MAKE | The MakerGear Mosaic 3D Printer – Part VIII: The First Print

By Sean Michael Ragan
Category: General, 3D Printing
Time Required: 2 hours
Difficulty: Moderate

Due to popular demand, I’ve decided to take my MakerGear Mosaic assembly guide one step further, past the physical assembly of the robot, and cover the process of getting through the first print. What started as a series of seven guides is now a series of eight:

Once you have the robot itself built, the number of possible ways to set up and run the printer start to multiply rapidly. Your options and preferences will vary based on the computer you’re using, the operating system on that computer, and the CAD, CAM, and printer control programs you choose. Unfortunately, I can only report what’s worked for me. If your experience is different, and it may well be, please feel free to comment below and tell us about it.

I chose to dedicate an old laptop to my Mosaic. Specifically, it is a Toshiba Satellite A25-S207 running Windows XP SP 3. I don’t ask it to do much else while it’s running the printer, except occasionally capture time-lapse images of an ongoing print using an attached webcam. There’s a PCMCIA WiFi card I can pop in when I need internet, but I don’t usually leave it connected to the web.

This tutorial does not cover 3D modelling, and assumes you will be using a downloaded .STL file. Traditionally, the first print off of a RepRap is supposed to be a shot glass, and the traditional file is minimug.stl. The original file is available on the RepRap wiki, but for whatever reasons it is rotated at an unprintable angle, which is inconvenient for beginners.

What you put in it, of course, is up to you, but I’ve found Glenfiddich Solera Reserve to be an excellent, if pricey, test fluid. Solely on the basis of its viscosity, you understand.

Though there are more exotic possibilities, generally you will be printing in either ABS (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene) or PLA (Polylactic Acid). Of the two, I find PLA preferable in pretty much every way. It prints cleaner, in my experience, does not emit noxious odors, and melts at a lower temperature. You’ll want to experiment with ABS yourself, of course, and see if you agree with my assessment. But I think you should start out with PLA. Your Mosaic kit probably included a couple of short coils of PLA in different colors.

Steps

Step #1: Download and install software

The Mosaic electronics are built around an onboard Arduino microcontroller. If you don't already have the Arduino Development Environment installed on the computer you will be using to run your Mosaic, do so now.
The CAM program takes your STL model and converts it into a set of specific mechanical instructions (in G-code) for the printing robot. Skeinforge is probably the most popular choice for RepRap-type printers, but I was persuaded to start with Slic3r and have had no reason, so far, to experiment with anything else.
The printer host provides a real-time control panel for the printer itself. Pronterface is recommended by MakerGear. I installed the older version with all the Python dependencies, but there is a new version called Printrun that does not require any other programs and is now officially recommended by MakerGear for Windows users.

Conclusion

You will eventually want to experiment with almost every setting in the Slic3r interface and see how it affects the quality of your printed objects. When you get a feel for the software and the process of making prints in general, you may want to graduate to Skeinforge, which is less beginner-friendly but gives you more control over the details of how your model will be printed.

If you run into trouble, your best bet for a quick answer is the MakerGear IRC channel. The MakerGear website also has some helpful resources, including a Getting Started Guide that covers the use of Skeinforge/SFACT in detail. You should also feel free to leave a comment, below, if you run into difficulty or would like to suggest corrections to, or additional information for, this guide.