3D Printing Primer

Chapter 5. Using Your 3D Printer

The box arrived. You’ve got everything unpacked. The plugs are in the wall and the software has been installed. You are ready to 3D print! But what to print? Many users don’t have problems finding things they want to make (often this precedes obtaining the printer), but occasionally some are at a loss for options.

There are several methods to obtain printable files in the widely used STL format. Those described here are listed in order of increasing difficulty.

Download It

The easiest way to get a new printable design is to download it. A number of websites host freely available files for printing, the most well known being MakerBot’s Thingiverse. There you’ll find over 500,000 designs, with new things being added all the time.

Due to claims of censorship and a desire for more distributed systems, a variety of alternative hosting services now perform functions similar to Thingiverse. These Thingiverse alternatives include yeggi, Repables, YouMagine, and Bld3r. These sorts of STL distribution schemes are likely to proliferate in the future.

Don’t be surprised if you can’t open your STL file once you have it. Without some kind of STL viewing software, Windows will generally throw a fit, as it also uses the .stl designation for certificate trust lists. Depending on the history of an STL file, it might need to be repaired a bit before you can use it to print.

Design It

If you can’t quite find the design you were looking for elsewhere, you will probably ...