Heated beds and hotends are by far the biggest power draw on a 3D printer, and they peak during preheat. Preheating 20 printers at the same time can pull more amps than your fuse panel can take - and one tripped breaker takes the whole farm offline. Staggered Start caps how many printers can preheat at once, so your fleet starts safely on the wiring you've already got.
Get started for free More info & how-toAnyone running multiple 3D printers on a domestic or office circuit: print farms in basements, garages, offices and warehouses, university and school labs sharing a wall outlet, and makerspaces where the breaker keeps tripping when class starts. If you've ever blown a fuse preheating a row of printers, this is built for you.
A 3D printer's heated bed and hotend account for the vast majority of its power consumption - and they spike during preheat, then settle once they hit temperature. That's why you can usually run a farm fine 24/7 but trip the breaker the moment every printer tries to preheat at once.
Staggered Start solves this by limiting how many printers can be preheating simultaneously. Once a printer reaches temperature and starts printing, the next pending printer is released to begin preheating. The rest wait their turn in a Pending start state.
Say your farm has 20 printers, but your circuit can only handle 3 printers heating at the same time. You set the Staggered Start group's heating limit to 3. Then you use 1-Click Print, AutoPrint, or just hit start on every printer at once - the platform takes care of the rest:
Pick your circuit, then start the fleet. Flip Staggered Start off mid-run to see why the feature exists - and flip it on if you'd rather your breakers stayed in.
Total power draw crossed the safe budget. The fleet just went dark.
Sigma
Louise
Solstice
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Vicki
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Staggered Start is wired in at the platform level, not at the start button. Every way of starting a print respects your stagger group's limits - there's no "forgot to enable it" toggle to forget. Configure once, it's automatic everywhere.
We've built a free calculator to give you a starting number. Tell it your region (US/North America or EU/rest of world), your circuit breaker rating in amps, and whether you're running small, medium or large printers - and it'll suggest a safe heating limit.
The calculator is a guide, not a guarantee. Real-world numbers depend on your wiring, filament type (different materials need different bed and nozzle temperatures), and what else is plugged into the circuit. The reliable approach: start with the calculator's number, try heating 5 at once, drop to 4 if it trips, drop to 3 if it still trips. Once you stop tripping, you've found your limit.
Configuration takes about two minutes. Open Settings > Staggered Start, decide your limits, pick which printers it covers, save.
Drag the slider to the number of printers your circuit can safely heat at once.
Lower the wait threshold (e.g. 200°C tool, 20°C bed) to move the queue along faster.
Limit concurrent G-code downloads if your network can't handle 20 at once.
All printers by default - or pick specific ones, models or groups.
If your printers aren't all on the same circuit - different rooms, different floors, different buildings - one global limit isn't right. Staggered Start lets you create multiple stagger groups, with their own heating limit per group. Group your printers by location, by circuit, or by power budget. Each group is staggered independently, so the office and the basement can both start at full speed without affecting each other.
Power isn't the only thing that bottlenecks at startup. If your printers all sit on the same internet connection, downloading 20 G-code files at once can saturate the line and slow every printer's start. Staggered Start groups also let you cap how many printers can download files at the same time - same UI, same group, separate limit. Great for sites with limited upload bandwidth or older WiFi.
Staggered Start is included on Print Farm, Enterprise and School plans - no per-printer surcharge, no group limit, no setup fee.
| Feature / Limit | Free | Basic | Pro | Print Farm | Enterprise | School | Cloud Slicer | Filament Manager |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Staggered Start
Unlimited stagger groups, with per-group heating and download limits.
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