I was thinking about this question today as someone used our work printer for some personal stuff.

As for me, I am printing little things that I would say make it worth it. I’ve printed lens adapters for my camera for example. That’s worth a good 14 to 30 bucks per print. My most favorite photo was with an adapted lens that came from a projector. I also printed IEMs and those things are worth it. Listening to music is second to none on those things. Plus I printed the same shell but for ear protection and again the fit is perfect and sure there’s post processing to get smooth surfaces but in the end it looks like a professional made it. So I think 3d printers are worth it.

  • kitnaht@lemmy.worldEnglish
    71·
    4 months ago

    I started 14ish years ago in 3D printing; it’s literally my career now. Though, I didn’t buy it…technically. I had recently had a major life experience cause me to reach out to find a way of educating myself - where I found a hackerspace (now they all call themselves makerspaces). They told me all about the RepRap project, and how the idea behind it was 3D printers printing 3D printers.

    I was sold. I’ll buy the plastic and we can print it on the sells mendel! No dice. Sells mendel was broke. I was given an opportunity – If I could fix the sells mendel and make it print again, I could use the plastic to print the parts to a Prusa Mendel; Josef Prusa’s first contribution to the RepRap project.

    So – I’m a pretty bright guy, I went home, and researched for a week until the next meetup, and eventually built a profile for a program called “Skeinforge” (it’s the slicer we used back then) that would run the Sells Mendel really nicely.

    So I printed my PLA parts for the Prusa Mendel, bought a bunch of threaded rod, etc from Home Depot, scavenged old office printers for stepper motors, and had a really nice guy named Dave donate a self-etched RAMPS board that had absolutely no solder mask on it whatsoever. Then I learned Arduino, and initially used Sprinter and Teacup firmware, self-teaching electronics basics along the way. Bought my first print head; a Legitimate J-head from hotends.com (they still sell them!) - and started re-printing my Prusa Mendel in Black/Blue themed ABS; on plain glass painted with ABS slurry. Aleph-Objects modifications of the Prusa!..which was the beginning of Lulzbot! Josef Prusa used to hang out on Freenode IRC as just one of the dudes; and I can’t thank others in the community enough – Triffid_Hunter, Nophead, Whosawhatsis, Prusa, Vik, and others I’ve since forgotten… I got personal help from these guys in a time where information was sparse. They’re my heroes in a way. None of them except Whosawhatsis would probably remember me, but I also helped others down the line. Thomas Sanladerer and I were the primary drivers of the G+ 3D printing community (growing it to over 5k daily active users!), and he went on to do his YouTube channel “Made In Layers”. Gina Haubage was there too, helping people out. If any of you know Loubie (Aria the dragon, etc), we all caused a major stink when her art was being sold on Ebay, and helped a bunch of other creators as well.

    Back when I started – everything had to be figured out from scratch. The community was just getting started. Sadly nobody even knows what RepRap is any more. I’m kind of pissed off that East Coast RepRap is renaming itself to “3D Printopia”…just a little slap in the face it feels like.

    Now, 3D printers have gotten so good that nobody cares about learning about the machine any longer; they just want plastic crap to come out of it – but it started the path to all of the electromechanical, microcontroller, and programming knowledge I’ve gained. So yeah; absolutely worth it.

    The biggest complaint I have about this new second-generation owner of 3D printers, is that they’re all enthusiastic and wanting to help – but most of the shit I see from this group is all bullshit. It’s the same wives-tales that we thought in the beginning, and worked through, and moved past. I see it all resurfacing again.

    Like drying PLA for example. I’ve got 5kg roll of some galaxy purple that I bought back when filament didn’t even come on rolls; and I print little things here and there with it – it sits on my garage floor in an open bin, and still prints wonderfully to this day. CHEP - The YouTube channel? He’s an actual fucking scumbag; selling a PCB with a button and a light on it for $25 and pawning it off as some sort of tool to help people “level their enders” – when the real solution is fixing how the machine is built. I repair these things, and dipshits like him are what cause so many to be frustrated and give up. He almost understands it, but he posts things with such confidence, that others follow what he says, and inevitably come to me to fix it. I appreciate that he wants to be helpful, but to truly be helpful you have to be pedantic and succinct in your instructions, and he just isn’t.