3D Printer

Tinkermill has a variety of 3D printers available for your use. Some require additional training for use (SLA printers), but general-purpose plastic printers can be used by any Tinkermill member.

Basics

Quick Start Guide

If you want to get printing right away, you can use one of the Dell laptops in the printing area. The software that's preferred for slicing and printer control is Simplify3D.

Simply import your desired STL(s), select a profile for printing (the default is JV_FFCP2). After the part is sliced, you can either print directly to either of the CreaterPro printers, or export the gcode to an SD card. There are several on the bench for your use, please do not take the SD cards home.

It is ideal if you can stay around to watch a print, however, unlike most machines in Tinkermill, the 3D printers may be ran unsupervised as prints can take many hours to complete. In these circumstances, please leave a note on the machine and make every effort to retrieve the parts when the print is complete. Unattended parts will be discarded.

Costs

Plastics cost about 10 cents per gram. There are two small AWS scales for weighing completed prints and print attempts. There is a jar where users are expected to donate money for all attempted prints.

Safety

Please allow parts to cool for about 15 minutes once a print is complete. It will be easier to remove once cooled.

Available Printers

There are a variety of printers available for your use. Some require additional training.

FlashForge Creator Pro

There are two of these printers available for use. These are dual-extruder machines and there are laptops available for slicing/printing.