My [Solidoodle](http://www.solidoodle.com) printer is nearly here, just waiting at the post office. So tonight is setting up the software and getting everything ready.
I followed the [instructions provided](http://www.solidoodle.com/how-to-2/how-to-install-software/) for the Windows PC I’m installing this on. I’m putting the software onto my ‘big iron’ box, an i5 2600K with 8 gigs of memory and Windows 7.
A few notes from the Solidoodle instructions:
* I had to skip straight to the [Arduino guide](http://www.arduino.cc/en/Guide/Windows) to install the drivers (which I did using an Arduino Uno I already have).
* When they say ‘use the 32 bit Python’ – LISTEN. Not seeing that cost me about half an hour of hassle getting the additional libraries installed.
* The Solidoodle package is trivial to install. It took me a few minutes to work out how to run the main parts, as I was looking for an EXE. What you want are the pronterface.py and skeinforge.py files, though.
Finally, I installed a couple of other tools: [ReplicatorG](http://replicat.org/) and [Slic3r](http://slic3r.org/), to give me a few more options to play with.
Once the printer is here I’ll be going through the rest of the first setup and runs in painful, painful detail.