• Overzeetop@sopuli.xyz
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    4 months ago

    Me: Should I buy a prebuilt 3D printer?

    Reddit 3D printing sub: Oh, heck no. I put mine together for $18.22 plus some spare parts from seven printers I got of craigslist for $1 from some widow. Only took me three weekends to do it, plus a couple hundred hours to update the firmware to match the parts and troubleshoot it.

    Me: Uh, so does it print better than the one I could just buy?

    Reddit: Well, I’m still tuning it for all my filaments. I’ve been through about 40kg, and I’ve got a trashcan full of benchys though. The last few have been pretty good.

    • lone_faerie@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      4 months ago

      Building a 3d printer is really its own hobby. You don’t build a 3d printer because you want to print stuff, you build one because you want something to tinker with

    • elauso@feddit.de
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      4 months ago

      Yeah those communities are wild. Before I bought my own printer I thought 3D printing is mostly fixing your printer and buying better parts and bed leveling and tuning etc.

      Wasn’t looking forward to it so I bought an off-the-shelf printer with minimal assembly from a “boring” Chinese brand - couldn’t be happier with it, it just prints without any hassle and I have no urge to switch firmwares or tinker with the printer itself instead of with the printed stuff. To each their own I guess.

      (Still plugged in a raspberry pi for octoprint and did some initial calibration for the filament of course …)