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3DISM Manual

Walkthrough · 01

First time setup

From unboxing to your first print

Level Beginner Time ~10 min Steps 6

Just turned the printer on for the first time? This walkthrough gets you from a freshly-booted machine to a finished part in about 10 minutes: connect to your Wi-Fi, find the printer's IP address, paste it into OrcaSlicer, prove the connection works, then slice a model and send it to print — all from your laptop.

Step 1 — Connect the printer to Wi-Fi

On the printer's touchscreen, open the side panel's quick menu and tap Network. You'll see a list of every Wi-Fi network nearby.

Tap Connect on your network. Type the password on the on-screen keyboard. Wait a few seconds for the printer to join — the SSID moves to the top with a green border and (Connected) badge.

Network panel on the LCD showing the printer connected to '3DISM-Workshop' with a green-bordered row at the top. Below it, several other networks each with a Connect button.
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    Connected indicator
    Green border + (Connected) label confirms the printer joined the network successfully.
  • 2
    Pick a network
    Tap Connect on the SSID you want to join. The printer asks for the password, then connects.
Tip. The cleanest way to get on Wi-Fi for the first time is via the LCD. If your printer was pre-provisioned by 3DISM, this step may already be done — check the bottom of the home screen for a non-blank IP address.

Step 2 — Find your printer's IP address

Once connected, the printer's IP address is shown in three places. The easiest is the bottom status row of the home screen — go back to Home and look at the bottom-right corner. You'll see something like 192.168.100.215.

Write it down or take a photo with your phone. You'll type it into OrcaSlicer in the next step.

Home screen with the IP address visible on the bottom status row (192.168.100.215).
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    Your printer's IP
    Local IP address assigned by your router. This is what OrcaSlicer needs in the next step.
Tip. The IP is also on the Info panel (More → Info → IP Address) and at the top of the Network panel. Any of the three works.

Step 3 — Tell OrcaSlicer about your printer

Open OrcaSlicer on your laptop. At the top of the left sidebar, you'll see your Printer name with a Wi-Fi icon next to it. Click that Wi-Fi icon — a dialog called Physical Printer opens.

Fill in three things:

Host Type: Octo/Klipper

Printer Agent: Orca

Hostname, IP or URL: the IP you wrote down in Step 2 (e.g. 192.168.100.215)

Leave the other fields blank — they're for advanced setups.

OrcaSlicer Physical Printer dialog. White modal with fields: Save Machine as '3DISM QALAM 300'; Print Host upload section with Host Type 'Octo/Klipper', Printer Agent 'Orca', Hostname/IP field containing '192.168.100.215' with a green-highlighted border, plus Browse and Test buttons next to it.
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    Host Type
    Choose Octo/Klipper. This is the protocol family Moonraker speaks.
  • 2
    Printer Agent
    Choose Orca. Tells the slicer to use the OrcaSlicer-flavoured upload endpoint.
  • 3
    Paste your IP here
    The IP address from Step 2. Just the digits — no http:// prefix, no port number.
  • 4
    Test button
    Click after pasting the IP. The slicer pings the printer to confirm it's reachable.
Heads up. If you see HTTPS / certificate fields below the password box, leave them blank. They're only for advanced cloud setups, not your local LAN.

Step 4 — Test the connection

Click Test. After a second or two, you should see a green-bordered popup that says:

Connection to OctoPrint is working correctly.

Click OK on the popup, then OK on the Physical Printer dialog to save. Your printer is now linked to OrcaSlicer.

OrcaSlicer success popup with a blue info icon and the message 'Connection to OctoPrint is working correctly.' Green OK button below.
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    Success message
    Confirms OrcaSlicer can reach the printer over your network. If you see an error instead — wrong IP, printer not on the same network, or Moonraker not running.
Heads up. If you get an error: double-check the IP (typo / wrong segment), make sure your laptop and printer are on the SAME Wi-Fi network, and confirm the printer is fully booted (Ready state in the status bar). A re-tap of Test after a few seconds usually resolves transient failures.

Step 5 — Open the Device tab

Now switch to the Device tab at the top of OrcaSlicer (third tab, between Preview and Project). This embeds the printer's live dashboard right inside the slicer — same controls you'd see from Mainsail in a browser.

From here you can: see live temperatures, jog the toolhead, browse files already on the printer, run calibrations, monitor a running print. It's the control panel for everything you'd do remotely.

OrcaSlicer Device tab showing the embedded 3DISM Qalam dashboard. Sidebar with Dashboard / Console / Heightmap / G-code Files / G-code Viewer / History / Machine. Main area: Standby status card, Temperatures card with Extruder/Bed/Chamber/Pi/MCU rows + cooldown button + mini temperature graph, Toolhead jog controls with X/Y/Z buttons and a Home All button, Speed factor slider, G-code file list, Console.
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    Brand header
    Confirms which printer you're looking at — useful when you have multiple machines paired.
  • 2
    Left sidebar
    Switch between Dashboard, Console (G-code prompt), Heightmap (bed mesh visualisation), G-code Files (storage), G-code Viewer (preview), History (last prints), Machine (hardware info).
  • 3
    Live state
    Standby / Printing / Paused / Error. Mirrors what the LCD's home screen shows.
  • 4
    Temperatures
    Live current vs. target for every heater + fan. Tap Cooldown to zero every heater at once.
  • 5
    Toolhead
    Same XY jog controls + Z buttons + Home All you have on the LCD's Move panel — but with finer step sizes, useful for diagnostics from your laptop.
  • 6
    Console
    G-code prompt for typing commands directly. Same as the SSH/Mainsail console — useful for the rare diagnostic that needs a manual G-code.
Tip. The Device tab is also where Heightmap lives — a colour-mapped visualisation of your latest bed mesh. Useful for sanity-checking that your bed is flat (or seeing which corner is warped).

Step 6 — Slice a model and send it to print

Now do the actual print. Switch back to Prepare, drop a model onto the build plate (or open one of the test STL files OrcaSlicer ships with). Pick your filament + process profile, then click Slice plate in the top-right.

After slicing, switch to Preview to inspect the toolpath, walls, infill, supports — everything that's actually about to be printed.

When you're happy, click the green Print button (also top-right). A dropdown appears with two options:

Print — uploads the G-code to the printer and starts printing immediately

Export G-code file — saves to disk so you can transfer via USB / SD instead

Click Print. OrcaSlicer uploads the file, tells Moonraker to start it, and the printer's LCD switches to the Job Status panel automatically. You're printing.

OrcaSlicer Preview tab. Top-right shows two green buttons: 'Slice plate' (outlined) and 'Print' (solid green). The Print button has a dropdown menu expanded showing two options: 'Print' (highlighted) and 'Export G-code file'.
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    Slice plate
    Generates the G-code from your model + profile. Always do this first — the Print button only shows up after a successful slice.
  • 2
    Print dropdown
    Green button with a small caret. Click the caret to reveal Print / Export. Click the body of the button to repeat the last action.
  • 3
    Print (highlighted)
    Sends the sliced G-code straight to the printer over the connection you just set up. The job starts within seconds.
  • 4
    Export G-code file
    Saves the file to your laptop's disk instead. Useful if your network is flaky or if you want to keep an archive copy.
Tip. Once a print is uploaded and started, the printer's LCD switches to Job Status automatically — same view you've already seen in the Your first print walkthrough. From there everything else (live temps, progress, fine-tune, pause) works the same.