Want to get a 3D printer for miniatures that work well with open source software
I've started to look into getting a 3D printer mainly for printing minis and terrain for TTRPGs. For the aficionado and print quality the best printer type seem to be resin based printers, but I don't think I'd be able to deal with the toxic fumes in a safe manner. As such I've settled on looking at filament based printers and I don't really need super high fidelity prints.
I need one that works well with Linux and preferably OSS. I am willing to pay for closed source software (or OSS) if it runs on well on Linux. So if you know of any software that is easy to get started with I'd be happy to hear about it. If you know of any models or makes that I should avoid I'd also appreciate a heads up!
Any other advice for someone just getting started with 3D printing?
Three bits in the toolchain to think about: the slicer (actually interfaces with the printer), the printer firmware (affects which slicers are supported, and how the printer itself works), and the CAD software (only relevant if you’re making your own models, and largely agnostic to which slicer and printer you’re using - they pretty much all support importing and exporting at least a couple of common formats).
The most relevant part to your question is the slicer - the software that takes an existing 3D model, slices it into layers, and creates the g-code that tells the printer how to physically move when printing it. Orca is becoming a bit of a de facto standard nowadays, although Prusa Slicer and Bambu Studio are still commonly used too - if you look at installing the slicer on your distro of choice, and using it with the printers you’re considering, that pretty much covers the “does it work with Linux?” question.
Printer firmware doesn’t have to be open to work with an open source slicer, but some people consider that a nice to have for philosophical reasons or if they’re interested in really diving into the fine details of printing technology. Klipper is the starting point to look at there, but it’s not a requirement for Linux support at all - more something to consider if you’re looking for the whole toolchain to be OSS.
Finally, modelling and CAD: I’m very, very amateur on this part. If you’re looking to print existing minis, at least to start, this probably doesn’t matter to you - and there are an absolute ton of great models out there, so that’s a very reasonable possibility. I mostly use existing models and occasionally make blocky functional parts, so I use OpenSCAD if I need to put something together based on measurements, but that’d be terrible for artistic modelling. As I understand it, Blender is a pretty well respected option when designing more artistic prints, as well as its more usual CGI uses. But again, this is all kind of separate from the printing part of the question - any CAD or 3D software will export in at least one format that your slicer can then import.
Very quick overview of hardware and brands, just so you know where the market currently is:
I think this really is the best summmary of OSS.
Closed operating systems are like renting, the amount you can make it yours is ultimately dependent on your landlord. And if you don't like it, the landlord can tell you to pound sand, sign the contract or get out.
OSS is a house you own. You're only constrained by your own imagination and resources.
The maturity of the project is really what determines if its a fixer-upper or move-in ready. Linux is mostly move-in ready, but the seller is probably going to expect you to paint your own walls.
FWIW, best I can tell from the 3D printer folks I know, that Sovol sounds amazing, but isn't neccessarily an entry-level project.
The Sovol SV-08 is probably the printer I would recommend to OP over any other unless they are specifically looking for Prusa’s ease of use. It’s been a while since I looked at the printer scene but with it being based on the Voron 2.4 and Klipper firmware, it’s basically the cheapest way to get a 100% open source printer and it comes 90% preassembled, so it’s pretty easy to deal with.
Looking at their website, I see they also have the Sovol Zero which appears to be based on the Voron Zero. Since OP is looking to print miniatures primarily, the Zero might be perfect; the small size will make it print a lot faster because it’s not having to the flex of long belts.
To be clear I probably wouldn’t recommend them to an absolute beginner, but as a rule of thumb people who daily drive Linux and want open source are usually the people who will want the customizability that only open source designs can offer and are willing to overlook some configuration optimization blues.
Id call sovol doable for a motivated entry level. Its not necessarily plug and play, but its a lot easier than building your own printer from scratch...
For myself, as someone who prints minis on a resin printer and terrain on an fdm (as well as RC car parts), the last thing I want to do is futz with and spend time dialing in my printer.
My buddy gave me his old Ender 3. I ended up putting some money into it and getting it working, but I was having to mess with it periodically and dial it in. I got tired of that especially when I just wanted to print some stuff to paint and play with.
3d printing is not a hobby unto itself for me, in spite of owning 3 3d printers, it's a means to an end and I just want the simplest process and methodology
There was a time when I would yell at the crowd telling people to buy an Ender 3 as their first printer. Thankfully those people have largely moved on.
That printer is designed to fail. The extruder was a complete joke. It would gnash away the filament before the plastic arm would inevitably break, and if you replaced it with the metal version you would still have to deal with deforming brass gears that would lose traction. The PTFE lined hotend would eventually break down from overheating, which would clog the hotend and cause trace amounts of toxic fumes to be released. The rollers that the motion system relied on would deform and cause printing artifacts. And the tensioning system was just bare M3 screws which would vibrate out of position, which would require you to constantly tram the bed.
The worst thing was that Creality was selling it even alongside the upgraded ones that were supposed to fix some of the problems for years. I hope they finally discontinued it.
I believe they're still selling that upgraded versions! At least, last I looked at Microcenter and bought my Elegoo Centuari Carbon.
I did think about the Creality K2, I think it's called, my friend has one, but I wanted to avoid Creality. The Elegoo has been ok so far, sans a few minor issues (has errors if I do too many prints without a power cycle) and apparently the AMS for it is no longer coming, which wasn't a selling point for me, but would have been nice to have.
I'm unsure what to do with my Ender 3 now. I put a new motherboard in it and upgraded it to a BLTouch (or CRTouch? Whatever is the latest), but it needs a new bed and I'm just...I don't really want to deal with it. I don't feel the need for 2 FDM printers when the Centauri is plenty fast enough to bury me in plastic models to paint.
I heavily upgraded my ender 3 to fix all of the deficiencies. I tried to donate it to the library but they were uninterested in it. I considered giving it to my sister but she isn’t tech minded. In the end I donated it to goodwill just to get rid of it.
I'm tempted to just give it to my brother in law who has a resin printer, though he tries to print functional parts with. After I got my new FDM, he's asked me to print a few things for him with PETG, which is fine, but he could use the FDM.
I would just like to see if I could get even $100 for it, because I'm otherwise on a very limited income.
Fair enough. For me, its the other way around. My first printer was an Ender 3 pro, wasn't a year in before I klipperized it and put dual z belts on it, another year and I redid the electronics enclosure and cable management. This year im buying a voron kit to build. Im definitely one of those people who enjoys the printer more than the printing.
I have a Sovol SV06 Plus, and this is my experience. I used an Ender 3 (first gen) for four years and fought with it to get anything to print reliably; my Sovol is much more reliable with less work. I do still need to tinker with it now and then, but it does well enough that I don't worry about most prints failing. I still have trouble with really wide and flat prints peeling up, but from what I can tell that's hard for any printer.
Sovol is a happy middle ground IMO. It's not as plug and play as Bambu, but that means more control and customization if you want it.
That's a bit unfair to Elegoo, is it not? I can't speak to their filament printers, but AFAIK they're widely considered the best resin printers. Every time I research resin printers, which is what I want to eventually get for myself, everyone seems to be recommending theirs over any others.
I was thinking I probably should have said in my post that I was talking specifically about FDM there and I know next to nothing about resin printing! (For anyone who doesn’t have the background: it’s a whole different ecosystem, different brands, different slicers, different support generation algorithms, etc. - you don’t just select “resin” as a material option in the software).
As I understand it some brands (and yeah, I think Elegoo in particular) are front runners in the resin space but mid tier for FDM, some are the opposite, and I even seem to remember someone suggesting that Creality are better at laser cutters than they are at either kind of printer. Pretty much just ignore any preconceptions I’ve given outside FDM, basically!
On the question of whether to go resin or FDM at all, I’ll defer to the people who know both. I will say I’ve been surprised and impressed with the detail you can get with a good slicer and a 0.2mm nozzle, but I’m generally printing mechanical parts rather than minis and I know that the miniatures side of the hobby does tend to lean towards resin, so I’m very much just info dumping about FDM based on the question rather than explicitly recommending it.
Yeah the Snapmaker U1 looks amazing. Don’t think it’s available in the US yet, the site says pre order.
OP, what’s your budget? Do you want to hand paint all of the colors and details? Would you like the ability to print up to 4 different colors per model?
Yeah the U1 looks really cool, and I’m glad somebody decided to push things forward like that and force everyone else to catch up!
I’m going to be interested to see what the Bondtech INDX is like once people start getting their hands on that, too… that one looks like the best approach to me (less redundancy in what’s being swapped, but still smaller and faster than Bambu’s Vortek system because it keeps the filament loaded), but it’s definitely early days until we see people putting a few hundred hours on them and figuring out the real world quirks.
I have a Prusa mk4s (upgraded from an mk4), and I only have Linux environments, so can offer some insight there.
I've used octoprint which worked well, but for the moment I'm using Prusa's connect system either pushing direct or via their cloud system - you can also just load prints via usb if you wish.
Prusa printers are definitely not the cheap option when buying new, but it's well worth checking out eBay as the second hand market is strong and both original and 3rd party parts are available easily.
"Toxic" is a bit strong to describe the fumes from resin printers. Technically that is true but they're not releasing VOCs in sufficient quantity to be significantly dangerous - outside of industrial print farms, with rooms full of the things running at high capacity all day every day. That's a world away from a little printer in the corner doing the occasional model.
My Elegoo Mars resin printer comes with an air filter built into it but even though I haven't changed that for like two years, there's still barely any smell when printing - and I do most of my printing in an enclosed space, on a shelf in a cupboard. I am careful to limit the time I have the cover off the printer but that's as much to do with limiting the amount of UV the resin is exposed to as anything else (that stuff is expensive, I don't want it curing from daylight!). The print goop is pretty nasty but as long as you wear gloves it's fine. You can even get water washable resins now, although I haven't tried those.
The thing is, compared to FDM the print resolution is so much higher, it's absolutely worth the small amount of danger, especially if you're printing miniatures. FDM is great for bigger stuff - although I'd still only use it for parts rather than models - but you're just not going to get decent results at small scale, even with heavy post-processing to clean up print lines.
Anyway to actually answer your question I've never had a problem printing from Linux and I've had various 3D printers around my house/workshop for perhaps the last 10 years now. There are plenty of both fully open source and linux-friendly closed source slicer options out there. Try a few and see what works for you, I currently use Chitubox.
If you can get a printer that supports OctoPrint that can make your life a bit easier and much more cool, but it's by no means necessary.
My printer is older, but I have it in a box that's vented out the window. This seems to largely solve the smell issue, but if I didn't have it in there, it stinks up my entire house.
That said, if FDM was my only or preferred options, I'd just buy resin printed minis off Etsy and eBay. Like @mat says, it's not really worth it on FDM with minis.
You are going to have a hard time with FDM/FFF printing miniatures. If you do go this route, you should consider a toolchanger/idex machine, with one head printing dissolvable supports. You will still need an extremely small nozzle size as well, and perhaps should consider filaments with extremely high layer adhesion.
Additionally, if you want the hardware to be open as well, you should look into Printers For Ants - in particular any that support the madmax toolchanger. This is a massive undertaking, and your printer may become more of a project than your miniatures.
If you have any Klipper questions feel free to ask me. I’m pretty familiar with the firmware; I made it to the list of contributors displayed on the git repository’s main page earlier this year.
Kind of a side comment: my local city library has a 3d printer anyone can use, the staff will even help. If yours does too, you might be able to pick up some experience and an idea of what you do and don't like before you buy.
I found out recently that my library has some Prusa printers, but they have an arbitrary print time limit of 4 hours. I know my mini is likely a bit slower than the standard Prusa, but 4 hours for a print is nothing. I’m not sure you could even print the articulating octopus that everyone seems to print at any reasonable quality and scale settings within 4 hours.
Some background: there is “slicer software” that runs on your computer and typically supports multiple printers. Some examples are Cura and PrusaSlicer. They’re open source. You use them to convert a 3d model into a gcode file, which is what the printer actually runs. You could download a slicer ahead of time and try it out before you get a printer. You wouldn’t be able to print anything, but there is a 3d preview of how an object would be printed.
If you’re concerned about open source then you might also care about how open to modification the hardware is. Can you get replacement parts and modify how it works? This isn’t necessary, though. You could also use the printer as-is.
I have a Prusa printer (an Mk3.5) so I use PrusaSlicer with it. I use it on a Mac but it supports Linux. If buying it new, the model that replaced my printer is the Mk4. They’re very reliable and pretty open to modifications. The main issue is that they’re not the cheapest. You can save some money by buying the kit and assembling it yourself, though it’s a bit of a project.
I haven’t used other printers so I’ll let other people talk about them.
I own a A1 Mini from BambuLabs. I love it as a person who uses my printer for hobbies and the occasional home repair/improvement. While the whole proprietary printer firmware chaps my ass a bit, I've never had an issue with print quality, or printer maintenance.
I use the Bambu slicer as the integration with the printer and AMS is the best, but Orca is more than capable, and likely has more features I've never considered or explored.
Finally, if you want to model parts, Blender and FreeCAD are what I use. The learning curve of FreeCAD is STEEP but that's not unlike any other professional CAD software. FreeCAD also has a big add-on/mod community, and tons of videos and written tutorials to learn from.
If you’re interested in seeing what a Bambu A1 Mini can achieve in terms of miniatures, feel free to DM. I think it could fit your criteria. It’s been pretty popular lately in the small world of FDM miniatures and can feel like a nice starting point due to an honest price, IMHO.
Bambulab is the opposite of open source, isn't it? Unless there's available software
I've got a Centauri Carbon, and am overall satisfied, but the company has had it's share of controversy regarding software. There's an open source firmware alternative for it, at least! And it works nicely. I'm still using the slicer soft from the company, but it's basically rebranded orcaslicer
You’re right, I was mainly thinking of the slicer, since I pretty much use Orca without any issues!
I think all the big names just use a minimally rebranded orcaslicer, it makes sense for it to work just fine by itself
Apparently the lineage goes the other way: Orca Slicer is a fork of Bambu Studio, which is a fork of PrusaSlicer, which is a fork of Slic3r.
Since they’re all open source, they can copy features from each other, in any direction. PrusaSlicer got tree supports and gyroid infill from Cura.
I haven’t seen much reason to try out different slicers since I don’t really use advanced features.
Not really. Many newer printer are using orca, but Prusa uses PrusaSlicer, a number of commercial printers are using Cura, and Bambu is using BambuSlicer, which is based on PrusaSlicer and is the origin of OrcaSlicer.
I think it’s worth pointing out that, for the most part, you can use any slicer with any printer. Slicers output gcode files, and basically all printers allow you to run an arbitrary gcode file.
OP seems to just need something that’s compatible with Linux as they said they are okay paying for something proprietary. Bambu Studio has a beta build on their GitHub that runs on Linux.
The Tome of 3d Printed Horrors focuses on printing miniatures with fdm printers, with the Bambu A1 Mini as their printer of choice. Resin printers still have an edge, but I was surprised to see just how detailed you can get with fdm.