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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 18th, 2023

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  • In the current market, you want a printer that runs Klipper. The system will typically include a web application that controls the printer (Fluidd, Mainsail, or Octoprint) running on an embedded RPi. You just access this through your browser, it’s not necessary to install anything on your PC.

    You will need to install a slicer software. The slicer is sort of the equivalent of a document editor - it’s how you prepare the 3D file for printing. Your printer manufacturer will probably recommend or distribute a particular slicer, but the file format used for 3D printing (G-code) is an open standard published by NIST. Any slicer software can be used to output gcode for printing - you can use whatever you feel comfortable with.

    Personally I reccomend Orca Slicer or SuperSlicer but there are many options.

    By the way, the entire market of home 3D printers grew out of the RepRap project that started 20 years ago. The original project was open hardware and software, and so almost all of the software in use today is open because open source principles were the foundation of all of it. There are some companies in the field who keep their stuff proprietary, but frankly I avoid their products and consider them to be anathema to the 3D printing community.