From 23 Printers in a University Lab
to 116 on a Production Floor

The Environment

Montclair State University’s MIX Lab (Making and Innovating for X), housed in the Feliciano School of Business, is one of the largest university-based 3D printing facilities in the United States. Co-directed by Jason Frasca and Iain Kerr, it serves students, faculty and community partners across entrepreneurship, product design, engineering and the arts.

The lab runs 23 Bambu Lab printers alongside other fabrication equipment. With hundreds of students submitting jobs each semester, it needed a management layer for authentication, queuing and oversight without dedicated staff for every machine.

The Challenge

An open-access university lab needs things the default Bambu software wasn’t designed for: students authenticated through the university’s identity provider, jobs reviewed before they reach the machines, and visibility into who prints what, how much material is used and how well the lab is utilized.

USB drives and walk-up queues create bottlenecks at this scale. The MIX Lab needed a system students could use from their dorm rooms, faculty could monitor remotely and IT could connect to Montclair’s existing authentication.

The Solution

Montclair State deployed 3DPrinterOS (called “3DPos” on the MIX Lab’s submission portal) as its central print management platform. Anyone with a Montclair Net ID can log in via SSO and submit jobs to the Bambu Lab fleet without touching the machines.

• SSO login via Montclair State University Net ID
• Centralized print queue across 23 Bambu Lab printers
• Remote job submission from any device, no USB drives
• Print approval workflow for lab administrators
• Usage tracking and analytics across the fleet

Beyond Fleet Management

In 2024, Montclair State and 3DPrinterOS partnered to develop an algorithm that identifies 3D-printed firearm components, combining Montclair’s computer science research with 3DPrinterOS’s platform-level visibility into print operations. It shows how fleet data can support safety and compliance, not just efficiency.

“This partnership allows us to explore the intersection of technology and public safety. We are excited to contribute our knowledge to develop a system that can make a real difference.”

Jason Frasca, Co-Director of the MIX Lab, Montclair State University

The Environment

Fantasy Pets is a Utah-based company producing 3D-printed dragon figurines and collectibles. Founded by Chris Modesitt, a former telecom executive who helped grow a startup into a $100M company, it runs one of the largest Bambu Lab print farms on 3DPrinterOS: 116 printers, often around the clock.

What began as Etsy sales with 5,000+ five-star reviews is now a wholesale business supplying gift stores, with 95% of revenue flowing through fantasypets.net. Designs are licensed from artists on Patreon and MyMiniFactory, a scalable product model rather than a custom print shop.

The Challenge

At 116 printers, manual management wasn’t an option. Chris estimates that without 3DPrinterOS the operation would need two to three times as many employees. The team had to send jobs to 10 printers at once, monitor the whole floor in real time and keep production running while training new operators quickly.

Hiring is hard too: good people who will work nights are difficult to find. The software had to be simple enough to learn in one quick lesson while still offering advanced production tools.

The Solution

Fantasy Pets runs its entire Bambu Lab fleet on 3DPrinterOS, which handles centralized file storage, multi-printer job dispatch, real-time monitoring and production workflow from one interface.

“We needed a solution where one or two skilled people could manage everything. 3DPrinterOS worked right out of the box.”

Chris Modesitt, Founder, Fantasy Pets

• 116 Bambu Lab printers managed from one dashboard
• Print jobs sent to 10+ printers simultaneously
• Centralized design repository for all product files
• Real-time monitoring across the production floor
• Simple enough for new operators after one training session

The Impact

With 3DPrinterOS carrying the technical load, Fantasy Pets focuses on wholesale partnerships, marketing and scaling production, and now plans to grow to 200 printers. The platform shapes purchasing too: Fantasy Pets only buys printers that 3DPrinterOS has integrated with.

“I love it a lot. The product’s been well worth what we pay for it every month; we don’t buy printers that you guys haven’t done an integration with.”

Chris Modesitt, Founder, Fantasy Pets