3d printer management software

Kimball Union Academy: Teaching 3D printing during Covid-19

AstroPrint Staff

The Covid virus has brought real challenges to 3D printing educators. In a typical 3D printing lab, students congregate around 3D Printers as they wait for their prints to finish. They share computers, sd cards and so on…

Giving a 3D printing class seems impossible these days with the new social distancing standards. Some schools have simply decided to close their 3D printing labs, letting the printers collect dust.

Others, like Kimball Union Academy, have decided to use AstroPrint to keep 3D printing in their curriculum. And, as we’ll see, this new need has led them to drastically improve the way they teach 3D printing.

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How to Set Up a 3D Printer Farm to Sell Drone Parts

AstroPrint Staff

I think it’s just about identifying a gap in the market and coming up with a design or product that could potentially fill that gap. 3D printing allows you to create products that don’t currently exist in the market

Neil Watts

Neil Watts is a 3D printing enthusiast who has turned his hobby into a business. His online store, Aero3D, sells custom accessories for drones to customers worldwide. Neil doesn’t have a background in design, but he’s taught himself to design parts with basic cad software.

In this interview, Neil tells us about:

  • How he found an opportunity in custom drone parts and how other 3D printing enthusiasts can find market niches.
  • How he finds clients without spending a penny on marketing.
  • How he manages to run 13 printers simultaneously while still keeping his corporate job.
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How to Set Up a 3D Printer Farm to Sell Cookie Cutters

AstroPrint Staff

Since we print on demand, we can sell zero of a design and it doesn’t cost us anything other than my wife having fun sketching it. If I put a product online and it doesn’t sell, we don’t lose anything.

Mike Benner

Mike and his wife Shey are the founders of Sheyb, an online store where people can find custom 3D printed cookie cutters. They make their own designs and print them on demand. Currently, they have a farm of 30+ printers and their business keeps growing.

In this interview, Mike tells us about:

  • How they started their 3D printing cookie business.
  • How they manage and monitor their 3D printer fleet.
  • How they leverage social media to drive sales.
  • Where Mike sees other business opportunities for 3D printing entrepreneurs.
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Max-K: How a StartUp Launches a Printer with AstroPrint and Google Assistant

AstroPrint Staff

Last month, Max-K (Emot3D), a start-up manufacturer based in Mexico, presented its new 3D printer at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. The printer comes with Google Assistant and it’s powered by AstroPrint software. Thanks to both integrations, the 3D printer can be controlled from any device and print with a few clicks. In addition, you can control multiple printers from one device and execute voice commands specific to the 3D printer such as bed leveling.

We asked Jose Luis Ku, founder of the company, about his experience making a smart 3D printer:

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How STEAM Studio uses AstroPrint to Teach 3D Printing to Kids

Daniel Arroyo

In early 2016, we founded STEAM Studio in Wexford, PA, as a place to teach kids STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math) concepts with hands on projects and experiments.

From the beginning, we wanted 3D Printing to be a big part of our curriculum and projects. 3D Printing gets kids excited about engineering because of the hands on nature of having to design, print and take home cool objects.

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Print your queues with your 3D Printer

How To Use Print Queuing with your 3D Printer

AstroPrint Staff

So you want to load up multiple designs on your 3D Printer and control the sequence of when they will be printed? 

As in, you want to use print queues with your 3D Printer?

If so, I have good news for you.

The ability to use print queueing is now available on AstroPrint Pro Accounts.

The Print Queues feature will let you:

  1. Create a new print queue and assign it to a printer directly from the File Manager
  2. Add multiple copies of the same design to a print queue with one click
  3. Edit or Remove existing Print Queues
  4. Add a design to a “Print It Later” bucket until you decide on what print queue to add it to

This means that you can line up any number of designs on any number of printers in any sequence, right from your AstroPrint cloud account.

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