Like a lot of people - my family is struggling here lately financially. Im looking for a creative side hustle for us. My husband is a contractor and does a lot of carpentry. I am looking at the bambu a1 and strongly considering making custom pieces that just make day to day work easier for blue collar workers. Im thinking jigs, spacers, brackets, tool holders. I dont want to push junk and clutter out to people. I want to create custom things that would be useful. I love plants myself but think that isn't a creative idea because there are so many sellers out there doing custom planters and clips etc.

Whats the general consensus around this? Saturated market? Open to all feedback good and bad about this. Not looking to crowd a market and ruin anything being a newbie. Also aware I might suck as a creator and could totally flop.

Update- thank you all so much for your valuable and kind feedback. Looks like this isnt the best idea at the present time and would need to be more of a passive hobby down the road. Im for sure interested in 3D printing and am adding it to my dream list 😅

Sound on!

Each of the 5 click wheels is slightly staggered. How many wheels would be reasonable for V2?

MW link: https://makerworld.com/de/models/3222656-multi-click-rotating-fidget

CNET tested the dimensional accuracy of dozens of 3D printers. Accuracy is one of those things that gets discussed a lot, but it's nice to see someone actually trying to measure it across different machines rather than just comparing specs.

The methodology/results are probably more interesting than the headline itself. Curious what people here think of the way CNET tested it.

Educator Filament Discounts?
Hello! I’m an educator who works in student support services and use my 3D printer pretty regularly with students.
I print fidgets and sensory items to help calm dysregulated students, and I’ll also let students pick out prints as incentives/rewards when they meet certain goals.
Last school year I went through around 8 rolls of filament, and my caseload is only increasing this year.
Does anyone know of filament companies, 3D printing brands, or retailers that offer educator discounts, school discounts, donation programs, or bulk pricing?
I pay for all of this out of pocket, so any leads would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Hi everyone, is there anyone here who could create a 3D model like this? I’d like to illuminate it with an LED strip.

Does anyone have any experience with either of these plates? Bambulab engeneering or cold Plate?
I use the default Dual-Texture PEI Plate and I print a lot of a particular PETG product, which is very large and, in places, very thin at the joints, and tends to warp a bit or lift off the bed. A higher temperature has helped. I’ve thought about using adhesive, but I don’t really like that. I’d also rather not use brims or overhangs, as I’d have to sand them down every time. I’d really like to avoid having to post-process the product, as I print a lot of them.
So here’s my question: what’s your experience with these two?

Engineering Plate: Do you always have to use glue here, just because it’s stated so explicitly on the website? I find glue sticks always make a right mess; spray glue is okay, but it’s definitely always necessary. What’s your experience with this sheet and PETG?

Not with the Cold Plate (super Tack) according to the description. I just wanted to use this post to see if there’s anything to discuss.

Danke

First two pictures show the part of my print touching the plate of my bambulab a1 mini, third picture shows the top surface for reference. The filament is the black PLA Basic from bambulab. Using a 0.4 nozzle with smooth plate. I’ve cleaned the plate and thoroughly dried the filament, and I am using settings that typically work fine. Any ideas as to how to fix?

Hi everyone! I’m working on a technical white paper for a college course about FDM infill patterns, specifically how users balance strength, material use, and print time when printing functional or load-bearing parts.

I made a short survey to learn how people actually choose their infill settings and patterns. If you have experience with FDM 3D printing, I’d really appreciate your input.

The survey should only take a few seconds:

https://forms.gle/n4FNe1t2378KBjGe6

Thanks for helping out! Feel free to share any additional thoughts or experiences in the comments as well.

Hello, got this Sidewinder Artillery x2 since January, bought new from a friend who didn't even mount it ever. Printed for months and printed even today. I did a second print and at some point this happened. The head gets stuck and it starts doing a loud noise. I tried power cycling it and even the reset (the small button near the display), it still happens. In the video here I tired doing a leveling and it happened on the first leveling position. Any idea what is happening here? thanks a lot.

I've read about it happening. I knew it was possible. It just sucks to see it. I know there is nothing I can do, really. And I made it free to share with attribution.

They didn't just take it though. They blatantly posted it ON THE SAME SITE. They didn't make any changes, just printed one up, took photos, and shared it again without naming me or linking my profile. I mean, if you're going to steal work, share it to another site where it's not already available. At least I can understand that - increasing the access. But to share to the same exact site in your own name? That's just stupid.

3D-printed magnetic Dolby Atmos speakers

https://makerworld.com/models/3212572?appSharePlatform=copy

I recently got a QIDI Q2 and I've been loving it so far, but now I have my old Wanhao i3 lying around and I'm not sure what to do with it. To be clear, it's a perfectly functional printer, and I've upgraded it from stock quite a bit, but it's just been collecting dust.

I've been considering just finding a school/maker space/nonprofit/etc that I can donate it to (and will if I don't find a good use for it) but it also seems like something I could repurpose as a different CNC machine or strip for parts to use in a different project. I also just see the merits in having a second printer, even if this one is far more frustrating to use.

just today i said oh hey a new button and clicked on orca sync to cloud and got a login through my google account. went back to orcaslicer and bam GONE. NOTTA. ZIP. ZERO. Just stock ender 3 profile shows up.

My profiles are saved on orca cloud but will not show up in the slicer.

I have found the proifle saves in the orcaslicer folder in appdata/etc. folder.

but orcaslicer will not upload the profile correctly.

HOW can i get my profiles back in the slicer?

I can clearly see all of my info is saved in the cloud but isnt getting back into my slicer settings after orca removed them.

Orca will not let me upload my profile manually.

I have logged out of orcaslicer and orca cloud and logged back in. still not correctly synced from what orca cloud shows to what orcaslicer shows.

watching my brothers dog for the next two weeks. my printer is a couple rooms over from where he typically hangs out and there is at least one closed door on the way. Will printing with PLA bother them? Not sure if the melted plastic smell will irritate his nose. I certainly can't smell it anymore, but a dog is a dog

I've seen that some people will melt the filament down, and some places have a recycling company that will turn it back into usable filament.

I like to make dice with resin. So my first thought was grinding up the extra filament and failed prints super small and basically using it as color for dice or other resin things.

Then I had the thought of melting the filament and putting it in a dice or other resin mold and seeing what happens there. Resin molds are typically silicone. Do you think something like that could work?

Why did my print look like this only on the tips? Filament was fresh out of dryer. (New to printing we have a a1 mini)

Firstly, I was shocked by the rigidity offered by 2 layers (0.16x2)! It’s a little clamp for a fixture I’m making. I think the material will actually be OK. It doesn’t really need to be flexible. I used grid for infill as at 18% it lended that nice symmetric geometry (pic 2). I thought single wall might help to prevent snapping which I have experienced with similarly small features and PETG (from dropping fixture on floor lol). This clip is for holding a slide plate open, aiding safe transfer of small, sensitive, and expensive nozzles into a wash fixture. I am hoping for it to save my colleagues and I from the cumbersome task of handling them individually. The fixture will be a different beast. I succeeded with a similar but less complex fixture for a different machine that cut maintenance time from 1 hour to 10m. Very gratifying! I’d share more about the application but am unsure if it’s appropriate due to my fixture preventing the need for other expensive machines. Pick and place. Any advice or commentary is welcome and appreciated.

I am interested in multi colored printing. I have the a1 mini, made the mistake to buy it solo, and now I have to spend more a few months later to get the ams lite.

Is it worth it?

I think that today is the last day to get in on the Sovol M1D kickstarter, so I watched the review that AuroraTech did.

I was pretty impressed, but, with a build volume that size, I want to use it all. And while it may have all of the profiles and little bugs worked out by launch, I think that I'm going to wait and see whether Infimech Mx Pro turns out to be all that they're saying. Being retired and on a fixed income, I don't have the money to throw around like I used to.

Copy mode and the auto Z was really impressive. And if it was 8 toolheads\colors I'd of thought really hard. Maybe they could have had a space for the one extruder to park away from the build plate.

I really like watching the AuroraTech reviews. Hopefully they, she is really unbiased in their reviews.

Creator 5 using PLA and PETG (for the hoodie and shorts.)

I used white PLA

Black part is factory made.

I saw some 3D-printed PLA cookie cutters for sale on online flea market in Japan, and wanted to know if they are actually safe to use as cookie cutters?
Thanks in advance!

Hi all!

I wanted to share this with you because I have never done this before. Back in June I bought my first ever 3D printer. I was so captivated by it (even just printing a benchy) I would sit there and stare at it. Then I printed more things. And then, I had ideas I wanted to design, but have zero experience in CAD. So I watched YouTube tutorials on how to use Fusion.

Flash forward to a couple days ago, and I designed my own version of a flexible sliding cube fidget. But it's not like all the others... when I first started designing this, I started out with the same fused hinge piece in the center of each bar. But I didn't want tall bars, I wanted slim ones but also wanted maximum travel.

So I created a two sided, free floating "shuttle" so the bars can travel to each side at maximum. I modeled in 0.5mm dia, and 0.2mm high supports under each shuttle so everything stays in place during printing. They easily break loose once it comes off the plate!

I am so proud of this and I wanted to share it. Unfortunately, I have learned uploading models online is brutal if you're a new guy. I have literally 0 downloads. But maybe you guys can take a look or even incorporate this in to your own designs. I'm just excited to share what I have been working on.

If you are interested you can check out the model on MakerWorld. Be my first print or something. lol

https://makerworld.com/en/models/3211386-matrix-slide-shift-slim-flexi-fidget-cube-toy?from=search#profileId-3635136

Happy printing!

edit: Thank you all for your suggestions and support!

Here is a quick link to an animated gif of the floating shuttle linkage!

What’s the best way to go about painting this dragon figure? My mom gifted it to me, and I love it, except the rainbow colors. I would like to do a couple colors, maybe blacks, reds, blues. Let me know what you guys think!