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It's just a colossal misread of the demographics. The community was always a mix of people who wanted to build a printer, and people who wanted a printed thing. The community has massively exploded since the early years, and it's almost entirely made of people in the latter camp who, critically, no longer have to go through the former campsite to get there. It doesn't mean there aren't people in the first camp, or even that there are fewer of them. They're just a rounding error now.

You can tell when it happened, because the E3D v6 nozzle pattern went from being a de facto standard across everything to something you need to buy an adapter for, and nobody really seemed to blink.

Heh... I think it was a bit earlier.

The Groovemount was the "standard" for a while there (Makergear, Jhead, etc) then when E3D came in they used the same idea but changed the measurements. It was pointed out to the devs...they left it the way they modified it.

So E3D was incompatible with the mounts that were the "standard"...others later followed and also made their own mounts.

The E3D clones advertised themselves as "jheads" and "E3D" when they were neither...rode on the popularity of other hotends via false advertising. It also happened with the electronics that were popular at the time leading to a lot of issues when people were confused about what firmware would run on the boards they purchased.

It's a lot less of an issue, now, but Linux used to be a "mechanic's hot rod" operating system.

It's like that kid down the block, with the sweet hot rod that rattles the windows, when he drives past, but whenever you drive past his house, the car is up on blocks, and he's working on it.

Working on tools can be a lot of fun, but I like working on stuff that ships, so I prefer tools that don't require much work.

Also I have a hobby that requires tools. If I'm fixing my 3d printer that means I'm not using that printer to make parts for my hot rod (or whatever it is I'm doing for fun)

We had a similar discussion about computers the other day. A lot of us miss the days of tiny memory and optimizing for that.

It takes all kinds and I see no reason to gate keep either way. It's too bad that we do t often segregate around those opinions and don't share as much

> It takes all kinds and I see no reason to gate keep either way.

Gatekeeping is a good way to describe it. This happens to a lot of niche hobbies that go mainstream. Some of the old ingroup that were into the hobby before it was cool get irrationally angry at the new waves of adoption because they're in it for different reasons.

I don't care why someone is in a hobby. If you want to do it the easy way, good for you. Nothing has been taken away from those who want to do it the hard way. It's much easier to get started building custom machines now than it was when I was starting out.

> There are more opportunities and knowledge available now for people who do want to build their own machines and it’s very cheap.

And what happens if China decides that it is no longer in their interest to allow Americans access to cheap aluminum extrusions, hotends, motors, and controllers?

Between the American tariffs and Chinese prioritization of 3d printing in a past five year plan American hobbyists and small scale producers are in a potential bind.

> And what happens if China decides that it is no longer in their interest to allow Americans access to cheap aluminum extrusions, hotends, motors, and controllers?

Then home 3D printing will be the least of our concerns? What kind of question is this?

Decades of prioritizing manufacturing capacity and talent lead to China being able to prioritize the development advanced additive manufacturing for industrial purposes and to being able to dominate international sales of consumer level 3d printers.

Ignoring the development of the sorts of skills and abilities in the general public that come from tinkering with small bench top machines like lathes and 3d printers is detrimental to nation’s ability to be self sufficient and raise the next generation of mechanically inclined people.

China seems to get that while other countries don’t.

It has never been a better time to be able to make parts at home in USA than right now. A formlabs form 4 is cheaper than a Bridgeport, there is a glut of desktop CNC mills (aluminum routers) under ~5k, in wood the shaper origin and sienci altmill are pretty strong as is the avidcnc router family which happens to use domestically sourced extrusion from 8020…

Frankly, I am confused by much of what in reading here

> Ignoring the development of the sorts of skills and abilities in the general public that come from tinkering with small bench top machines like lathes and 3d printers is detrimental to nation’s ability to be self sufficient and raise the next generation of mechanically inclined people.

I replied to your topic about China stopping exports of stepper motors and aluminum extrusions, now you're switching to yet another goalpost.

For what it's worth, I've spent a lot of time with 3D printers in the past decade. The amount I've learned doesn't hold a candle to any of the deep dives I've done for real engineering work. A couple months of paid full-time engineering work on in a new area would bring any engineer up to speed.

3D printers are cool, but the self-importance some people attribute to this hobby is a little too much some times.

I think mechanical / electronic intuition are important, and they come from tinkering (especially at younger ages).

Sure, being able to do math and detailed analysis are important. But having a good guess on step 1 is important, too, to narrow the search of huge design spaces.

I think we've all experienced different kinds of engineers. The one you trust to do a month-long trade study with deep mathematical reasoning is usually not the one you trust to just know a plausible path forward. And we need both.

> And what happens if China decides that it is no longer in their interest to allow Americans access to cheap aluminum extrusions, hotends, motors, and controllers?

We make our own. You seem to be under the common delusion that because only a tiny % of people work in manufacturing compare to 70 years ago, that mean the US doesn't to manufacturing. In fact the US is manufacturing more than ever with just that tiny % of people. Be glad you don't have to work a boring assembly line job.

I mean, on the one hand, manufacturing has grown near-continually for those 70 years, and its demand for labor has reduced. So, it's not like you're wrong.

At the same time, our production of lower value, commodity-ish things has indeed shrunk rather than grown with population of demand. That manufacturing expertise is more concentrated more on higher value (aerospace, information technology, etc) things and less on fasteners, bulk materials, or extrusions.

We are not vertically integrated in the way that China is.

Then we can use the printers we have now to bootstrap more domestic printer manufacturing.

> I do not know what you are talking about.

What are you talking about? Show me one survey that shows DIY crafts as a whole becoming more popular in the past several decades. It's just not a thing. People increasingly don't have room for it, computers and cell phones have won as a way to spend the bulk of our free time, and even if you want to create, the primary outlet is the digital world.

> 3D printing at home is more popular than ever

Sure, but that's a given because the technology didn't exist until very recently. I can also say that Tesla Cybertruck is more popular than ever, but that doesn't mean much, right.

> Even families I know who don’t have a computer at home, only their phones, now have 3D printers and use them.

A vanishingly tiny proportion of families in the US or in the EU own 3D printers and use them.

A vanishing small number of people ever did those things. Many people owned tablesaws but they rarely used them to make something for fun. They owned the dream and subscribed to the magazines but they only rarely made anything.

Yeah, unfortunately you are correct. Life's too busy nowadays and there's not enough time to do a quarter of the things one wishes especially projects that require planning and months to implement.

Moreover, the reduction in or loss of manual trades (woodworking, machining, toolmaking, etc.) whether at home or in industry, amounts to an overall deskilling of the citizenry which has strategic implications.

Not nowadays, it always was like that. Nothing is different today.

I don't see how that holds. Detroit and other cities it we're once filled with skilled machinists, pattern makers, carpenters, pipefitters, etc. Now they're not. None of this has anything to do with what those people did for fun in their spare time (and you're right: that was rarely "the same thing I do at work but in my garage"). We are certainly deskilled in these areas compared to times in decades past.

Sherline made tools for hobbyist. While they were high quality such that a professional could use them, professionals typically would buy larger more expensive machines (which can still to the small jobs when that is they got, but could also take on larger work the Sherline couldn't handle).

The the hobbyist in the garage needs to be the topic here, not professionals. The hobbyist enjoying things in the garage still exists, but is still rare. Those that do the work are skilled. If you want to join them there are plenty of books on the subject, it just takes some practice to develop the skills.

Industry is of course deskilled.

> What are you talking about? Show me one survey that shows DIY crafts as a whole becoming more popular in the past several decades.

Entry level 3D printer sales (the kind you buy from Prusa or Bambu Labs) have been surging for years.

You could Google this and find a thousand articles about it. The entry-level segment has grown massively and continues to expand https://3dprintingindustry.com/news/context-industrial-growt...

> Sure, but that's a given because the technology didn't exist until very recently.

I built my first 3D printer over 10 years ago. The latest printer I bought is much more refined, but it's still stepper motors, belts, a gear driven extruder, and a nozzle like my original printer. The technology has been around for a long time. The popularity explosion is recent.

> A vanishingly tiny proportion of families in the US or in the EU own 3D printers and use them.

We're talking about hobbies and that's how hobbies work, yes.

The hobby is growing significantly, though. Arguing that most households don't have a 3D printer is just a strawman.

> You could Google this and find a thousand articles about it.

Such articles are frequently by the people who would benefit the most from them and usually lack specifics. My favorite version of this is to do a web search for "fastest growing hobby in the world". Lots of hobbies are the fastest growing hobby in the world, it turns out.

And from that you conclude what?

I know exactly one person who has a 3D printer. I would argue strongly that “most households” do not in fact have a 3D printer.

"Most households", no, but a statistically significant number? Yes.

Two of my co-workers have one each, and another is planning on buying one for her kids for Christmas --- DJI revenge-investing in Elegoo to spite the folks who left their company to start Bambu Labs pretty much knocked the bottom out of the market and halved (again) the price with the Centauri Carbon, resulting in a glut of ~$300 CoreXY printers, many of which are enclosed and hence have a higher perceived value.

Most estimates are that 2024 had ~4.5 million shipped, and 2025 looked to be even more, and no signs of the upward trajectory decreasing for 2026. For one small snapshot see the recent Snapmaker campaign for the U1, >$20M raised from >20K backers. With most sales to the U.S., for ~135M households, while not at 10%, it is almost certainly past 5%, so approximately 1-in-20 households.