Some direction needed.

Hello, please understand I am completely new to this stuff, and know VERY little.
I purchased a Wilson TS from mjrice. One of the parts was bad, so Marty is quickly
sending out a replacement.

So in the meantime I have been looking around. I found some stuff on gift hub and thingiverse.
But have no idea what I am looking at or for when it comes to files and such.

So my question is: Once I build my printer where can I get further instruction as to software
and types of files? .scad or .stl or whatever else there is.
.scad just comes up as a weird text file on thingiverse.

Check the Absolute Beginners Guide in the wiki.

And just by assembling your own printer you'll learn a lot.

CAD software is used to design parts that will be 3D printed. OpernSCAD is one of the popular CAD programs. STL files are one type of file that most CAD software produces, and is the type you need to print. The SCAD file on thingiverse is provided so you can edit the object easily because STL files are not so easy to edit.

You will need a slicing program, such as Slic3r or Cura to process the STL file for your printer. The slicing software will produce a gcode file that will actually print.

AndrewBCN - I can not find the Absolute Beginners Guide in the wiki?
It doesn't come up in search either.

the digital dentist - now I kind of get that, Openscad would be just the g-code?
similar to what is used with Mach3 and a cnc?

[reprap.org]

Quote
AndrewBCN
[reprap.org]

Thank you.