Resources
3D Printing
Please refer to our slideshow, Intro to FDM 3D Printing, as a refresher when 3D printing.
Maintenance on our printers is carried out by staff and student workers, but occasionally you may run into a problem that you need to solve on your own. Everything you need to know about operating and maintaining our Bambu Lab printers can be found on the Bambu Lab Wiki. This includes individual resource pages for our three types of printers: the A1 Mini, the X1E, and the H2D. Additional information can be found below:
A1 Mini Nozzle Unclogging Guide
Refilling filament on a Bambu Reusable Spool
AMS Workflow and Troubleshooting
Some advanced information for the H2D can be found below:
Introduction to Filament Grouping Strategy for Dual Nozzle Printers
Printing Guide for using PLA with PETG support (or vice versa)
H2D TPU Printing Guide (top rack recommended)
Information on slicing files in Bambu Studio for our Bambu Lab printers can be found here:
Bambu Studio: Quick Start Guide
3D Design
Computer Aided Design, or CAD, can be difficult to learn quickly. We recommend beginning with Tinkercad, a free web-based platform accessible from nearly all computers on campus with a low barrier of entry. Autodesk Fusion is our recommendation for designing 3D-printed parts, and we have licenses available for members of the Bates community. OnShape is a good free (ish) alternative to Fusion, and for mesh-based modeling we recommend exploring Blender. Our staff and student employees are familiar with a broad range of applications to help you get started.
How do we make design decisions for parts destined for 3D printing? Does 100% infill give your part ultimate strength, or is it a myth? Design for 3D-Printing from Rahix’ Blog is essential reading on this subject.
Laser Cutting
A few very important notes about laser cutting:
- Always run the attached Performance Filter whenever the laser cutter is in use
- Never leave the laser cutter unattended while in use
- Do not stare directly into the laser for extended periods of time
Our Glowforge Pro laser cutter requires regular cleaning after a few days of use. Failure to keep the laser cutter clean will affect your preview image, the power of the laser on your material, and even increase the risk of fire, so it’s extremely important for you to help us keep it properly maintained.
You can find more information about using the web platform, print optimization, and material possibilities at Glowforge Support. The Community Forums are also a great resource for any questions you may have.