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.
The trick is to justify buying one for your business, and then using it yourself after hours.
As a business asset, it has paid for itself fivefold in less than a year. As an employee of said business, i have unlimited access to a machine that I could never personally justify the expense of.
I print all kinds of usefull stuff.
Custom installation panel for after market navigator/media center for my car, upholstery fasteners for the same, custom panels for usb button box, cable organizers for lan cabling, newspaper reading stand, you name it.
Might not be financially feasible, but it’s fun.Honestly I don’t really know, and don’t really care. I enjoy sporadically using it, and I’ve enjoyed making both useful, and some useless things.
Trust me, I’ve spent far more on dumber shit that I use half as often.
It would be worth it if I had an actual decent printer. As it stands now, I feel like I just wasted money because all I can print small, pla objects, after days of trial and error and adjusting settings. Saving up for a prusa, hopefully will make it worth it.
The Ender probably wasn’t. It was a lot of effort, and mostly not the interesting kind, and fairly little reward. Although when it worked, it was really good. In the end. Sometimes. And it’s way too big.
The Kingroon, very much yes. It’s cheap, kind of trashy, but compact. Just prints stuff. Parts detach great. Works just about every time. Quiet out of the box. Just kind of annoying to preheat at the start and end of the session to load and unload filament. Very annoying touchscreen. But those are minor things and I’m not tempted to fix it or upgrade anything. I have actual projects to do. Too many actual projects to do.
Oh, and why? Custom parts that are impossible to buy and a lot of work or impossible to machine or fabricate otherwise. Saves a trip to the local library or hackerspace or wherever things could be printed.
I am also in the ender boat.
95% of my problems went away when I took the thing completely apart (like, further apart than what it comes in the box), and rebuilt it from scratch, making sure every bolt was tight, every moving part was free,corners perfectly cornered, etc.
I think it had just enough factory misalignment and loseness in a few key areas that compounded to cause me tons of headaches.
That, plus a few cheap upgrades (steel bed and better bed springs) really erased almost all the mechanical issues.
financially worth it?
Probably not.
Did it give me brief respites of light against the clawing, ever encroaching abyssal darkness of life and misery?
Yes.
I think you shouldn’t forget that we’re here at c/3dprinting, where only enthusiasts join together. Of course everyone here is a huge fan of 3D printers, those who got frustrated and sold their device aren’t here anymore.
First of all, I’m very happy about having a printer, but more onto that later.
I had two ones yet, and both sucked.
The first was older, shitty and way too big. I wasted many weekends tinkering with that crap, until I accidentally destroyed it and sold it. My second one is the one I still use. It’s a device from China, and the company doesn’t exist anymore. So, if I want to buy replacement parts, I can just pray generic ones fit. And the customer support has always been shit, and the whole company and products seem very wonky in hindsight.
If I would have to buy another printer, it would definitely be something popular, like a Prusa one. It should be very small, silent and easily repairable. I don’t care anymore about fancy features (maybe except auto leveling), it should just not annoy me.
Having a printer is like having a drill or soldering iron. You don’t need it daily, but you’re glad that you have it when you need it. And my friends are too! I’m printing more for my family, neighbours and friends than for myself.
Having a printer without CAD skills is nonsense. But once you can create your own stuff, you have endless capabilities.
I couldn’t live without one by now.
My 3D printer does occasionally prove itself useful. I print stuff to help me out in the shop, adapters for shop vacs, tool holders, stuff like that. I could do without it but it is a useful tool to have.
I print warhammer for friends for money. So that plus the money I saved on models for myself, I’d say it’s worth it.
But it’s also a hobby, learning how the things work and how to model is a lot of fun!
Not really. I purchased one with pretty significant maintenance/process requirements, had I gotten one a little more seamless (self leveling/etc) I think I’d use it far more often than I do now.
It’s almost definitely a pain in the ass, but you can probably add self leveling to your existing printer.
Tried! Added one of those white barrel self leveling poke tools (can’t remember specifically what they’re called). It was a huuuuuge pain in the ass and only works about 50% of the time oddly, lol.
I built my own because they were quite expensive, lots of fun but very little real use at all. I’m planning on reviving it because it’s lots of fun to tinker with.
Financially yes. I pretty much only print functional things. I probably have saved enough money just in printing chip clips to buy two printers.
My first printer was a self built reprap from parts from aliexpress in college.
I then helped fund peachy on kickstarter and a stupid poured resin counterweighted printer called the Phoenix.
I then had an Geeetech A10M, a Prusa Mk2 and ender 3, as well as one resin printer.
All I have left is the Prusa mk2 that hasn’t worked right for over a year and doesn’t print anything.
I would buy a new printer in a heartbeat if I could afford it.
I definitely have never made back my money. To many dumb purchases and early generation jank all over the place but it was fun. The first thing I ever did with my first hand built printer was make a lithopane of my deceased dog and eventually my grandfather.
I’ve made so many stupid things and spent so much time on it as a hobby that it filled my days with activities, reason to communicate with others and frustrating nights all alike. Its not for everyone and its not really a good idea but if you have the means or like a hobby of tinkering and building in the modern world there is very little experience like it.
My first printer was a self built reprap from parts from aliexpress in college.
my first was a hacked inkjet printer with my mom’s PVA hotglue gun strapped to the print head. (should have seen my dad’s face when he asked if he could have his printer back, so he could print some tax documents. His mistake. he should have known by then to ask what I wanted it for. I’m not sure mom ever figured out what happened to her hotglue gun…)
I also remember the industrial tech/graphics design teacher in highschool being like “Uh. cool. but why?” (and then being like, “HEY can you bring it in for the class? ! that’s actually really cool”)
Yeah I had a friend build one out of like balsa wood and a couple CD trays and the rest of us were stunned… And not very impressed after like 5 minutes which a shame cause it really was a beginning stop that showed what was possible.
I am definitely less into making those kinds of jank printers just cause the costs were never quite zero, and we have so much better options.
So like that hot-glue-models that came out? you could tell it was supposed to be a cube-like object. For a middleschool hacking components out of junk electronics… well… it was both hilariously awful… but in hindsight I should have been very proud of it.
it did do what I needed at the time, though, so there was that. I wouldn’t really recommend PVA as a filament material, though.
I wouldn’t buy a printer to try and be profitable per say, I would buy one for the things you cant/don’t want to buy. If you can use some 3d modeling software, you can begin to solve problems for almost no money.
Stuff like a vape holder and extended cup holder for my partners car, or a couple little shelf brackets for our IKEA cubes, or replacement closet rod supports. It takes a few minutes in CAD, a couple hours or printing, and 15¢ of plastic, and saves a trip to the store. Making custom, exactly how you want stuff is really nice.
Knick nacks are fun too, but ultimately your house will fill with things you don’t particularly want or use.
Two years ago I wanted to build a custom keyboard. The cost 350 and a 3D printer + filament cost 200, the rest about 60-70…
So yes, it was worth it. Also I regularly print stuff now, which is just a net positive at this point.
How did the keyboard turn out? Is it Classic ISO or Planet 6?
More like this:
https://github.com/abstracthat/dactyl-manuform
Aw that’s rad, I’ve yet to have found a thumb cluster that feels like the right amount of keys and shapes, this is very interesting
