My 3D Printers#

Hello everyone!

For a few years now, I’ve been quite interested in 3D printing.

Actually, it started a bit despite myself in March 2020 when I decided to buy my first gamer PC with my savings. One Sunday, while scrolling through second-hand apps, I came across an offer too good to be true. A guy was selling his entire setup + his small lab for less than €500, exactly right in my budget.

My Initial Setup#

What was included?

A desktop PC (which I still have, by the way, with a 1080ti)
A 3D printer
A NAS server
A 27” screen
A keyboard and a mouse

I jumped on the opportunity, talked to my parents, and we immediately set up a meeting with the seller. He lived about an hour away, and simply on Monday evening after school, my dad and I went to pick everything up.

I think everyone remembers, but 2020 was the year of Covid. I was very lucky because all this happened in early March just before the first lockdown. I can say that this pc saved my lockdown because I can’t count the hours spent on Fortnite, Minecraft or Call of Duty with my friends or my little sister.

Plus, what I didn’t tell you is that the PC, besides being a great deal, was a bit special. It was built under a glass plate embedded directly into the desk, so with all the components visible. Truly incredible.

But at that time, although I was quite interested in IT, I was much more preoccupied with video games than the rest, so I put the 3D printer and the NAS aside. I still tried sometimes to understand how it worked, how I could use all of this, but I didn’t really see the point.

I did try to get the printer working, but a second-hand printer with no brand, no manual, completely manual (no help, everything had to be calibrated by hand, etc.) totally discouraged me, and I simply sold it… But the desire to do 3D printing hadn’t left me at all. I was watching a lot of videos, I especially remember Dr Nozman’s video on YouTube that I found really great, very futuristic.

My Wanhao Printer#

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In 2022, while watching YouTube, I came across videos talking about a French printer brand, Wanhao. It looked really interesting, relatively affordable prices, and printers well-designed for beginners. Obviously, tutorials were provided, whether via videos or paper manuals for assembly and calibration. Everything was perfect to start properly. Thanks to my parents for buying it for me!

This time everything was simple, well-designed, and well-explained.

I was able to make many small objects, figurines of all kinds, etc. I also tried making my own parts thanks to 3D modeling with Fusion 360. Today in 2026, this printer still works perfectly. I simply made some improvements, notably by switching to a direct drive print head for better precision.

My Bambulab Printer#

In the meantime, I also had a rather large format printer, an Alfawise U20 with a 300x300x400mm bed that I sold last year due to lack of space and to make room for a very recent printer. We’ve heard about it everywhere, I’m talking of course about the Bambulab printer, the A1 mini model.

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https://bambulab.com/en/a1-mini

It’s a brilliant printer, well-designed, simple to use, that calibrates itself. It’s plug and play, you plug it in and it works. Until now I was using the Cura slicer, but Bambulab offers its own which is great; it directly integrates a very complete model store.

The Bambulab A1 mini has a print volume of 180x180x180mm. It’s not huge, but it is the cheapest and smallest model. To get something bigger, you can switch to its big sister, the classic A1.

It’s a fast printer, really very reliable, I rarely have issues with it. With it, I mainly print figurines, parts for cable management, items for the Switch, etc.

AI#

When we talk about AI, we often think of generative AI, but there are also AIs that allow creating 3D models, and Bambulab actually offers a great AI generation service that you can use to make figures from images or other things. I advise you to test it and even publish the model so that everyone can enjoy it!

bambulab ai

3D Enclosure#

The issue with 3D printing is that it releases odors and heat… To remedy this, with my father’s help, we made a plexiglass enclosure to surround the printer.

We used a table model from IKEA, the Lack model, with plexiglass sheets to make the contours and of course 3D printed parts to make the corners and edges.

I used this project that I found on the model sharing platform Printables.

https://www.printables.com/model/47885-box-jellyfish-3d-printer-enclosure-ikea-lack-table

printables