How to start a 3D print farm: first steps

Start with one printer and one part that already sells, log every plate for a few weeks, and add a second identical printer only when the first is busy and profitable. In our worked numbers the limit is hands-on time, not printers: at 12 minutes per plate, one person runs out of day at about 40 plates.

We are Well Earned GmbH in Thun, Switzerland, and we print motorcycle parts for our shop Revsticks on seven printers. Where this page is opinion, it says so.

Do these before you buy a second printer

1. Pick one part with proven demand. SimplyPrint, which sells farm software, warns: "Buying a wall of printers before you know what sells turns a hobby into expensive idle iron."
2. Time a whole plate. Start it, clear it, check it. We measured about 6.4 minutes per printer for starting. The rest of our 12 minutes is assumed, so yours will be better data than ours.
3. Work out your cost per plate. Our 205 g plate comes to CHF 14.76 at researched Swiss prices, and only CHF 3.90 of that is filament.
4. Fill the plate. Labour is per plate. At the same values, 14 bar end caps cost CHF 0.72 each, while one brake line holder alone costs CHF 9.05.
5. Log plates, hours and failures from day one. Our 5% failure rate is an assumption. Yours can be a count.

How many printers to run

No standard sets a number. SimplyPrint says: "Only when one machine is reliably busy and profitable should you add a second." We agree. This table shows what each step costs in hands-on time, using the 12 minutes and CHF 42 an hour from cost per plate, and one plate per printer per day.

Short plates change this quickly. Two plates a day per printer doubles every line. The 12 minutes has no time study behind it, so replace it first.

What to buy, in order

This order is our opinion.

1. One printer you can control over the network. Check before you pay. Two of our seven, the Kobra 2 Max and Kobra X, can't be driven over the network with software we have working, so someone starts them by hand. A P1S Combo was CHF 445.72 at 3DJake on 31 October 2026. See P1S or X1C.
2. Filament, spare nozzles and basic tools. SimplyPrint's vendor estimate for one printer with these is $400 to $900.
3. A dryer, if your materials need one. See filament storage and drying.
4. A second printer of the same type. Same type means the same files, presets and control method.
5. Shelving and any electrical work. SimplyPrint puts a dedicated circuit in its 5 to 10 printer budget of $4,000 to $10,000.
6. Software, when the sums work. See when you need print farm software.

Space

Measure with the AMS fitted, because it adds to the height. A P1S is 389 x 389 x 458 mm and 12.95 kg. A P2S is 392 x 406 x 478 mm and 14.9 kg. Four P1S weigh about 52 kg before spools, so check what the shelf is rated for.

Bambu lists a working temperature of 10 °C to 30 °C for the P2S. We did not find that figure for the P1S.

Power

The problem is heat-up, not the bill. Power is CHF 0.24 of our CHF 14.76 plate, at about 100 W average. Peak draw is another matter.

One Swiss supplier describes the T13 socket as designed for a temporary load of 10 A, or up to 2,300 W. So two P1S heating at once fit, and three don't. Two P2S at 2,400 W already exceed it.

Sockets often share one breaker, so count per circuit. Bambu Farm Manager has a staggered start option "to prevent power overloads". Dryers add to the load. Ask an electrician before you run a shelf of printers unattended.

Network

• Reserve an IP address for every printer on day one. A changed address looks exactly like a dead printer.
• Put printers on their own network segment. Bambu's Developer Mode leaves control channels open, and securing them is your job.
• Check the Wi-Fi requirement. Bambu's wiki says Farm Manager printers use 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi. 3DJake's P1S and P2S listings show Wi-Fi, not a network port.

Ventilation

A NIOSH poster from 2020 gives the most specific public advice we found:

• Print in a negatively pressured area with dedicated ventilation, away from other work.
• Use HEPA-filtered local exhaust near the printing, and add gas and vapour filters if VOCs concern you, or use a ventilated enclosure.
• Choose lower-emitting filament where possible, and the lowest temperature that makes a good part.
• Spend less time near the printers. It rates going to a printer quickly after a failure and during start-up as higher exposure.

It gives no air change rate, and neither can we. For a measured site, see the NIOSH evaluation on our farm overview. SimplyPrint also recommends a camera plus smoke and heat sensors, since "a farm should still run with basic safety supervision".

Files and presets

Our production folder holds 210 model files, 58 slicer projects and 50 presets across two slicers. That is what a mixed fleet costs. Our V3 plate holder exists as both V3 FULL BAMBU and V3 FULL ANY, so one design change means slicing twice.

• Keep one tested profile per printer and material.
• Put the printer family in the file name.
• Match the nozzle. Farm Manager only offers printers with a compatible model and matching nozzle diameter.
• Check start G-code on anything a script generates. We once made 76 files with the wrong one.

What to automate first

Our order, and opinion:

1. Starting prints. It took us about 45 minutes every morning on seven machines, and it needs only software.
2. Failure alerts. A failed print costs more than filament, because someone has to notice it, clear it and queue it again.
3. Clearing plates. SimplyPrint quotes Yanyan Huang of 3D Farmers saying "Automate the bed clearing" as the first step, because it enables unattended printing. That may remove more work than our first step, but it needs hardware. On our machines someone still clears every plate.

When not to start one

• You have no part that sells yet. One printer can test that.
• Your price is below your plate cost. At our values a single small part on its own plate costs CHF 9.05. Fill the plate or drop the part.
• Every job is a new customer file. Each one needs its own checks, and we would plan on 10% failures, not 5%. SimplyPrint calls the end state "a job, not a business".
• You have no room you can ventilate. Check your lease and your insurance too.
• Nobody can respond when something goes wrong. Printing unattended still needs someone reachable.

We also build Rackrew, software for running a print farm.