The Silhouette Alta is a budget Delta printer with polished looks that mask a couple of questionable design choices.

PLA Only

First and foremost, the Silhouette Alta has no heated bed. This means that, realistically, you can only print PLA filament on the Alta’s Ø124 mm acrylic print bed. You get up to 130 mm of height in the Z-axis.

The print surface comes with a layer of painters tape (Silhouette provides ten sheets in the box).

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You can use any 1.75 mm filament, but be aware that the top-mounted filament spool holder might not fit every spool size.

Silhouette 3D Slicer

The Silhouette Alta is compatible with the Silhouette 3D slicer, which you can download from Silhouette’s website when using a serial number from the label of the printer.

The Alta is pitched as an easy on-ramp for 3D printing. The slicer offers fire-and-forget settings for printing with PLA, in addition to 25 free printable designs from Silhouette’s model library. Further printable models can be purchased from the company’s library, too.

The Silhouette 3D slicer allows for basic 3D modeling using primitives, not unlike TinkerCAD or Mattercontrol, and is compatible with the usual gamut of 3D file formate.

USB Cable Connection

How the Alta prints is something of a rarity (and for a good reason). Lacking any form of internal storage, the Alta must be connected to a computer via USB cable for the entire duration of a print. Any connection loss (which could be from something as trivial as the computer going to sleep) will lead to print failure.

Beginner Friendly Tutorials

Backing up Silhouette’s clear intention for the Alta to appear to 3D printing newcomers, the company provides an accessible and comprehensive assembly guide, as well as visual walkthroughs for filament changes, and an online tutorial for printing with PLA prints and troubleshooting advice.

However, features that improve ease-of-use – not just for beginners but for all users – such as automatic bed leveling, a resume print function after power loss, or a filament runout detection, are absent on the Alta.