Guide
Setting Up Your First 3D Printer
A modern auto-calibrating machine is roughly fifteen minutes from box to first print. Here is the order to do things in, and the one rule that saves people a week of pointless troubleshooting.
By Scooter M. · Published · Last reviewed
The short answer
Put it somewhere solid, run the machine’s own calibration, and print the file that came with it. In that order, before you print anything of your own. If the bundled file fails, the problem is mechanical or environmental — which is far more useful information than a failure of a model you sliced yourself.
Before the box arrives
Two things, and both take five minutes.
Decide where it goes and measure. Printers are larger in person than in photographs, and the published dimensions are the machine at rest — a bed-slinger’s plate travels beyond the frame while printing, and you need clearance to load a spool and reach the front. Bambu Lab publishes 347 × 315 × 365 mm for the A1 mini and 465 × 410 × 430 mm for the A1, and you want more than that in practice.
Order filament. The coil in the box is a sample, usually enough for the demo model. Order a 1 kg spool of PLA at the same time as the machine — our picks are here.
Step 1: Where it goes
Three requirements, in order of how often they get ignored.
- Solid. A bed-slinger throws its plate back and forth many times a second, and a wobbly table converts that into visible ripples on the sides of your prints. A sturdy desk or a proper shelf. Not a folding table.
- Level, roughly. The bed leveling compensates for the plate, not for the furniture. Close enough that a ball would not roll off is fine.
- Out of a draft. Away from an opened window, a door in regular use, an air conditioning vent or a fan. This is the single most under-diagnosed cause of prints lifting, precisely because it is invisible.
Where to put your 3D printer goes through the noise, heat and safety side of this decision.
Step 2: Assemble it, if it needs assembling
Machines vary from “lift out of the box and remove some foam” to a genuine hour of screws. Two pieces of advice apply to all of them:
Remove every transit lock. Manufacturers immobilize moving parts for shipping with zip ties, foam blocks and screws, and they are usually marked. A machine asked to move against a transit screw makes an alarming noise and can damage itself.
Follow the manual rather than a video. Videos are made for a particular revision of a machine and this category revises frequently. The manual in the box matches the machine in the box.
Step 3: Run the calibration before your first print
Not after your first failure. Every current beginner machine has a calibration routine in its menu and it takes a few minutes. It typically measures the bed, sets the Z-offset, and on some machines calibrates flow and resonance.
This is the step that has replaced an entire era of beginner frustration and it is startling how often people skip it because the machine appears to work without it. Run it.
Step 4: Print the file that came with it
Every printer ships with a pre-sliced model on its storage card, prepared by the manufacturer with settings they know work on that machine. Print that first.
The reason is diagnostic. If it succeeds, your machine is mechanically sound and correctly calibrated, and any later failure is something you did. If it fails, the problem is the machine or its environment, and you have not wasted a day suspecting your own slicer settings.
Step 5: Then, and only then, print something of your own
Start with something small, flat-bottomed, under two hours and with no supports. What to print first is ordered by how much each print teaches you per gram of filament.
What to expect in the first fortnight
A failure or two, which is normal and not a sign you bought the wrong machine. Almost every one of them will be one of two problems wearing different clothes: the first layer did not stick, or the filament did not flow as expected.
The first has its own page — when a print will not stick — ordered by likelihood and cost. The second is usually moisture or a partial clog, and storage and drying covers the moisture half.
The mistakes worth skipping entirely, several of which are purchases rather than techniques, are on the beginner mistakes page.
What you should not do in week one
- Do not install custom firmware. The stock firmware is fine and you will not be able to tell whether a problem is yours or the firmware’s.
- Do not buy upgrades. Almost every upgrade sold for these machines solves a problem you have not yet had.
- Do not print anything you have promised somebody by a date. Deadlines and learning curves do not mix.
- Do not start with multi-color, PETG or supports. Each is a separate skill. Add them one at a time once single-color PLA is dependable.
Questions people actually ask
+−How long does it take to set up a 3D printer?
Guides consistently report roughly ten to fifteen minutes for current auto-calibrating machines from box to first print. A machine that needs real assembly takes an evening. Budget accordingly and do not plan a print for the same hour the box arrives.
+−What should I print first on a new 3D printer?
The file that came with it. It is pre-sliced by the manufacturer with settings known to work on that machine, which makes it a diagnostic: if it fails, the problem is the machine or its environment rather than your slicer settings.
+−Do I need to level the bed on a new printer?
Current beginner machines level themselves — both the Bambu A1 series and the Creality Ender-3 V3 line publish automatic bed leveling with an automatic Z-offset. You do need to run the calibration routine once before your first print rather than after your first failure.
+−What do I need to buy with a 3D printer?
A 1 kg spool of PLA at minimum, because the coil in the box is a sample. Beyond that, the starter kit page lists the small number of items that each prevent a specific common failure.