Hacker News Reader

Comment by erikschoster | Hacker News Reader

Legos; also the ender 3d printer. I had a nostalgic time putting the ender together. Felt like a lego set. That's not saying it was trivial (it challenged me) but that I trusted it every step of the way not because of previous experience, but because of the obvious well-designed aspects of the experience as I was putting it together. For example: I put on a part sloppily, and trying to attach anther part was the first real resistance I felt in the entire process -- physical that is, I had to study every page of the manual for a minute or two before even being able to figure out what the next step would need to be, but it was always clear after studying.

View on HN

I'm sorry, but 3D printers, while quite an innovation allowing cheap and fast prototyping, are not well designed things. I own three, and talk to friends who collectively probably own close to 100.

They, including models with great reputation (e.g. Prusa printers), break all the time. Also the mere fact that there are thousands of mods for all of them on sites like Thingieverse to make them better is another indication they aren't really all that well designed.

Things like manual leveling, heat creep, bottom layer adhesion issues are common problems across all models.

They're finicky things with PLENTY room for improvement.

With the exception of having to occasionally replace the print head my mk3s are excellent. No leveling problems, solve all layer height with live z. Flex filament works great

I agree. Inedible exciting and rewarding machines, worth the time investment, but it’s still very early. I’m sure I’ll be blown away by what’s possible in ten years or so. Today I’m still babying each print and the machine itself. Jams are the worst.

I think the last consumer paper(inkjet/laser) printer I've seen with the same reliability as my Prusa Mini broke down 20 years ago.

I haven't had a single print come off the bed by itself and never had to level anything. In ~150 prints there was one failure. Of course I'm just a hobbyist, but still. It could be worse.

At work I've had several over the years and the Markforged Mark 2 is hands-down the best I've used. Easy to use, great software (the preprocessor/slicer is online and the support material becomes easier to remove with each update). Above all else, great documentation and easy to follow maintenance guides. It has 2 nozzles, one that dispenses carbon-fibre-filled nylon and one of which dispenses a single carbon fibre for reinforcement. Those wear out fairly quickly but they have wear indicators so you can quickly judge if they need to be replaced. Unlike your example, it doesn't have any upgrade parts as far as I know and hasn't been updated or replaced in 4 years.

Unfortunately it's like $15k and material is also very expensive.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com