OK here goes nothing. I have put together my Maker Farm i3v. From the basic assembly, I tried printing a couple of things I found cool. Since then I have found a few short comings, and have come on here and you guys have got me back on path. I have found I can find quite a few things on thingiverse (or something like that) I walked away from it for a weekend to recoupe as I had quite a bit going with Jr Dragster events and all. I also had to finish a home design for a friend of mine. I have his plans into the engineer. In exchange he gave me a new laptop computer. Well I am now in the process of setting everything up. I have my AutoCAD Architecture loaded, and COINS as well. Regretfully I do not have solidworks on here yet. I had a copy from a friend to install while I learn it but it would not load on this system. It was set up for Vista and 32 bit and mine is Windows 8 and 64 bit.

OK now for the questions. I am going start fresh on this laptop. Like I said I have been working straight out of the box with no revisions or anything, and basically no calibrations. I have downloaded slic3r and it is somewhat ready to go. I just got my Heat Bed relay that I want to put on. From here I am going to be working on modeling for my first home to print for work. What I want to know is from here, where would you start? I know that there is an auto bed leveling thread I want to follow, and I want to also go through printbus entire thread and use it to set up my printer using the calibration info. Anything else you all would recommend? I have printed a bunch with PLA and have used up almost the entire spool. That stuff is fun to print with. I am next going to try it with ABS. Not sure if it is true, but I have been told ABS is more work, however it gives a better printed finish. I would like to learn to print with mine and not have all the lines and fur as I call it, that have to be cleaned up. My guess is I am just doing something wrong.

Anyway I look forward to suggestions from you all as to what to do before I go in and print my first House Model. Since the bed is 8"X8"X8" and I plan on printing 1/4"=1'-0" I am going to have to break the home up into several pieces. For the second floor this will be no problem as I plan on making certain parts interchangeable anyway so I can show the home with a standard bath, and be able to swap it for a Grand Master Bath option and so forth. I hope to be able to model the homes and then take them into work once complete and offer them to the company that is right now real anxious to see them. They have seen a few different desk toys I printed including an engine block I am using as a pen holder. If I can get some detail to the homes, atleast enough for them to show off to clients they would pay good for them, and I plan on using some of that cash to offset the printing cost, and the rest will go into my car fund.