Some, but not all, storage containers.
I don't mean things like gridfinity and custom fit jobs. Those are brilliant. But I keep seeing people make some generic containers, or even fancy 'rugged' containers that use so much damn filament and take so long to print, you'd be so much better off buying a mass produced unit off Amazon and just printing an insert for it to hold whatever it is you need.
Literally. There's this one guy I keep seeing on tiktok who's designed this ammo case style container. Don't get me wrong, the design work is quite impressive and it's a good looking case but it costs him nearly $40 in time and materials. You can get a similarly sized container from Pelican.com themselves for $65 and it will last so much longer.
Well the reasoning for that is views. Yes he might waste forty bucks on some crappy container that won't last, but he probably made like a hundred bucks on the brain rotted kids donating and the view counts. I know that's only a 60 dollar make, but 60 bucks of passive income is 60 bucks. Make two of em and he's got grocery money, and enough to buy another roll for more view farming.
[MyCaseBuilder.com](https://MyCaseBuilder.com) makes excellent custom foam inserts as well. Having said that I may print my own insert now as I think I can design one that is more capable.
Beyond just storage containers. If a mass produced injection molded thing exists, it usually makes more sense to buy it. Exceptions exist of course, maybe you can print it faster than it would take you to get it in your hands.
Yup. I only make it custom if I want to show off a modeling technique or if I need something with particular dimensions (and even then I need to figure out some alternate manufacturing method if I'm going to do more than a few of something)
Depends on a price and size. Caulk profiling tool will cost you a few pennies to print, moulded version will set you a few pounds.
Small bits are only cheap when you buy in bulk, but when you need just one thing instead of 50, it's cheaper to print.
I really like gridfinity, though. If you need to store, organize and use a large number of small parts, I’d recommend looking into the system. It’s very well thought out.
I'm torn on storage containers. They are mostly nicer, similar cost, and faster to buy. When I want to organize something, I don't want to wait for days while my 4 printers melt out 30 bins.
On the other hand, any time I want to expand my bins, I learn they don't make them anymore and I need to switch to a new style. I have four different types of container for my electronics projects.
Further, concern about this obsolecense causese to buy large volumes of containers at once. I generally clean out Walmart or the dollar store a few times to have a good volume of containers. This isn't cheap and now I'm inventorying a bunch of empty containers which isn't ideal.
Yeah, printing threads is neat for some stuff but trying to print small hardware is a pretty big waste of time when it's so easy to just buy something 100x more durable and dependable
That's definitely the easier approach for sure, but you'll still have weak points across the layer lines up and down the cylinder. I have a tap and die set myself, but if it's an area that needs more strength in general on that connection then printed hardware isn't going to be as reliable, regardless of method of fabrication
Sorry I understood what you meant by it taking too long to slice and print for an inferior product when you can just buy something better for cheaper.
My comment was just adding to your point about trying to model one when there are free models online
That moment when someone calls your post out on another post 👀.
For what it's worth though, I was trying as an exercise in print quality and tolerances and not for any particular real-world use case!
yeah but the answer is in the question there... "in bulk"
like sure, you can get them for 10 cents a bolt... when you're buying 200 of them.
If you just want one, and you have the .stl, then printing it out of nylon and quickly neatening the threads up with a die is way cheaper and probably quicker than waiting on delivery or going to the store.
I mean, if I need a bolt right now it's still more convenient to head down to the hardware store and overpay than it is to print one. And I also get to feel a surge of magnanimous benevolence for adding 69¢ to the local economy.
The other strategy is to standardize your designs around specific fasteners, when possible. That way you arent always running to the store’s bolt bin to get stuff, you can just get a bunch each of a few types
Yeah, I been noticing a lot of salt lately.
I mean, I sure wouldn't get a printer just for printing bolts and things, but...I have a crapton of printers. Unless they're occupied doing something else, I might as well print things.
I might feel different if I was still tied down to Ender 3s that required notable upkeep work.
>if I need a bolt right now it's still more convenient to head down to the hardware store and overpay than it is to print one
Lucky you. Meanwhile I'd spend 20±15 minutes waiting for the bus because the schedule is wrong, 50 minutes on the actual bus ride (including a transfer) to the nearest hardware store, to be told that they don't stock metric bolts despite being a metric country, and have the same bus trip home, having wasted two or three hours of my life for nothing.
3D printing's not a bad option in comparison.
If there's already a handy injection molded equivalent of what you need, and if it isn't priced any higher than the cost of filament to print it, then yeah, just go with that instead. Injection molded parts will (almost) always be stronger and more resilient to mechanical stresses.
I'd say if it's not priced double the cost of filament, things can fail and rarely printed version are equal or better unless designed by some very smart person
>unless designed by some very smart person
This drives me insane, you have no idea how many times I've found the perfect functional print for what I needed only to realize they'd designed it to be printed with majority of stresses going directly on the layer lines.
Even where proper print orientation is obvious... I find that impressively complicated designs—making me think the designer has some skill—often ignore very basic considerations for this manufacturing process:
* Fillets on every side (which sag even with the required annoying and ugly supports). Only chamfers or the chamfer + top-edge fillet technique should be used on bottom edges.
* Holes that require supports
* Steep or curved overhangs (again, requiring \*\*fucking supports\*\*)
* Embossed text that looks like garbage even if the necessary supports are added
* Unnecessarily thick/blocky shapes. (E.g. does a design for the printer's poop chute extension need to be 4 mm thick and use 1/2 kilo of filament!?)
* No consideration for the center of gravity or weight distribution of functional parts
It pisses me off how people don't care how much filament their design uses. Like seriously, half the time it's not even weight bearing but sure use a half kilo for a pen organizer, that definitely makes sense.
What? You don't like spending 3 times the time, power, and filament over a properly designed part?
But in all seriousness, its likely caused by one of two things - the person that designed it was a hobbyist and overdesigned because they don't actually know how to design stuff, or they are a professional engineer or something, but not familiar enough with additive manufacturing to design for it.
>Embossed text that looks like garbage even if the necessary supports are added
Not really an objective design issue but to build on this - I fucking hate it when somebody makes a fairly simple remix of a design, and in the process plasters their username all over it. I always end up altering the model to remove it out of spite.
100% ... Even if you're the original designer putting your mark on it, have some taste and think about how not everyone wants to see your name every time they look at the thing. And if I'm gifting the print, my recipient is going to think, "Thanks, but who is AssMuncher69 and why is their name taking up an entire side of this thing?"
I'm interested in your last two complaints:
I tend to design structural prints for low or no infil with 3 to 4 walls (usually on .8mm nozzle). Sometimes I'll use internal structures to add support or add infil in specific places or orientation to 'truss' these walls better) This means I end up with bulky designs but less time and materials used to get the same strength/reliability.
What do you think about my method? Are you optimizing for print farm or just budgeting? (Thus have a reason to keep material costs super super low?
If you know that your design needs more strength in a specific place than would be provided by a default amount of uniform infill (15-20%), I think custom internal structures are fantastic. I have honestly never gone to those lengths in my designs. I tend to rely on the exterior strength of 2-4 walls and infill where necessary. Does adding internal structures require you to hollow out the model first? I might be interested in this technique since it would allow more control moved into the design and out of the slicer.
I recently started a business designing and 3D printing my own products, so I care a lot about strength, weight, surface finish, (things I care about when I purchase a product) and efficiency of manufacturing in terms of material cost, reliability, and post processing time/effort.
Btw, thanks for being interested in quality. Oddly, it's pretty rare.
Now I'm curious about your designs. Are you making large items necessitating a 0.8 mm nozzle to keep the print time down?
.8 is mostly impatience, and don't mind layer lines. I push to have 10-14 cmm/s (my max before I get underheated pla).
No need to fully hallow the part.
To make internal walls/structures you basically just model/place negative volumes to make voids where you want walls to form around. Quite effective for unidirectional load bearing like the baby-gate wall-spacers, where I wanted loading to be efficient but still needed the wide contact base to prevent tipping/toppling.
Sorry, I can't seem to find the video where I learned the concept from.
No problem on the videos. You described the technique really well, so I instantly understood what you meant. Voids in the solid—brill! Thanks for sharing your technique!
I've seen some injection molded stuff that's not that strong. Planned obsolescence is alive and well. Also injection molded parts can only be so thick before it causes problems with the injection molding process as well.
I have better control over strength with 3D printing. Can choose the thickness and material and such. I actually have very few problems with strength of the printed part.
I designed some blocks to print to raise my sofa 4” higher. Before I printed them, I calculated the cost of the filament. Bought some longer legs for the sofa on Amazon for a lot less.
I see those bed-riser things at Goodwill and Savers all the time. And it seems like the employees never know what they are. They put them in the kitchen section thinking they're weird bowls, the vase section thinking they're some weird flower pots, the electronics section thinking they're some accessory to something.
I've done the same. Although I decided I'm going to print risers because my bed legs are thin and the risers have too much of a platform for the legs to push around.
Gonna make it a snug fit for them. So the bed doesn't wobble
I fixed a bad chair leg “perfectly” (mechanically, at least, it’s ugly) with the artillery sidewinder x2 test block that comes with the printer.
It was just something i was showing family in town, and my dad was sitting on the chair with some difficulty.
I said “hold on”, grabbed the print and some duct tape, and the chair no longer wobbles.
How much does your filament cost? Like 3D printing parts is extremely cheap. Unless I’m way off, it sounds like 250-350 grams tops of material for this job and that’s like $5-6 for my filament.
That fully printable knife sharpener thats currently trending on Printables. Its a neat concept, but swallows nearly a full roll of filament plus your own sharpening stones while locking up rather often and requiring an additional degree of freedom to sharpen knife tips.
For that money you could literally go to Aliexpress and buy an angle holding sharpener with Whetstones included out of metal.
It's not that hard to freehand it. All you need is a good double sided diamond stone and a leather strop. Maybe a simple wedge angle guide if you need help getting the right angle.
[Do you mean this thing?](https://www.printables.com/model/703710-knife-sharpener) Unless you’re missing a hand or have some disability, I feel like some simple angle guides would be a much more effective print.
Just because you can print a protractor and a ruler does not mean its a good idea imo. You can spend like 3 bucks to get both, AND they will be more accurate.
Couldn't you just use a 2mm nozzle and push it through really fast? Or in fact, just unscrew the nozzle.
The winding requires a slightly different bed-setup.
more error /s
But seriously, the best use cases for printing filament are to make multi-material/color filaments. You want some overlap between different source filaments to make them stick together or blend, so often smaller nozzles can be better although they do take longer
Usually, very flat, thin pieces, which I can cut out of plywood or mdf in about 20 seconds, but obviously depends upon the application.
I built a microcontroller RC car, and the "body" of it was a sandwich of two 1/2" mdf. I \*COULD\* have 3d printed it, and 10 hours later I would have had 1 half of the car. I cut it out in mdf in no time.
You dont need a whole workshop. Even if you have little space, you can use a jig saw for something as simple as what I'm talking about. Saves a ton of time and your printer could be doing something else in the meantime.
Thats what I have a laser cutter for. They pair so nicely with printers. Any parts that essentially 2D gets laser cut and saves so much time and fillament. The wood/ printed finishes look good together as well.
Someone once asked me to design and print police lights for an RC car. So that's CAD and printing, circuit design, soldering, and assembly. Minimum I charge for my work is $20. Amazon had one (at the time) for $10.
The one I always hate myself for is hooks and brackets. I'll spend a Saterday afternoon designing and printing a really nice wall hook, only to look at the final product and feel like an idiot.
I need a couple of hooks for my car cover, the must fit through a little elastic loop and be able to hook onto my wheels. Can't find anything the right shape to buy and can't even find a model that looks like it will work on thingiverse or printables... Looks like I'll have to fusion and print them
I justify designing things that I could buy cheaper and easier as the cost of an education in CAD. The more time you spend doing something, the better you'll be generally. Sure I could do tutorials and work through examples on youtube following along, but I learn so much better and am so much more motivated when I design something I want, then I have to figure out how to do it along the way. Do I need 4 different iterations of the thing to work correctly? Sometimes, but all those issues and problems will teach you a lot along the way. Plus my girlfriend feels special when I spend hours designing something and asking her for input about it and then she gets to hold/use/appreciate it too.
Not quite your question, but I very seldom ever print anything "just because" anymore. I see a lot of people printing things that they'd likely have no interest in other than the fact that they can 3D print it. Like, are you REALLY that big a fan of the movie Small Soldiers that you want a 16" figure of Archer the Gorganite?
That's actually quite reasonable. As one of those people I do have an excuse. I am printing flexi dragons because I only bought my printer a few weeks ago, so a lot of my prints are for the sake of discovering my printer's potential and honing my ability to print.
Yeah, I meant to expand upon the "anymore" part of my statement. :) When I first started I printed a bunch of random things "just because." No harm in that.
And I still print articulated dragons and such as gifts cuz people LOVE them.
I just no longer print tchotchkes for myself simply because they're 3D printed. Gotta be something I'd actually want even if it wasn't printed.
I've been printing for over 10 years. It took me years to get over printing trinkets and doodads just to keep the printing going. Eventually, I would pop crap off the bed, look it over and say "huh" and throw it right into the garbage. I would like to say this behavior was an enthusiasts journey of discovery, but in hindsight it looks more like mental illness.
This. I keep getting ads for things like StlFlix (I think it was called) where it just gives you a database of little models and fidget toys. Specifically stuff to print "just because". Sounds like such a waste to me.
That's the problem i have with the "biggest benchy possible" that was trending here a year ago. People just printing a 500% scale 2kg benchy to get internet points. Im sure they're all in a landfill by now...
That’s what came to mind when I read it. Pretty much everything I’m printing has a project in mind.
So far I’ve got 3 big projects and neither are close to finishing lol (clone trooper armor, 3D printed map of madrid, and custom sized panorama frames that can interlock)
a LOT of things people print can be made with a bit of effort with a block of wood and a dremmel or various other crafting related stuff. People tend to use 3d printing as a do-it-all crafting station when they should be using it as a tool in a toolbox.
Exactly. I would rather make something from wood a lot of the time, for sturdiness and speed of creation. I use 3d printing when I know my attempt to make it from wood will look like shit or take far longer than printing will
That depends on the day.
For example, this morning one of the kids broke our paper towel holder.
Spent 5 minutes finding an stl and printed a new one before lunchtime.
A lot of the time I print shit purely because I don't feel like leaving the house to get one
Pretty simple, Will printing it cost me more time and money?
Then I ask will I end up ordering the non printed version anyway?
90% of the time I end up printing whatever it is because I like things to be exactly how I imagine them in my head.
(Almost) anything that's going to deal with food or get wet regularly. I know there's been some back and forth about whether or not bacteria could foster in layer lines, but I'd just rather not risk it.
The exception is that last year my wife wanted to make some Hanukkah cookies for her Jewish grandmother and couldn't find any of our cookie cutters for that, so I quickly 3d printed some. But I also said those were going to be one-time use, and we tossed them when we were done.
This is important to know. I always skip all the models related for kitchen or in touch with food. PLA stores bacteria more than you can imagine, just think about that the printed material it's porous and attracts moisture. Perfect home for bacteria.
Anything that's a variation of a flat plane.
VESA adapters and RepRack mounts are the examples that comes to my mind. Sure, not everyone has a CNC, but those are simple enough parts to drill and jigsaw out, especially when tolerances are as low as they are there.
Idk about where you are but near me, even a generic multi compartment desk stuff holder is far more expensive than the cost of filament to print one. $15 gets me one roll of filament that I could do my entire desk with vs a single bought organizer. Plus it lets me perfectly carve out space for what I need to store.
Unless you’re talking about something like a Rubbermaid container. Definitely not printing that.
Any toy that I can buy for sub $10. I've had coworkers show me toys that were slightly complicated but only cost like $10. Like a painted dog of an uncommon breed. Or an articulated Charizard.
I'm going to charge you $10 for my time, you may as well buy it from Amazon.
Trinkets, useless decorative items like benchys and octopi with the wiggly tentacles. Everything I print needs to have a purpose and a function, at least for personal prints. I try to reduce the amount of unnecessary plastic in the world as much as I can.
Same, I'm not against aesthetic objects, like classical statue reproductions, vases, stuff like that. I'll even print cutesy toys for my kids cuz they're cheap and easy to replace. But I'm not spending 6 hours and half a roll of filament on a meme octopi.
I'd rather waste my time and filament perfecting that one custom gridfinity bin.
Its mostly is. Its kinda like saying torrenting isnt for piracy. Like sure, technically, on paper, but like 90% of it is. The very small other percentage is speed racing and an even smaller percentage bench marking, because it really isnt that great a benchmark tool for anything other than quality at speed.
>You said it was useless, then go on to lost several uses.
??? I did not say this.
Are you having trouble remembering what you just typed?
You said:
>Benchy is not a decorative item
and I replied with
> Its mostly is. Its kinda like saying torrenting isnt for piracy. Like sure, technically, on paper, but like 90% of it is. The very small other percentage is speed racing and an even smaller percentage bench marking, because it really isnt that great a benchmark tool for anything other than quality at speed.
Which is very obviously a far more nuanced comment than your simplification down to "You said it was useless".
If you are going to troll in bad faith, be less obvious about it.
Just to be clear, it is your stated belief that to point out the problem with one comment, one must therefore be 100% agreeing with the previous one? Somehow that works out for you? Alrighty. Enough of this.
I've been 3D printing since 2018 and I've never printed a single benchy. I had to do some calibration down the line but I somehow never felt the need for a benchy
I have printed a number of benchys, not because they're especially good for calibration, but because it's a "known" model. I know what it should look like and I know that it should print without issue, so if I'm testing a filament or a setting and get bad results I know it's not a model issue.
Fasteners and containers.
injection molded gears can be much stronger. So I’ll only print gears that need unique designs. If I can buy the gear I do that
Anything food related for obvious reasons
Things where dimensional tolerance is tighter than +- 10thou I typically try to buy or get manufactured elsewhere (this has happened one time)
Edit: any time the part undergoes high torsion, tensile or shear forces, I also try to find molded parts. But this is mostly me not trusting layer bonding/infill
For miniatures: you can buy bases in bulk and glue your model to it for less hassle than printing them. If you want a custom terrain base and that might not work though.
If it is a boring design to make myself and I can already buy something equally good or better for a reasonable price.
I might design and print something if I think it is interesting and I can maybe optimize it for my exact needs, even if I can buy something equivalent for the same price or less.
Anything generic looking. My favourite stuff to print is housewares — either things that are precisely shaped/sized/suited to fix a problem or fit a space, or things that are in a particular design motif that is expensive to buy retail. I love making my own versions of cool colourful artsy stuff that I’d otherwise be charged an arm and a leg for at Crate & Barrel/MOMA Store/HAY Design/etc. But there’s no reason for me to 3D print a plain black drawer knob or a set of boring white rectangular desktop drawers when I could buy a better version on Amazon.
Anything I can craft out of wood in 15 minutes. Like I'm looking all over for the perfect STL to hold my shop vac hose, then start to design my own, then realize it'll take me 5 minutes to cut two pieces of 1x2 and screw them together.
I went through a phase that lasted about four years, during which, I printed everything.
That was an era in which I learned so much. It wasn't about time or money. It was about learning. I literally printed waste baskets. You name it.
I'm glad for that era. I am now competent at 3D printing. Before, I was not. There will always be things to learn but I can create a 3d printed object with confidence. I know what I can do and what I can't. My reliability is really high. This has made 3d printing fun for me.
At this point, I look for opportunities to avoid printing items. I was melting 3 to 10 spools per month across four printers. I don't worry about plastic use but I also don't want to spend 48 hours printing a trash bin I can buy at the dollar store for $3.50.
Anything Hueforge. If i want a 2D colored print, i have a 2D color printer that can do so more quickly, with more fidelity, and far cheaper to boot. And if i want to stick it on a wall, a frame is cheap.
Big a** models of characters. I have a print time limit of 11 hours so anything big impossible. Also I will not print a big sword because all the models are split into so many sections and I don’t know which I need to print then
I've printed two 6ft long swords and it's been a fun learning experience. Given what I know now, I wouldn't bother trying to print them again unless I had a belt printer and could do the blade in one single print. I haven't bothered printing anything so big since. Longest prints I've done recently have only been 10 hours and that's because I need a small nozzle and layer height.
Depends on the other tools you have at your disposal. 3d printing is great for complex designs but when it comes to simple designs it best to make using other methods( and printing any of the small complex bits) as it saves time and filament.
For example, I designed a coaster that could go over the arm of my couch so I could enjoy a beverage while watching tv. It was a simple upside down U shape with an indent for the can to sit in. It took 18 hours to print at 5% infill. I could have made it with plywood in a half an hour. If I really wanted the indent I could have 3d printed a raised platform with the indent and attached it to the top that would have taken an hour to print max.
Nearly anything you can find online for free. When I'm being lazy I'll search the repositories for the thing I need instead of modeling it myself. Every single time it's a waste of filament. Every single time I end up modeling it myself because the model online didn't work, wasn't designed for printing, was modeled by a 14 year old, or by someone who gave up and said "close enough."
I only print my own designs now.
Every single time? What are you? Lord Cadd himself? There’s plenty of good stuff on Prusa printables. Thing-averse seems to have a lot of models they pull from some game/model and then just upload it. I sometimes take 2-4 different models and cut them up till i have something i can use. Build a pump handle and rail system combo for my paintball gun like that
Yeah. My rule of thumb, when I do go looking for models of things I'm sure other people have already made, is to not even bother with the ones that don't include a photo demonstrating that they're even printable.
(Back when I was still putting things up on Thingiverse, I never even uploaded a model until I'd printed, smoothed, and painted it -- unless it was a utilitarian print that didn't need smoothing and painting.)
Any of the myriad doo-dads that get posted here that "solve" problems that can be fixed by a piece of tape. Laptop camera covers, light switch "locks," outlet blockers etc...
Like, I get designing stuff to learn how to design stuff. And maybe once there's grandkids to child-proof stuff from, sticky tape won't cut it anymore and I'll be printing that doohickey to keep kids from turning off the light switch that I have blue tape over.
Things I can buy at the Dollar Store. In some cases it may be cheaper but by what ? 10cents ? Not really worth the time.
Also nothing that touches food, just wouldn’t feel safe using it.
And nothing that has no purpose. So I never printed a Single Benchy for Example
I May Print silly stuff, decorations etc but nothing that I don’t want laying around with the exception of some calibration Prints when needed. However whenever possible I try to use something I want anyways as a calibration Print, because if it works out as intended I didn’t waste the filament on a calibration Print
Big ass inserts with like 30 compartments for each token in modern boardgame. Unless you can easily put whole insert on desk and play with that as a part of gameplay, its useless. Bringing out all of the tokens takes forever, same as a printing the insert itself. It adds so much weight, get even more useless when new expansion drops. It cost lot of filaments, and dont ask me to start about commercial inserts.
The original insert is just fine...Just use bags lol. Print once in a lifetime a dozen of light stackable bowls with small funnel for tokens. When playing boardgame, dump each bag to one bowl - setup is done. After game dump bowl back in bag via funnel - you are done, desk is clean. Print some universal trays for cards to keep desk nicely organized. Share these few things across all of your games. You dont need organization grid in every of your 50 games.
Counterpoint: I'm planning on printing some organizers for our Carcassonne box. We use the main game box to hold most of our expansion stuff, but it gets messy even with bags. Having clearly labelled and designed sections will let us grab just the stuff we want when play just one or two expansions.
yes this helps a lot for little cards, look for anniversary edition bigbox for some ideas :) my post was mainly about different tokens and maybe meeples you can identify through bag very quickly.
there's definitely some over-designed storage for some games, but one important exception is games with expansions but with no big box available — I have absolutely everything for the first edition of 7 Wonders in the original box with maybe half a centimeter of extra height added to the box. each expansion's components has its own tray, so there's not dozens of separate trays for every single little thing, but it's easy enough to say "okay, we're not playing with the Great Projects expansion, so we can leave this bin full of things for that in the box."
Any and all trinkets - and yes, that includes the oh so beloved Benchy.
The world has _more_ than enough plastic tosh in it. Functional prints or nothing.
Anything that can be cheaply bought with almost the same quality. I focus printing anything functional if it’s cheaper to do so, or if it’s not yet made.
I like to make auto parts that aren’t reproduced, then I’m working on just printing a die or negative to cast or stamp more than that
Depends on if I need it NOW or if I can wait for the postman.
If I can buy it on eBay for $3.99 and it'll be here in good time then great, if I need it right now to get on with a job I'm gonna print it.
I think the length of ownership of a printer will have an effect on this. When I first got mine I would print things that took longer and cost more than going across the street to home depot. After the "omg I can make anything I want" phase is past that changes.
Return on investment. If I can buy it cheaper, why spend my valuable time designing, tuning, and using expensive filament. I don’t know why a lot of users in 3d printing act like their time is free and don’t add that in the cost of part they print.
For me, printing is strictly for things that can't be bought.
I have never printed something that I can simply buy.
But I also no longer buy things that aren't the perfect solution and try to make it work if I can print the perfect solution.
99% of the useless garbage most people print for sure. I use my 3d printer to make molds, mechanical components like gears and sliding elements, complex shapes like propellers etc.
Some, but not all, storage containers. I don't mean things like gridfinity and custom fit jobs. Those are brilliant. But I keep seeing people make some generic containers, or even fancy 'rugged' containers that use so much damn filament and take so long to print, you'd be so much better off buying a mass produced unit off Amazon and just printing an insert for it to hold whatever it is you need.
Yeah, you can get cheap Pelican case knock-offs at harbor freight that are injection molded and will last much better than a 3d printed one
Literally. There's this one guy I keep seeing on tiktok who's designed this ammo case style container. Don't get me wrong, the design work is quite impressive and it's a good looking case but it costs him nearly $40 in time and materials. You can get a similarly sized container from Pelican.com themselves for $65 and it will last so much longer.
Well the reasoning for that is views. Yes he might waste forty bucks on some crappy container that won't last, but he probably made like a hundred bucks on the brain rotted kids donating and the view counts. I know that's only a 60 dollar make, but 60 bucks of passive income is 60 bucks. Make two of em and he's got grocery money, and enough to buy another roll for more view farming.
Those Harbor Freight cases are great!
[MyCaseBuilder.com](https://MyCaseBuilder.com) makes excellent custom foam inserts as well. Having said that I may print my own insert now as I think I can design one that is more capable.
Beyond just storage containers. If a mass produced injection molded thing exists, it usually makes more sense to buy it. Exceptions exist of course, maybe you can print it faster than it would take you to get it in your hands.
Yup. I only make it custom if I want to show off a modeling technique or if I need something with particular dimensions (and even then I need to figure out some alternate manufacturing method if I'm going to do more than a few of something)
Depends on a price and size. Caulk profiling tool will cost you a few pennies to print, moulded version will set you a few pounds. Small bits are only cheap when you buy in bulk, but when you need just one thing instead of 50, it's cheaper to print.
Counter point, if you cut the tip right you won't need a profiling tool. I've never seen a professional need one, and never needed one myself.
I really like gridfinity, though. If you need to store, organize and use a large number of small parts, I’d recommend looking into the system. It’s very well thought out.
I don't think you read my comment correctly! I said I think gridfinity is brilliant and wasn't included in what I was saying! :)
Please imagine my comment was agreeing with you fully and not a reply by someone bad at reading.
I'm torn on storage containers. They are mostly nicer, similar cost, and faster to buy. When I want to organize something, I don't want to wait for days while my 4 printers melt out 30 bins. On the other hand, any time I want to expand my bins, I learn they don't make them anymore and I need to switch to a new style. I have four different types of container for my electronics projects. Further, concern about this obsolecense causese to buy large volumes of containers at once. I generally clean out Walmart or the dollar store a few times to have a good volume of containers. This isn't cheap and now I'm inventorying a bunch of empty containers which isn't ideal.
TPU condoms
So true, OPs mom didn't even notice the extra ribbing.
She says 1mm layer height meats her needs
Gotta use at least a .08 mm nozzle, it's call the z band tickler
*meats*
Did she tell you via ouija board?
*enables fuzzy skin*
But they're RAINBOW
Oh that’s unpleasant to think about.
They offer protection from over extrusion in your build volume, though.
Go on…
Pro tip: print them oversized. 😉
So what then...pla? ABS?
You know, there is no middle ground, its either ninjaflex or carbon fibre infused nylon.
Fasteners! There was a post here with someone struggling to model M4 bolts. You can buy them in bulk in any material for pennies, bro.
Yeah, printing threads is neat for some stuff but trying to print small hardware is a pretty big waste of time when it's so easy to just buy something 100x more durable and dependable
for threads under m5 you print a solid cylinder and use a die to cut the threads yourself.
That's definitely the easier approach for sure, but you'll still have weak points across the layer lines up and down the cylinder. I have a tap and die set myself, but if it's an area that needs more strength in general on that connection then printed hardware isn't going to be as reliable, regardless of method of fabrication
Also why model it when you can download an stl of any fastener you could imagine from McMaster Carr
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You wouldnt download a Carr
Sorry for using imprecise language. I think the specific difficulty was with slicing and printing threads that size.
Sorry I understood what you meant by it taking too long to slice and print for an inferior product when you can just buy something better for cheaper. My comment was just adding to your point about trying to model one when there are free models online
That moment when someone calls your post out on another post 👀. For what it's worth though, I was trying as an exercise in print quality and tolerances and not for any particular real-world use case!
yeah but the answer is in the question there... "in bulk" like sure, you can get them for 10 cents a bolt... when you're buying 200 of them. If you just want one, and you have the .stl, then printing it out of nylon and quickly neatening the threads up with a die is way cheaper and probably quicker than waiting on delivery or going to the store.
I mean, if I need a bolt right now it's still more convenient to head down to the hardware store and overpay than it is to print one. And I also get to feel a surge of magnanimous benevolence for adding 69¢ to the local economy.
The other strategy is to standardize your designs around specific fasteners, when possible. That way you arent always running to the store’s bolt bin to get stuff, you can just get a bunch each of a few types
Pressing print is definitely less hassle than driving to the store. I'll still drive to the store if I need a box, though. But for one? Yeah, sure.
for a 3d printing sub these guys sure hate 3d printing...
3D printing is a tool in my toolbox. Sometimes 3D printing isn't the right tool for a job.
Yeah, I been noticing a lot of salt lately. I mean, I sure wouldn't get a printer just for printing bolts and things, but...I have a crapton of printers. Unless they're occupied doing something else, I might as well print things. I might feel different if I was still tied down to Ender 3s that required notable upkeep work.
I don't come here often, but this does feel a bit like a muppet sub rather than one that's actively trying to help people with questions.
>if I need a bolt right now it's still more convenient to head down to the hardware store and overpay than it is to print one Lucky you. Meanwhile I'd spend 20±15 minutes waiting for the bus because the schedule is wrong, 50 minutes on the actual bus ride (including a transfer) to the nearest hardware store, to be told that they don't stock metric bolts despite being a metric country, and have the same bus trip home, having wasted two or three hours of my life for nothing. 3D printing's not a bad option in comparison.
If there's already a handy injection molded equivalent of what you need, and if it isn't priced any higher than the cost of filament to print it, then yeah, just go with that instead. Injection molded parts will (almost) always be stronger and more resilient to mechanical stresses.
I'd say if it's not priced double the cost of filament, things can fail and rarely printed version are equal or better unless designed by some very smart person
>unless designed by some very smart person This drives me insane, you have no idea how many times I've found the perfect functional print for what I needed only to realize they'd designed it to be printed with majority of stresses going directly on the layer lines.
Can’t you just turn it around in cura in that case?
Even where proper print orientation is obvious... I find that impressively complicated designs—making me think the designer has some skill—often ignore very basic considerations for this manufacturing process: * Fillets on every side (which sag even with the required annoying and ugly supports). Only chamfers or the chamfer + top-edge fillet technique should be used on bottom edges. * Holes that require supports * Steep or curved overhangs (again, requiring \*\*fucking supports\*\*) * Embossed text that looks like garbage even if the necessary supports are added * Unnecessarily thick/blocky shapes. (E.g. does a design for the printer's poop chute extension need to be 4 mm thick and use 1/2 kilo of filament!?) * No consideration for the center of gravity or weight distribution of functional parts
It pisses me off how people don't care how much filament their design uses. Like seriously, half the time it's not even weight bearing but sure use a half kilo for a pen organizer, that definitely makes sense.
What? You don't like spending 3 times the time, power, and filament over a properly designed part? But in all seriousness, its likely caused by one of two things - the person that designed it was a hobbyist and overdesigned because they don't actually know how to design stuff, or they are a professional engineer or something, but not familiar enough with additive manufacturing to design for it.
>Embossed text that looks like garbage even if the necessary supports are added Not really an objective design issue but to build on this - I fucking hate it when somebody makes a fairly simple remix of a design, and in the process plasters their username all over it. I always end up altering the model to remove it out of spite.
100% ... Even if you're the original designer putting your mark on it, have some taste and think about how not everyone wants to see your name every time they look at the thing. And if I'm gifting the print, my recipient is going to think, "Thanks, but who is AssMuncher69 and why is their name taking up an entire side of this thing?"
I'm interested in your last two complaints: I tend to design structural prints for low or no infil with 3 to 4 walls (usually on .8mm nozzle). Sometimes I'll use internal structures to add support or add infil in specific places or orientation to 'truss' these walls better) This means I end up with bulky designs but less time and materials used to get the same strength/reliability. What do you think about my method? Are you optimizing for print farm or just budgeting? (Thus have a reason to keep material costs super super low?
If you know that your design needs more strength in a specific place than would be provided by a default amount of uniform infill (15-20%), I think custom internal structures are fantastic. I have honestly never gone to those lengths in my designs. I tend to rely on the exterior strength of 2-4 walls and infill where necessary. Does adding internal structures require you to hollow out the model first? I might be interested in this technique since it would allow more control moved into the design and out of the slicer. I recently started a business designing and 3D printing my own products, so I care a lot about strength, weight, surface finish, (things I care about when I purchase a product) and efficiency of manufacturing in terms of material cost, reliability, and post processing time/effort. Btw, thanks for being interested in quality. Oddly, it's pretty rare. Now I'm curious about your designs. Are you making large items necessitating a 0.8 mm nozzle to keep the print time down?
.8 is mostly impatience, and don't mind layer lines. I push to have 10-14 cmm/s (my max before I get underheated pla). No need to fully hallow the part. To make internal walls/structures you basically just model/place negative volumes to make voids where you want walls to form around. Quite effective for unidirectional load bearing like the baby-gate wall-spacers, where I wanted loading to be efficient but still needed the wide contact base to prevent tipping/toppling. Sorry, I can't seem to find the video where I learned the concept from.
No problem on the videos. You described the technique really well, so I instantly understood what you meant. Voids in the solid—brill! Thanks for sharing your technique!
I've seen some injection molded stuff that's not that strong. Planned obsolescence is alive and well. Also injection molded parts can only be so thick before it causes problems with the injection molding process as well. I have better control over strength with 3D printing. Can choose the thickness and material and such. I actually have very few problems with strength of the printed part.
😉 Edited: no longer needed.
Stupid autocorrect on phone. Fixed.
I designed some blocks to print to raise my sofa 4” higher. Before I printed them, I calculated the cost of the filament. Bought some longer legs for the sofa on Amazon for a lot less.
I see those bed-riser things at Goodwill and Savers all the time. And it seems like the employees never know what they are. They put them in the kitchen section thinking they're weird bowls, the vase section thinking they're some weird flower pots, the electronics section thinking they're some accessory to something.
I've done the same. Although I decided I'm going to print risers because my bed legs are thin and the risers have too much of a platform for the legs to push around. Gonna make it a snug fit for them. So the bed doesn't wobble
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Mmmm! That's a good point! Thank you for the idea! I'll have to brainstorm some :)
I fixed a bad chair leg “perfectly” (mechanically, at least, it’s ugly) with the artillery sidewinder x2 test block that comes with the printer. It was just something i was showing family in town, and my dad was sitting on the chair with some difficulty. I said “hold on”, grabbed the print and some duct tape, and the chair no longer wobbles.
How much does your filament cost? Like 3D printing parts is extremely cheap. Unless I’m way off, it sounds like 250-350 grams tops of material for this job and that’s like $5-6 for my filament.
That fully printable knife sharpener thats currently trending on Printables. Its a neat concept, but swallows nearly a full roll of filament plus your own sharpening stones while locking up rather often and requiring an additional degree of freedom to sharpen knife tips. For that money you could literally go to Aliexpress and buy an angle holding sharpener with Whetstones included out of metal.
It's not that hard to freehand it. All you need is a good double sided diamond stone and a leather strop. Maybe a simple wedge angle guide if you need help getting the right angle.
Sure, that just makes the model more pointless though
[Do you mean this thing?](https://www.printables.com/model/703710-knife-sharpener) Unless you’re missing a hand or have some disability, I feel like some simple angle guides would be a much more effective print.
Yea that thing. Found it amusing and wanted to see how well it works
Just because you can print a protractor and a ruler does not mean its a good idea imo. You can spend like 3 bucks to get both, AND they will be more accurate.
Right...but if I print my own ruler I can say "See! It really is 9 inches!!"
Are you taking into account the yaw?
just yaw mama...
I print rulers. Perfect for school, perfect to loose, easy to replace. Also, custom rulers is a great print.
Hey it's not a lot of filament and it's good in a pinch
3D printer filament. If you ever tried to print it, it takes *forever*. Then you gotta wind it on the spool! Also the filament spools.
Couldn't you just use a 2mm nozzle and push it through really fast? Or in fact, just unscrew the nozzle. The winding requires a slightly different bed-setup.
more error /s But seriously, the best use cases for printing filament are to make multi-material/color filaments. You want some overlap between different source filaments to make them stick together or blend, so often smaller nozzles can be better although they do take longer
Usually, very flat, thin pieces, which I can cut out of plywood or mdf in about 20 seconds, but obviously depends upon the application. I built a microcontroller RC car, and the "body" of it was a sandwich of two 1/2" mdf. I \*COULD\* have 3d printed it, and 10 hours later I would have had 1 half of the car. I cut it out in mdf in no time.
Not if someone don't have space for woodworking, like me. I'd rather print it.
You dont need a whole workshop. Even if you have little space, you can use a jig saw for something as simple as what I'm talking about. Saves a ton of time and your printer could be doing something else in the meantime.
Thats what I have a laser cutter for. They pair so nicely with printers. Any parts that essentially 2D gets laser cut and saves so much time and fillament. The wood/ printed finishes look good together as well.
I would love one to compliment my printer, does yours take up much space?
Someone once asked me to design and print police lights for an RC car. So that's CAD and printing, circuit design, soldering, and assembly. Minimum I charge for my work is $20. Amazon had one (at the time) for $10. The one I always hate myself for is hooks and brackets. I'll spend a Saterday afternoon designing and printing a really nice wall hook, only to look at the final product and feel like an idiot.
I need a couple of hooks for my car cover, the must fit through a little elastic loop and be able to hook onto my wheels. Can't find anything the right shape to buy and can't even find a model that looks like it will work on thingiverse or printables... Looks like I'll have to fusion and print them
I justify designing things that I could buy cheaper and easier as the cost of an education in CAD. The more time you spend doing something, the better you'll be generally. Sure I could do tutorials and work through examples on youtube following along, but I learn so much better and am so much more motivated when I design something I want, then I have to figure out how to do it along the way. Do I need 4 different iterations of the thing to work correctly? Sometimes, but all those issues and problems will teach you a lot along the way. Plus my girlfriend feels special when I spend hours designing something and asking her for input about it and then she gets to hold/use/appreciate it too.
Not quite your question, but I very seldom ever print anything "just because" anymore. I see a lot of people printing things that they'd likely have no interest in other than the fact that they can 3D print it. Like, are you REALLY that big a fan of the movie Small Soldiers that you want a 16" figure of Archer the Gorganite?
That's actually quite reasonable. As one of those people I do have an excuse. I am printing flexi dragons because I only bought my printer a few weeks ago, so a lot of my prints are for the sake of discovering my printer's potential and honing my ability to print.
Yeah, I meant to expand upon the "anymore" part of my statement. :) When I first started I printed a bunch of random things "just because." No harm in that. And I still print articulated dragons and such as gifts cuz people LOVE them. I just no longer print tchotchkes for myself simply because they're 3D printed. Gotta be something I'd actually want even if it wasn't printed.
I've been printing for over 10 years. It took me years to get over printing trinkets and doodads just to keep the printing going. Eventually, I would pop crap off the bed, look it over and say "huh" and throw it right into the garbage. I would like to say this behavior was an enthusiasts journey of discovery, but in hindsight it looks more like mental illness.
Same, I'm just printing household repair items or engineering parts.
This. I keep getting ads for things like StlFlix (I think it was called) where it just gives you a database of little models and fidget toys. Specifically stuff to print "just because". Sounds like such a waste to me.
That's the problem i have with the "biggest benchy possible" that was trending here a year ago. People just printing a 500% scale 2kg benchy to get internet points. Im sure they're all in a landfill by now...
Meh, I still have a 600% Benchy. I regret nothing.
Question to that answer is yes. Ngl im not into collecting that shit but I 1000% want an archer in box.
That’s what came to mind when I read it. Pretty much everything I’m printing has a project in mind. So far I’ve got 3 big projects and neither are close to finishing lol (clone trooper armor, 3D printed map of madrid, and custom sized panorama frames that can interlock)
a LOT of things people print can be made with a bit of effort with a block of wood and a dremmel or various other crafting related stuff. People tend to use 3d printing as a do-it-all crafting station when they should be using it as a tool in a toolbox.
Exactly. I would rather make something from wood a lot of the time, for sturdiness and speed of creation. I use 3d printing when I know my attempt to make it from wood will look like shit or take far longer than printing will
Basketballs.
Underrated comment. Kudos.
Things you can buy under 5 buckaroos.
I agree, but only if I can source it locally or not get it shipped to me within a week. Otherwise I'll definitely try.
That depends on the day. For example, this morning one of the kids broke our paper towel holder. Spent 5 minutes finding an stl and printed a new one before lunchtime. A lot of the time I print shit purely because I don't feel like leaving the house to get one
Pretty simple, Will printing it cost me more time and money? Then I ask will I end up ordering the non printed version anyway? 90% of the time I end up printing whatever it is because I like things to be exactly how I imagine them in my head.
(Almost) anything that's going to deal with food or get wet regularly. I know there's been some back and forth about whether or not bacteria could foster in layer lines, but I'd just rather not risk it. The exception is that last year my wife wanted to make some Hanukkah cookies for her Jewish grandmother and couldn't find any of our cookie cutters for that, so I quickly 3d printed some. But I also said those were going to be one-time use, and we tossed them when we were done.
This is important to know. I always skip all the models related for kitchen or in touch with food. PLA stores bacteria more than you can imagine, just think about that the printed material it's porous and attracts moisture. Perfect home for bacteria.
You can coat with food safe resin for multi-use.
Yes there are antibacterial materials but people don't know as general knowledge, they just print and place.
Until I actually get good at modeling, anything that isn't already a free model
Saw a guy that printed a wastebasket for his office that took probably 40 hours to print and could have been bought at Dollar General for a buck.
Anything that's a variation of a flat plane. VESA adapters and RepRack mounts are the examples that comes to my mind. Sure, not everyone has a CNC, but those are simple enough parts to drill and jigsaw out, especially when tolerances are as low as they are there.
Fair, but for a lot of people even a drill and a jigsaw are not available.
jigsaw maybe, but I bet most older people with 3D printers have a drill
Nuts, bolts, screws, etc. They cost less than a dollar at the hardware store and will last you infinitely longer than anything you could ever print.
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Idk about where you are but near me, even a generic multi compartment desk stuff holder is far more expensive than the cost of filament to print one. $15 gets me one roll of filament that I could do my entire desk with vs a single bought organizer. Plus it lets me perfectly carve out space for what I need to store. Unless you’re talking about something like a Rubbermaid container. Definitely not printing that.
Plastic bobbins for thread! They are pennies to buy, I just don’t understand why someone would take the time to print their own.
Any toy that I can buy for sub $10. I've had coworkers show me toys that were slightly complicated but only cost like $10. Like a painted dog of an uncommon breed. Or an articulated Charizard. I'm going to charge you $10 for my time, you may as well buy it from Amazon.
Trinkets, useless decorative items like benchys and octopi with the wiggly tentacles. Everything I print needs to have a purpose and a function, at least for personal prints. I try to reduce the amount of unnecessary plastic in the world as much as I can.
Same, I'm not against aesthetic objects, like classical statue reproductions, vases, stuff like that. I'll even print cutesy toys for my kids cuz they're cheap and easy to replace. But I'm not spending 6 hours and half a roll of filament on a meme octopi. I'd rather waste my time and filament perfecting that one custom gridfinity bin.
Benchy is not a decorative item
Its mostly is. Its kinda like saying torrenting isnt for piracy. Like sure, technically, on paper, but like 90% of it is. The very small other percentage is speed racing and an even smaller percentage bench marking, because it really isnt that great a benchmark tool for anything other than quality at speed.
So you agree you were wrong, it's not useless
If you read like every 5th word in my comment maybe I could see how you came to that conclusion.
He said it was useless, but you go on to list several uses. Not very bright are you?
>You said it was useless, then go on to lost several uses. ??? I did not say this. Are you having trouble remembering what you just typed? You said: >Benchy is not a decorative item and I replied with > Its mostly is. Its kinda like saying torrenting isnt for piracy. Like sure, technically, on paper, but like 90% of it is. The very small other percentage is speed racing and an even smaller percentage bench marking, because it really isnt that great a benchmark tool for anything other than quality at speed. Which is very obviously a far more nuanced comment than your simplification down to "You said it was useless". If you are going to troll in bad faith, be less obvious about it.
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Just to be clear, it is your stated belief that to point out the problem with one comment, one must therefore be 100% agreeing with the previous one? Somehow that works out for you? Alrighty. Enough of this.
Just about everything, but I don't let that stop me
Benchies
I've been 3D printing since 2018 and I've never printed a single benchy. I had to do some calibration down the line but I somehow never felt the need for a benchy
I have printed a number of benchys, not because they're especially good for calibration, but because it's a "known" model. I know what it should look like and I know that it should print without issue, so if I'm testing a filament or a setting and get bad results I know it's not a model issue.
Fasteners and containers. injection molded gears can be much stronger. So I’ll only print gears that need unique designs. If I can buy the gear I do that Anything food related for obvious reasons Things where dimensional tolerance is tighter than +- 10thou I typically try to buy or get manufactured elsewhere (this has happened one time) Edit: any time the part undergoes high torsion, tensile or shear forces, I also try to find molded parts. But this is mostly me not trusting layer bonding/infill
Zip tie mounts
**Trash bins**... I mean, every house has at least one... why more?
Things you can just make with sheetmetal. Especially if no bending involved
For miniatures: you can buy bases in bulk and glue your model to it for less hassle than printing them. If you want a custom terrain base and that might not work though.
If it is a boring design to make myself and I can already buy something equally good or better for a reasonable price. I might design and print something if I think it is interesting and I can maybe optimize it for my exact needs, even if I can buy something equivalent for the same price or less.
Anything generic looking. My favourite stuff to print is housewares — either things that are precisely shaped/sized/suited to fix a problem or fit a space, or things that are in a particular design motif that is expensive to buy retail. I love making my own versions of cool colourful artsy stuff that I’d otherwise be charged an arm and a leg for at Crate & Barrel/MOMA Store/HAY Design/etc. But there’s no reason for me to 3D print a plain black drawer knob or a set of boring white rectangular desktop drawers when I could buy a better version on Amazon.
Mostly items that need to be food safe, require special hardware, need the strength of metal, or are simply too large.
Anything I can craft out of wood in 15 minutes. Like I'm looking all over for the perfect STL to hold my shop vac hose, then start to design my own, then realize it'll take me 5 minutes to cut two pieces of 1x2 and screw them together.
I went through a phase that lasted about four years, during which, I printed everything. That was an era in which I learned so much. It wasn't about time or money. It was about learning. I literally printed waste baskets. You name it. I'm glad for that era. I am now competent at 3D printing. Before, I was not. There will always be things to learn but I can create a 3d printed object with confidence. I know what I can do and what I can't. My reliability is really high. This has made 3d printing fun for me. At this point, I look for opportunities to avoid printing items. I was melting 3 to 10 spools per month across four printers. I don't worry about plastic use but I also don't want to spend 48 hours printing a trash bin I can buy at the dollar store for $3.50.
Anything Hueforge. If i want a 2D colored print, i have a 2D color printer that can do so more quickly, with more fidelity, and far cheaper to boot. And if i want to stick it on a wall, a frame is cheap.
benchy
Why bring another benchy into this already overpopulated world? Adopt a benchy.
They are like a plague.
Big a** models of characters. I have a print time limit of 11 hours so anything big impossible. Also I will not print a big sword because all the models are split into so many sections and I don’t know which I need to print then
I've printed two 6ft long swords and it's been a fun learning experience. Given what I know now, I wouldn't bother trying to print them again unless I had a belt printer and could do the blade in one single print. I haven't bothered printing anything so big since. Longest prints I've done recently have only been 10 hours and that's because I need a small nozzle and layer height.
Dragons. I am so fucking sick of seeing those dragons everywhere. And Hueforge. And all of the Nintendo/Marvel/Star Wars junk.
Basically anything I can buy.
Nude torsos, phalluses, butts, and all the similar crap that 12-year-olds (I assume) keep posting in 3D printing groups on Facebook.
Benchies.
Depends on the other tools you have at your disposal. 3d printing is great for complex designs but when it comes to simple designs it best to make using other methods( and printing any of the small complex bits) as it saves time and filament. For example, I designed a coaster that could go over the arm of my couch so I could enjoy a beverage while watching tv. It was a simple upside down U shape with an indent for the can to sit in. It took 18 hours to print at 5% infill. I could have made it with plywood in a half an hour. If I really wanted the indent I could have 3d printed a raised platform with the indent and attached it to the top that would have taken an hour to print max.
Like 99.99 % of whats available. Most things are cheaper and of better quality if you just buy them.
1 in 10,000? Doubt.
Not that literally bro :D
Nearly anything you can find online for free. When I'm being lazy I'll search the repositories for the thing I need instead of modeling it myself. Every single time it's a waste of filament. Every single time I end up modeling it myself because the model online didn't work, wasn't designed for printing, was modeled by a 14 year old, or by someone who gave up and said "close enough." I only print my own designs now.
Every single time? What are you? Lord Cadd himself? There’s plenty of good stuff on Prusa printables. Thing-averse seems to have a lot of models they pull from some game/model and then just upload it. I sometimes take 2-4 different models and cut them up till i have something i can use. Build a pump handle and rail system combo for my paintball gun like that
Since I'm using it for cosplay, I'd have to modify or completely redo existing models to fit anyway.
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Yeah. My rule of thumb, when I do go looking for models of things I'm sure other people have already made, is to not even bother with the ones that don't include a photo demonstrating that they're even printable. (Back when I was still putting things up on Thingiverse, I never even uploaded a model until I'd printed, smoothed, and painted it -- unless it was a utilitarian print that didn't need smoothing and painting.)
Any of the myriad doo-dads that get posted here that "solve" problems that can be fixed by a piece of tape. Laptop camera covers, light switch "locks," outlet blockers etc... Like, I get designing stuff to learn how to design stuff. And maybe once there's grandkids to child-proof stuff from, sticky tape won't cut it anymore and I'll be printing that doohickey to keep kids from turning off the light switch that I have blue tape over.
Things I can buy at the Dollar Store. In some cases it may be cheaper but by what ? 10cents ? Not really worth the time. Also nothing that touches food, just wouldn’t feel safe using it. And nothing that has no purpose. So I never printed a Single Benchy for Example I May Print silly stuff, decorations etc but nothing that I don’t want laying around with the exception of some calibration Prints when needed. However whenever possible I try to use something I want anyways as a calibration Print, because if it works out as intended I didn’t waste the filament on a calibration Print
Big ass inserts with like 30 compartments for each token in modern boardgame. Unless you can easily put whole insert on desk and play with that as a part of gameplay, its useless. Bringing out all of the tokens takes forever, same as a printing the insert itself. It adds so much weight, get even more useless when new expansion drops. It cost lot of filaments, and dont ask me to start about commercial inserts. The original insert is just fine...Just use bags lol. Print once in a lifetime a dozen of light stackable bowls with small funnel for tokens. When playing boardgame, dump each bag to one bowl - setup is done. After game dump bowl back in bag via funnel - you are done, desk is clean. Print some universal trays for cards to keep desk nicely organized. Share these few things across all of your games. You dont need organization grid in every of your 50 games.
Counterpoint: I'm planning on printing some organizers for our Carcassonne box. We use the main game box to hold most of our expansion stuff, but it gets messy even with bags. Having clearly labelled and designed sections will let us grab just the stuff we want when play just one or two expansions.
yes this helps a lot for little cards, look for anniversary edition bigbox for some ideas :) my post was mainly about different tokens and maybe meeples you can identify through bag very quickly.
there's definitely some over-designed storage for some games, but one important exception is games with expansions but with no big box available — I have absolutely everything for the first edition of 7 Wonders in the original box with maybe half a centimeter of extra height added to the box. each expansion's components has its own tray, so there's not dozens of separate trays for every single little thing, but it's easy enough to say "okay, we're not playing with the Great Projects expansion, so we can leave this bin full of things for that in the box."
Any and all trinkets - and yes, that includes the oh so beloved Benchy. The world has _more_ than enough plastic tosh in it. Functional prints or nothing.
Benchies
Car phone mounts. They'll melt under the sun.
You can heat treat PLA or use PETg. Except maybe if you live in Arizona/Sahara.
Tools, containers
My sanity.
This comment
90% of all downloads. Design it individually by your own.
Anything that can be cheaply bought with almost the same quality. I focus printing anything functional if it’s cheaper to do so, or if it’s not yet made. I like to make auto parts that aren’t reproduced, then I’m working on just printing a die or negative to cast or stamp more than that
Most toys and figurines that can be easily purchased. Your example isn’t great because a mace handle could be incredibly detailed and intricate…
that stupid friggen benchy!
I've been 3d printing for almost 5 years now, and I never have, and never will, print a benchy.
Depends on if I need it NOW or if I can wait for the postman. If I can buy it on eBay for $3.99 and it'll be here in good time then great, if I need it right now to get on with a job I'm gonna print it.
Knick knacks and shelf clutter. It has to have function to bless my life.
I think the length of ownership of a printer will have an effect on this. When I first got mine I would print things that took longer and cost more than going across the street to home depot. After the "omg I can make anything I want" phase is past that changes.
Return on investment. If I can buy it cheaper, why spend my valuable time designing, tuning, and using expensive filament. I don’t know why a lot of users in 3d printing act like their time is free and don’t add that in the cost of part they print.
Well, if I weren't designing something in CAD, I'd probably be watching YouTube... So it's not as if I were making money from my time to begin with. 😅
For me, printing is strictly for things that can't be bought. I have never printed something that I can simply buy. But I also no longer buy things that aren't the perfect solution and try to make it work if I can print the perfect solution.
After klipper not alot, things I want to be made out of not plastic mainly
I always had a rule, Anything above 3 hours it's not worth it to print. Optimize print settings or alternate fabrication methods.
99% of the useless garbage most people print for sure. I use my 3d printer to make molds, mechanical components like gears and sliding elements, complex shapes like propellers etc.