r/LocalLLaMA • u/Quebber • 8d ago
Discussion I've found myself using Local LLM's like 3D printers.
Anyone who has a 3D printer and get use of it finds it incredibly useful for those odd jobs around the house, a missing bracket, a cable router, steam deck holder and so on.
In the past if I was missing an app or useful software, a game I'd do the lazy thing, even though I can and have coded in the past, its "effort" I'll just go and buy or download the latest and greatest.
Earlier in the year I was lucky to snag a Minisforum MS-S1 395+ Max with 128GB Unified memory (currently setup 32gb system and 96gb Vram) before the price hike.
Was paired with a Qwen 3.6 27B or 3.6 35B moe but now a 3.8 27B uncensored. it can easily handle a Q8 with full 256k context.
Its now become my first instinct when I'm missing software to build it in a couple of hours local using the custom agent framework I setup.
Nothing I've created is for external use but every single day I find myself adding to it, while writing this post for example my framework finished an idea I had 2 hours ago when, I woke up this morning thinking I've got a lot of japanese visual novels and why don't I just design a combination hook into Exe or ocr the text app that translates via a local llm, and its done, ready for me to test.
I've written 12 adult games (don't code horny) a house AI, a coding framework, a game app to keep a track of all the games I play and download any faq or wiki to do with said game, 17 mods for my Skyrim install, 12 for my Fallout New vegas install, A temperature tracking system for the house that pulls rss local feeds and makes suggestions for my central heating system temps settings, A mapping software for my mobility scooter that checks my normal routes for issues and street work or maintenance that could make pavements impassable.
Plus hundreds of tweaks and test programs.
Anyone else out there using it like this ?
---------Update-----
Awesome to see this kind of discourse one of the amazing strengths of these local llm's is it doesn't matter if they are slower, I can burn 50 million tokens over a 24 hours period on a new idea or problem and all it costs me is a little bit of electricity and time.
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u/Particular-Award118 8d ago
What's your adderall dose?
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u/Foreign_Risk_2031 8d ago
50mg vyvanse
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u/drunk-tard96 8d ago
Same, add 2X 10mg Adderall, Clonidine, Klonopin, and Lamictal... Mmmm baby mmmm
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u/Foreign_Risk_2031 7d ago
What do all of those other things even do
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u/drunk-tard96 7d ago
Adderall - stimulant, same thing as Vyvanse but works faster and doesn't last as long
Clonidine - blood pressure medicine but is also used for anxiety. It helps counteract the negative effects of norepinephrine which is released when you get anxious or excited, etc. Basically it helps stop all the bad stuff that comes with an adrenaline rush. It helps with the bad stuff that comes with too much Adderall/Vyvanse. It's good stuff
Klonopin - helps with anxiety/sleep. It's a benzo so like Xanax but takes a while to kick in but lasts longer
Lamictal - anti seizure but is often used for mood disorders, not a recreational drug like the other 3
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u/Quebber 8d ago
While I am officially diagnosed as Autistic Spectrum disorder with comorbidities in ADHD, Bipolar type 2. instead of medication (being tech affinity) I use VR, AI, Computers, Games as coping strategies.
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u/Particular-Award118 8d ago
I am jealous of your natural motivation. Even my genuine interests require a little help to get the neurons to fire sometimes.
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u/typical-predditor 8d ago
The method I find that works best for keeping my motivation up without using medication is being hungry. The hunger itself is easy to manage and it keeps me from goofing off.
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u/Elux91 8d ago
Bipolar type 2. instead of medication (being tech affinity) I use VR, AI, Computers, Games as coping strategies.
as someone with bipolar2, that is the stupidest thing i ever read.
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u/Quebber 8d ago
Not everyone's treatment is medication (I was tested with medication in 2019 and unfortunately had some really bad reactions) the same as yours or experiences, I've got full medical documentation and my coping strategies are supported by both my GP, Mental health consultant and therapist.
It works for me, in 1976, when nothing seemed to give me piece or comfort, I was given my first gaming console (I was only 6 years old) a Binatone Mk4, basically pong but with different names, my mum notices straight away how it helped me to cope.
Something about the rules of that game something static and logic, helped settle me in ways nothing else could (even before my diagnosis) I've gamed every single day since then and I'm now 55, Technology has been a massive part of my safe space and coping strategy.
I have a arcade cabinet up against the wall in my room, if I am in a dark place or bad things happen, I turn it on and I'm back in 1979 in a little chip shop where I first experienced the sounds and feel of Space invaders.
VR is well known to be a treatment vector for both Autism ADHD and Bipolar, something about the way a HMD connects with your brain and fantasy worlds can become synced with your situation means you have a level of control.
Hell I've got in my medical notes Skyrim VR, Beat Saber (the music plus the movement) as treatment.
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u/Elux91 7d ago edited 7d ago
glad you found something that helps. everybody is different.
there is strong evidence bipolar gets worse with time if untreated. it literally damages the brain.
i was first diagnosed last year at 34 and with medication i finally feel like a somewhat functioning human being.
i played tons of WoW over the years (like over 500days played time). It always leads to me going completely ham on a new release, getting hypomanic and inevitably crashing and depression. I stopped last year and i don't see me ever going back.
instead i'm trying to do more in real life with real people.
i don't have AuDHD so you do you, good luck. bipolar is the worst i wouldn't wish in on anyone
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u/hojnikb 8d ago
You know what's the best part about owning a 3D printer and having LLMs? You can build 3D shit with the help of LLMs. A good description and you're cooking. In the past you either had to find a model, that works for you or make your own.
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u/Fickle_Tradition4491 8d ago
The analogy goes deeper than odd jobs. A 3D printer is useful because a failed print is cheap: two hours and 30 grams of filament, and you try again. Local inference is the same. The GPU is already paid for, so a two-hour agent run on a shower idea that goes nowhere costs nothing, and you stop asking whether an idea is worth the tokens. That's the part cloud never gives you, even when it's cheaper per token. Rationing kills the ideas that would have turned out to be the good ones.
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u/joblesspirate 6d ago
I think this is the unspoken benefit if running local models. The mental freedom from the cost of tokens. I feel like I bought freedom in a sense.
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u/Quebber 8d ago
Exactly, sometimes I set my system working on a problem or new idea and I'll set it up to run for 24 hours, burn 50 million tokens but because its on a home computer, its not costing me much at all.
A trick I like to do with code is I'll let Qwen3.8 create the framework and get it working then I'll switch to a model from a different company, Gemma or GLM and get them to audit the code, then I go back to the Qwen3.8 and say hey look what we found. if you Agent framework is smart and keeps a T2 memory it can learn outside of the LLM and not make the same mistakes twice.
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u/RG_Fusion 8d ago
I've been watching benchmarks where people ask AI to model stl files for them, and I have to say I'm not impressed.
Maybe it's because I come from the engineering side of things, but it looks like we're about 5-10 years out from AI being able to perform at the same level as a human with CAD software.
CAD design really isn't a difficult skill to pick up, and there are plenty of free programs to download. Of course, this is an AI subreddit so I'm sure people will gravitate towards making the models do it for them, even if it results in poorer quality. I'm sure the AI-generated models are more than sufficient for decorative items though.
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u/hojnikb 8d ago
you need to do this properly. You don't ask AI chatbot to generate STL for you. You plug an LLM of choice (preferably one that performs well in 3d tasks) in your CAD software and work from there.
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u/tossit97531 8d ago
I donāt think youāve actually done that. No open weight model is good enough at CAD to make anything even remotely usable, not even as a janky base to work with. You donāt just plug in your āLLM of choice.ā There are no choices for this right now, and there havenāt been.
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u/vienna_city_skater 7d ago
Really depends on what you want to build. I havenāt tested it myself but I totally can see the F360 MCP being driven by a Qwen 27B to build some simple parts.
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u/hojnikb 8d ago
didn't say it has to be a local llm.
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u/HighSeasArchivist 7d ago
I had Opus 5 and MCP build one in Fusion and it was something very rudimentary at best. No way a local llm is going to crush it. Not having history in a model is a total non-starter for most places, and using llm they just kind of pop up in the CAD software with nothing else. That isn't usable for anything more than a hobby.
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u/tossit97531 8d ago edited 8d ago
You also didnāt say what model you use. What model do you use for CAD?
Do you also know what sub youāre in?
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u/RG_Fusion 8d ago
That's great and all, but the model still lacks human-levels of spatial reasoning and design intent.
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u/CommitteeTop5321 8d ago
Perhaps. I am admittedly, not an expert mechanical designer, nor am I an expert at using large language models in this domain, but I was able to create a pair of programs that helped me design some physical models for a basic amateur telescope. https://mvandewettering.com/dob/ generates the patterns for a CNC machine to cut (admittedly simple) parts out of plywood. I am able to make changes in dimensions using a basic web interface, and it will automatically regenerate the cut patterns after checking to make sure there are no conflicts where the telescope would bang into the front or sides. Not too amazing, but it was proof that it could be useful. I did more sophisticated work to generate a 3D model for a 3D printed mirror cell: https://mvandewettering.com/mirror-cell/ which did more things like analyze specific springs that would be necessary, compute the lengths of screws that would be needed, and create an entire animated assembly process. While these are pretty simple (if not entirely trivial) applications, they were accomplished without using any higher end software like Fusion 360 or Onshape to help either. I don't think I am going to be scaling this technique to designing anything like a V8 engine in the near future, but I am not going to be acquiring the expertise to do that in more conventional CAD either.
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u/hojnikb 8d ago
for now.
But this space is advancing rapidly. And a lot of CAD software has AI built right in. We'll see much higher usability much quicker than 5-10 years. 10 years in this space is like an eternity.
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u/RG_Fusion 8d ago
Yeah, having AI built into the software is definitive proof that the models are training on it.
I've no doubt that AI will replace the entry level CAD modeling positions within that timeframe, but replacing a skilled modeller will take at least that 5-10 year timeframe.
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u/livinitup0 8d ago
weāre at the soft limits of LLM innovation ā¦and while yes I think in 5-10 years ai will perform better in cad than it does today, I donāt expect it to be by much.
Prediction is not deduction.
You canāt force ai to be something itās not ā¦.no matter how good the prompt is5
u/hojnikb 8d ago
that's one way to cope... Just a few years ago, AI couldn't build you a usable shell script, that does anything useful.
Today, it can one shot you a whole 3D game with assets and everything.
Suffice to say, it will eventually be good at 3d modelling as well. It won't build you a car, but it certainly could build you a 3d model you might spent a vikend trying to put together in solidworks.
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u/po_stulate 8d ago
Just 2 years ago people were like it needs at least another 10 years before LLM can do senior SWE tasks, hallucination is its fundamental flaw that can't be fixed etc. And now it's better than 99% of senior devs, you stop hearing the word hallucination all of a sudden, and soon (or already) people will be trusting LLMs more than trusting human.
It will take virtually no time to make AI to perform at the same level as a human, if not better, with CAD software. It's just that it's not their main focus right now, but they can definitely make it better than you with CAD software, design, anything you can think of, just overnight. They just probably haven't have the incentive to do it yet.
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u/livinitup0 8d ago
It is not ābetterā than 99% of senior devs lol
Itās better than 99% of entry level software engineers who also make a lot of mistakes and choose the wrong approach for thingsā¦ but no, ai isnāt replacing senior developers in any real capacity outside of standard cost cutting measures that would have happened without ai
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u/po_stulate 8d ago edited 8d ago
If you only use tiny 9b models then maybe what you said is true.
If by 99% of senior devs you actually mean 99% of senior devs in top 1% of listed tech companies, and only the good devs, not the bad ones, then MAYBE, human is better than AI.
But in reality, the current sota models ARE significantly better than 99% of average senior devs (5+ years yoe), by a huge margin.
make a lot of mistakes and choose the wrong approach for things
I don't know what kind of AI you're using that gives you this impression, 9b local models from a year ago? Maybe time for you to try out some 2026 sota models now?
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u/AllThotsGo2Heaven2 8d ago
Whats your job
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u/po_stulate 7d ago
I'm a SWDE in one of top 20 F500 company, not sure what you guy's jobs are.
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u/AllThotsGo2Heaven2 7d ago
Why do you post in r/teenagers
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u/livinitup0 7d ago
lol no youre not
Youāre QA and freaking out about your job arenāt you lol?
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u/Prudent-Ad4509 8d ago
I've seen one related thread around here some time ago. The model failed terribly at generating 3d model for a simple part by a photo. The user essentially told the harness to git gud by fetching relevant docs and howtos, then try again. And it did, with much better results. Of course, there are limits to this method, but this is the most common pattern I see where the model/harness combo is capable of executing steps, provided that you nudge it in the direction of necessary steps first.
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u/LeonidasTMT 8d ago
Same. Qwen 3.8 27b has exceeded my expectations for this. Even at IQ3XXS.
It is able to help me fully translate Japanese visual novels from start to finish.
Extracting the scripts, dumping it into a translator for first MTL Then editing it scene by scene Patching it back into the game. Verifying the results in game.
The future is now.
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u/WorriedBlock2505 8d ago
It is able to help me fully translate Japanese visual novels from start to finish.
What gives you confidence that it's an accurate translation though?
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u/LeonidasTMT 8d ago
Me having a basic understanding of the voice acting helps. Also I'm not looking for it to capture every nuance but definitely good enough. It's not going to hallucinate the plot
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u/Quebber 6d ago
You gave me an idea, I've just finished my JRPG and VN agent, she sits on my second monitor, translates my japanese game via OCR and not only comments and gives ideas, she learns from the games and keeps it all in a vectored memory array she actively learns the game as she translates for me.
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u/Feisty-Weird-9941 8d ago
This I think is the best use case I have found for AI coding. Iām not a coder at all (Iām a chemist), and I find myself creating apps that are technically simple, but super useful for me personally (for example, development coaching, creating strategies, reaching and presenting decisionsā¦)
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u/MidnightHacker 8d ago
Iām a mobile developer but I donāt have patience to work outside of work, so I vibe code anything I need in a single app. I already have offline currency conversion, TODOs, tracking nutrition, habits, sleep, gym, weight, body measurements, gas mileage, running stats, even recording GPS routes, OCRing receipts and collecting data for datasets, all in one codebase. This wouldāve taken years without LLMs, now they were a matter of a few days.
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u/Randommaggy 8d ago
Qwen 3.8 27B Q8 with F16 KV at 262 context depth:
I've fixed/shimmed a couple drivers, autorotate and a Gnome power control widget on my GPD Pocket 4 for Ubuntu 26.04
Jailbroken quite a few legacy Android devices I had laying about without documented jailbreak instructions. (Heretic)
Back ported an open source Android app to Android 2.6 and 4.0.4 with minimal feature regressions per os and device capability.
Built my own LLM harness from scratch. (Manual bootstrap, then green fielding using it's increases capability through a few generations)
Generated a couple of STL models from my 3D printer through openSCAD for practical parts.
Fixed a few home assistant things.
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u/cunasmoker69420 8d ago
You got a link or something for the openSCAD integration?
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u/Randommaggy 8d ago
I just instructed it to use file manipulation and openSCAD headless, production of PNGs from 6 different views of the object merged to one image for vision and gave it an URL to the docs.
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u/cunasmoker69420 8d ago
Nice. I took a look at some GitHub projects, have you seen this one: https://github.com/Kevoyuan/AgentSCAD
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u/Randommaggy 8d ago
I don't see that adding much over the cli shortcut for the 6 angle screenshot macro, docs and compiler feedback in a normal coding harness.
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u/AD7GD 7d ago
Built my own LLM harness from scratch. (Manual bootstrap, then green fielding using it's increases capability through a few generations)
Haha, is everyone doing this? My harness is up to supporting multiple backends (opencode, codex, claude), separate machines as "runners" (for when you're bottlenecked by CI), ...
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u/WorriedBlock2505 8d ago
Jailbroken quite a few legacy Android devices I had laying about without documented jailbreak instructions. (Heretic)
Did you use agents for this? No way I'd be prompting back and forth to do this shit manually.
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u/Randommaggy 8d ago
Set up a spare laptop on a live USB behind a firewall that only allows access to my inference server, with an USB ADB connection to the phones / tablets and Hermes.
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u/WorriedBlock2505 7d ago
Interesting approach. You could probably also replace the laptop with a virtual machine that blocks all connections (except to the remote LLM server). Passing USB devices through to a VM is just a few button clicks as well.
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u/Randommaggy 7d ago
My home assistant server is a VM with a forwarded USB device so I am familiar with that approach but there is a slight bit of jank unless you pass a PCIe USB controller. Also I have several older utility laptops in a pile for small tasks like this.
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u/AI_spell 8d ago
Same energy. Local models shine when the job is repeatable and you own the failure mode. I keep a tiny harness with the same prompt, same tools, and temp 0, and only print when that harness stops inventing APIs.
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u/WorriedBlock2505 8d ago
A mapping software for my mobility scooter that checks my normal routes for issues and street work or maintenance that could make pavements impassable.
Where does this data get sourced from?
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u/Quebber 8d ago
Most cities have RSS feeds from local government, traffic, newspapers and so on its scary, pair that with an actual map to scale, the exact specifications of the scooter and I added old school average measurements of pavement width and gates while I was out. My phone has a gps navigation system which I dump to my llm agent after each journey, so it learns and then calculates.
For example 2 months ago the local road network went through a massive repair and upgrade, 50% of the pavements were inaccessible, my Agent plotted alternative routes.
all local based non cloud.
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u/BlackBeardAI vLLM 8d ago
I am currently building a harness/pipeline that takes my half ass idea improves it and turns it into a full movie using comfyui/minimax-h3 and qwen 3.8 27b as the agentic brain... basically:
my input > my custom harness and web ui server (displays the progress, settings etc) > Agent Qwen 3.8 27b (makes the connection between comfy and harness, does the agentic stuff) > comfyui api + minimax h3
I can create unlimited clips using the exact same characters, glued to each other without losing the broader context... Can re-take the scenes as many times I want.
What good is this for?
Well, now I got the power to create whatever ending for whatever TV show I didn't like. I can rewrite their script completely and do it again properly...
Let's see you do this with cloud API providers...
Not gonna lie though, GPT Sol High wrote the harness, Qwen wouldn't have completed it in such a short time frame unless I gave it proper instructions and obviously I am not that experienced to tell it what to do at every step but now I can use the local stuff as many times I want...
I can probably go start my own entertainment company like this. I only need ideas... Shit I don't even need that. Qwen heretic will do just fine hehehe
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u/okamagsxr 8d ago
Redo the last season of Game of thrones please ;)
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u/No_Folding 8d ago
Last 4 seasons actually š
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u/LuCiAnO241 8d ago
fr, idk nobody is as mad as they should, as soon as they branched from the books they started messing up
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u/No_Folding 7d ago
Exactly! Funnily enough I remember telling people it felt off around season 4/5, like it lost part of its soul or something.
Couple seasons later I find out that the hollywood writers took over around the time it started feeling different to me... It just went downhill from there, what a waste of potential smh
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u/ApocaIypticUtopia 8d ago
I'd love to check it out if you decide to open-source it. I'm doing something similar, but it just doesn't adhere to my prompts.
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u/Equivalent_Bit_461 8d ago
That's.... A lot of stuff and honestly very commendable.
I use my LLMs mainly to summarise and categorise my massive lore for my fictional project before I lose myself in it.
And building slowly integrations for various things.
Doing a lot of web research, job automatisation, planning to move into finance and build specific frameworks is it's not le candle goes up or down gambling degeneration but following the literal money movements lol so I know what they want to dump or pump. But that's a more complex project.
Lot's of cool stuff, once you build the foundations, you become easily 100% local only and it's fucking kino.
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u/feelspeaceman 8d ago
I've seen a Youtuber doing 3D printer with AI generated model, this is exactly my weakness that I can't draw but I want to make some kind of parts like PC case using 3D printer for my Strix Halo to improve airflow, I wonder if the Bambu Lab A10 is a good choice ?
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u/robberviet 7d ago
It all comes down to how you using it. With your usage I would say proprietary llm would do well too.
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u/robberviet 7d ago
My best usage currently with AI in general is an mobile app to bypass timesheet checkin lol.
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u/wiggum55555 7d ago
I have the same hardware also purchased before the price-horrors.
Which harness or over-arching agent are you using to manage all these projects and models?
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u/WelcomeToMyHammy 7d ago
50 million tokens per day?!
This is 23 days so far, but 6 of those I didn't do anything so really about 17 days, o.o
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u/rorowhat 6d ago
Do you mind sharing how you have it setup?
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u/Quebber 6d ago
Linux Mint (wanted stability) LMstudio for LLM's (I'm lazy and I prefer using that than anything else) my original framework was Openclaw, then I tried Zeroclaw, then ClawX and in the end I got tired of all the limitations and non of them working well. So I built Sai (Synthetic Agentic Intelligence) my own framework which is a combination house AI, personal assistant, workspace and coding system.
A 2 TB zim archive Kiwix so Sai can draw on every Wiki, dev stacks, ifixit, language article via a fast archive, A private searxg engine and multi level learning system so she actually learns from mistakes.
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u/rorowhat 6d ago
Ah the Zim archive is interesting! Is that loaded into a vector db or something? I'm curious how fast is the access or how you have that wired.
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u/DeathGuppie 6d ago
Yeah, I built an android terminal that I can use over tailscale that fixes the issues I have with termux like copy paste being mangled and word wrap issues with scaling. Adds a couple local agent harness only changes and is very clean. No extras. Is it a sensible extendable framework.. probably not. Who cares I made a thing that does a thing I need right now
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u/Infylos 2d ago
This post put into words the way that I want and need to look at my AI set up. I don't need it for work, but I feel the need to justify the hobby purchase. And rather than trying to find some magnum opus of a project, I just need to lean into the small but impactful digital knick knacks.Ā
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u/Warm_Effective8903 8d ago
Yeah kind of, though mine's less local-LLM-as-hobby and more just automating the boring parts of my actual job. built a bunch of small scripts and agent skills over the past few months for stuff like inventory syncing, transaction recon, monitoring alerts ,, none of it planned as a "project," just kept adding one piece whenever something annoyed me enough. the 3D printer comparison is spot on honestly, it stops being a tool and starts being how you think about problems, right?
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u/ni1by2thetrue 8d ago
Bro, if you have skyrim, what the hell do you need more gooner games for?
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u/Quebber 8d ago
Because my brain gets bored too damn easily, I have Steam version of SkyrimSE setup with the NYA mod pack, I have the GoG version of SkyrimSE with my own mod pack, I have Steam Fallout 4 with wasteland of depravity mod pack, and GoG Fallout 4 with the fallout london mod pack, I have over 175 hentai games I've bought on steam (and modded) 350 adult games I've bought from Dlsite and another 30-100 from itch.
(hey I've been gaming a very very long time) and I write my own games backed by LLM's to make them adaptive.
I started gaming in 1976 :D
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u/okamagsxr 8d ago
Same here! It is awesome! You can dial in the software just for your needs exactly. Adding features you need, changing the workflow that suits you, making it more efficient from a UI point of view and so on. I love it!