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Comment by direwolf20 | Hacker News Reader

I should get a 3D printer

I've been telling myself that for as long as 3D-printing has been consumer tech (about 20 years ?) and now it's shifted to "I'll borrow one my friends' printers if needs be".

In truth every time an issue fit for 3D printing has come up in my life, I solved it easily with wood and cardboard. I'm starting to recognize I might be a craftsman at heart.

Borrowing from a friend/library/work/low-cost maker space is the way to go unless you plan on printing with the thing for numerous hours per day on average. Having said that, once you start 3d printing, it becomes a tool you reach to more and more

I have had a similar experience; my preferred material to work with is wood. However, as I got more into tinkering with electronics and vintage computing, I'm finding more instances where wood does not achieve sufficient strength-to-weight ratio, especially for small parts where wood grain and anisotropy becomes a significant factor to consider.

Check your local library, a lot of them have one and can help you get started. It's usually pennies to print too. I printed an adapter for my coffee grinder at my local library a few weeks ago and it took 2 days and cost me $4. Fantastic stuff.

Even with my old/cheap Ender 3 Pro, I printed something overnight took 13.5 hrs, there it was

A side/tangent note, I wonder if it says something about myself/character, I choose the faster print than the surface finish, so I'll have this rough surface finish due to the supports. But it goes from 20hrs+ to 13.5hrs so it's like I'll take the faster option. What I printed was a shell with internal screw mounts, it was a big piece about 5.5x4x2.5" with 20% infill, regular temp/speed and the structure support for overhang.

I thought the same thing while reading this. But I worry that I'd get one and it'd just sit on a shelf somewhere collecting dust.

A whole variety of items and devices are good for this purpose, but 3D printing are an especially costly way to keep dust off your table.

Skip the too-cheap entry level and get something reliable. They’re great to have handy, but easy to fall into maintenance and calibration hell. Modern 3D printers have enough sensors and smarts to self-calibrate reliably. That’s essential to make it a tool and not a tinker toy.

You might already have one, and just don't know it :-) If you don't, it's much cheaper to get one that the author considers a 3D printer.

From TFA:

> 1. I like to think that all printers are 3D, unless it's a printer in Flatland.

It's actually a 4D printer unless it exists for just an instant, or an 11D printer if string theory is correct, or an 8==D printer if that happens to be the value in the variable D.

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