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Poll: Do you have a 3d printer?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Poll: Do you have a 3d printer?

#72
I definitely see the potential in 3D printers, but I just don't have enough of a need for such a machine at the time being. Well, at least not a need not big enough to justify the price.

I have no experience with 3D modeling or home manufacturing, so the learning curve is another reason I'm holding off for now.

Re: Poll: Do you have a 3d printer?

#74

Had access to a commercial 3D printer at a hackerspace. After the initial few cool test objects, the annoyance of dealing with broken STL files and waiting hours for tiny fragile parts overtook the "convenience". But I think those will both improve with time. My sub-poll question would be: for those who do have a 3D printer, do you create your own content or print only third-party STLs?

I have a small printer on the cheap end of the spectrum. I started off printing things from Thingiverse because I was having a hell of a time trying to create STLs from the 3D modeling software I already knew (Lightwave and Maya). It worked but my toolchain was a huge pain and the resulting geometry was not always sound for slicing to gcode.

In recent months I started using openSCAD and now almost exclusively print things I generate with it. I still check Thingiverse to see if people have already created things I'm attempting to make, which I see as the real power of this whole experiment.

Re: Poll: Do you have a 3d printer?

#78
I answered "I'll probably never buy one", but I have every intention of using one. I imagine I will interact with them the same way I do with regular printers- don't own one, but go somewhere like OfficeMax when I need to get something printed.
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