Donāt be put off! As a minimalist 3D printer user I mostly stick to the defaults. I use a Prusa Mk 3 printer which I built and set up according to the manual, I import the STL to the Slicer, making sure that the placement of the object is suitable for printing, mostly this means having the base on the print bed. Once thatās done I export the G code to an SD card and print from that, Using Amazon PETG filament the microscope base takes 14 hours to print with default settings. Iāve printed 3. Normally I start the print first thing in the morning and periodically check it, Smaller parts take less time. The only consistent problem Iāve faced is printing the actuator tools which always fails with a stringy mess and Iāve had 4 tries with both PETG and PLA.
You donāt necessarily to import the hardware from China, Iāve bought everything from Amazon U.K. or EBay apart from the condenser lenses. If you want one of those Iāll send you one for free. I had to buy 100 to get one.