Printer bed sizes, and designing a part that fits
Build volumes of 9 popular 3D printers in millimetres, how ShapeDis checks a part against your bed, and how a 38-piece RC plane was cut to fit.
The first limit on any print is the bed. A part that is a few millimetres too long is a part you cannot print as one piece. ShapeDis keeps the printer's bed in mind while it designs, and checks every part against it.
Build volumes of the printers in ShapeDis
These are the printers you can pick as the Board of a project, with each maker's published build volume, in millimetres (X × Y × Z).
| Printer | Build volume (mm) |
|---|---|
| Bambu Lab A1 mini | 180 × 180 × 180 |
| Bambu Lab A1 | 256 × 256 × 256 |
| Bambu Lab P1S | 256 × 256 × 256 |
| Bambu Lab X1 Carbon | 256 × 256 × 256 |
| Prusa MINI+ | 180 × 180 × 180 |
| Prusa MK4S | 250 × 210 × 220 |
| Prusa XL | 360 × 360 × 360 |
| Creality Ender-3 V3 | 220 × 220 × 250 |
| Elegoo Neptune 4 Pro | 225 × 225 × 265 |
A printer that is not on the list is not a problem: use a custom grid.
The Board: a printer or a grid
- A known printer. Pick it in the Print tab, or once in Settings so every new project starts on it. A new project starts on the first printer in the list until you choose another.
- A custom grid. Three sizes, each from 10 to 1000 mm, for a printer that is not listed, or a plain workplane like the one in a CAD program.
The board does two things. The AI designs to that size, and the Print tab checks every part against it. Changing the board rebuilds nothing: the checks answer at once.
How the bed check decides
A part counts as fitting if its three sizes, sorted from smallest to largest, are each no bigger than the bed's three sizes sorted the same way. In other words, it fits if it fits turned some way. That makes the check generous, since it compares sizes only and does not try every angle, so treat "fits" as "can fit" and look at the part on the bed in your slicer. A part that is larger than the bed in every orientation gets a print note naming the part, its size and the bed's size, and a suggestion to split it.
A real example: a 38-piece plane
The RC plane on the home page is 38 pieces and 597 × 680 × 246 mm overall, shown without its second pair of wings. It was cut into pieces that each fit a small printer bed, and the wings can be swapped. Splitting a large design is something you can ask for directly: "split this into pieces that fit a 180 mm bed". The Print tab then shows any piece that is still too big.
Next: the files ShapeDis exports, and what the checks look at.
Try it on your own part
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