The Digital Design Studio (DDS) offers 3D printing at no cost to Tufts students, faculty, and staff. The DDS is an educational space, so while the service is available to all members of the Tufts community, print requests for class projects or course-related work will be prioritized over non-curricular or recreational print requests. Users in need of a large volume or multiple iterations of a print may be better served by other spaces within the Tufts Maker Network.
Getting started with 3D printing
- New to 3D printing and curious about creating your own 3D models and exploring 3D design? TinkerCAD is a free, browser-based 3D modeling suite that's great for beginners.
- Looking for 3D models designed by others that are free to use? Thingiverse has a variety of 3D models that you can download, modify, and print.
- The DDS’s 3D printers use a material called polylactic acid (PLA), which is a plant-based plastic. It’s lightweight and comes in a variety of colors, but it degrades when exposed to moisture and UV light, so it’s not suitable for objects that will spend prolonged time outdoors.
- The maximum size of a 3D print from the DDS is approximately 8 x 6 x 5 inches. The larger a print object is, the longer it will take to produce.
Requesting 3D prints from the DDS
- Once you have a file you’re interested in printing, schedule a brief consultation with Miles Donovan, the 3D printing specialist, to talk about the print process, review your print file, and establish a realistic turnaround time for its production.
- When we’ve ensured that your file is ready to be printed, we will add it to the queue of requests. Please keep in mind that prints are produced in the order in which they’ve been requested, so plan ahead if you’re on a deadline.
- We will email you when your print is available for pick up. You can pick up your prints from the main desk on Level 2 near the main entrance during library service hours.