3D Printer Toolchain

Abstract

We are still a long way from having our personal 3D printers work just like our microwaves, yet there has been a lot of progress made by a group of intrepid developers to not only give you options for how you want to use your 3D printer but to make it more reliable and easier to use. How we interact with our 3D printer is determined by the printer’s toolchain: the electronics, firmware, control software, and slicing software that take a 3D model to a 3D object. If you bought your 3D printer as a complete kit or preassembled, then you probably have a set toolchain provided by the kit manufacturer. On the other hand, you might be piecing your 3D printer together from a variety of sources and are choosing parts of the toolchain that best fit your needs. Either way, this chapter is here to help you understand how these different parts of the toolchain work together. Th is chapter also introduces the idea of the 3D printer workflow as a way to use our printer’s toolchain to make 3D prints.