You are reading a single comment by @HatBeard and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
@HatBeard
you're pretty much set.
just get plenty of filament and download a bunch of files you want to print ready to go.
filament wise pla+(plus) is a good starting point as it's pretty well behaved and gives a nice smoother print than normal pla. most brands will be much of a muchness, I use eSun and sunlu as they're not the very cheapest but are often discounted down to £13/14 a roll on amazon (i have camelcamelcamel alerts setup when it drops under £15 for the colours i use most).
if you do plan to get an AMS as well in the future don't stock up too much on cardboard spools as the ams doesn't like them as they wear and cause dust in the mechanisms and can slip on the spindles it uses to turn the spools, annoyingly i think esun moved to cardboard spools now. there are workarounds like printing spool edge covers or printing geared machines that will respool onto a plastic spool but it's a faff.
if you don't plan to get an AMS (yet) I'd recommend seriously considering it anyways and maybe starting a piggy bank fund to save up for one by selling prints/print time to friends if its out of budget. the auto switch feature that jumps to another roll of the same colour if you run out mid print without interrupting it is worth the cost of entry alone as is being able to switch filament types between prints by clicking a dropdown but the multi color printing is also very nice and makes amazing stuff.
oh and get some vacuum sealable bags to keep your opened filaments in if you plan to swap between colours/filament types a lot. just stops them absorbing moisture while sitting around so you're less likely to need to dry them later on.