Print farm: several printers side by side

How a farm works

Instead of one big machine, several smaller printers stand side by side. Orders are shared between them depending on which one is free and whether it has the right material. A batch of 200 parts does not have to be printed by one machine for three days, but is split across several. If one machine breaks down, the others carry on and production does not stop. With FDM this is common, because printers are cheap and easy to add.

Why this matters for batch printing

• Throughput. Several machines print parts at the same time, so the lead time is shorter.
• Redundancy. A fault on one machine does not mean the whole order is late.
• Consistency. Identical machines and profiles give identical parts. There are always small differences between machines, though, so do not expect parts that are identical to a hundredth of a millimetre, see tolerances.
• Planning. You can know exactly when each printer will become free.

How you see it

The delivery date in the calculator is live. It is based on how busy the printers are right now and on the real print time after the model has been prepared on our server. For small batches of 1 to 5,000 parts, how many parts fit on one plate also matters. We photograph every batch before dispatch.

If you need a particular date, for example for a trade fair, write to jakub.novak@boostello.com before ordering.

When a farm makes sense for you too

Having several machines shows most in batches from a few dozen parts, such as fridge magnets or keyrings. For a single part it makes little difference. For a larger batch it also helps if the part is designed so that as many as possible fit on one plate, which shortens the total time.