create the object. This is known as slicing.
  3. Upload and print GCode file

Obtain 3D model

The first step is to obtain the 3D model of the object you wish to print. There are a number of options available to achieve this:

  1. Find a 3D model online. There are many websites setup to provide 3D models to download, either for free or a small fee. For example:

yeggi

thingiverse

youmagine

myminifactory

pinshape

cults3d

3dshook

2. Find someone willing to create the 3D model from your ideas.

3. Create your own 3D model. There are many software packages available for this, to suit a broad range of wallets.

Software Description Suitable for Cost Platform
Tinkercad Very intuitive, but surprisingly useful even for complex models. Children/Beginner Free All (browser based)
Fusion360 Advanced Free trial Windows/Mac
FreeCAD  Powerful open source CAD. Advanced  Free All
Onshape Full featured, cloud based. Intermediate/Advanced Subscription All (browser based)
Solidworks Full featured commercial package. Advanced High Windows
OpenSCAD Script based modelling. Advanced Free All

 

There are many alternatives to the above, but all of the above can be used to save 3D models in the STL format.

 

Slice

We recommend the free and open source software Slic3r. You may download the latest version from here. Once installed, Slic3r will present you with a first run wizard to setup some settings for you machine. You may skip this and use the profile we use. You will find a copy of this on your micro-sd card; alternatively you may download it here.

Load PLA-heatbed.ini by clicking on File | Load config…, then navigate to each settings category (Print|Filament|Printer) and save the profile.

You are now ready to slice your own models. Click on Add…, then choose the STL file of your 3D model.

Click on the Preview tab to verify the toolpath, modify any settings as required, then click on Export GCode…

 

Upload and print

The .g file can then be uploaded via the web interface and printed.

 

 

 

 

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