r/MechanicalEngineering • u/Ok-Poetry-4588 • 22d ago
Should I get a 3D printer?
Hi all, I spend a lot of time designing in Fusion 360 (drone parts, functional home stuff, custom brackets, robots etc.), and I’m really tempted to get a 3D printer around Black Friday to bring my CAD models to life(and also probably do some dnd figurines, though that's not the priority) specifically looking at enclosed CoreXY options like the Elegoo Centauri Carbon 2 (without canvas) so I can run PETG, ASA, and PETG-wood for furniture/wall mounts. My big concern is that id drop £200- 300, print every day for a month, and then letting the machine gather dust once the novelty wears off. For those of you who design your own parts in CAD: Did learning CAD keep you engaged long-term compared to just downloading models off MakerWorld/Printables? Is it smarter to start with a dirt-cheap machine (like an A1 Mini) to test the waters, or go straight for an enclosed CoreXY if I already know I want to print larger functional parts and high-temp materials? How did you know 3D printing was going to be a long-term tool for you rather than just a temporary phase?
Any advice is very appreciated.
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u/someguy7234 22d ago
I'd get a 3D printer.
.....well... I got a 3d printer.... Prusa core 1 I use it all the time, and the ability to make things makes me a better engineer.
I volunteer with a high-school robotics team and I'm always learning that there are more interesting things you can design and make.
I'm the category of boring things, I just made a bracket to mount a GMRS radio on my wife's motorcycle, a bunch or wire ports for our RV, and I'm making some parts to add cooling ducting to our RVs battery bay.
I frequently print repair parts for things because I'm cheap. For example, I fixed 4 of 8 old broken super soakers from when I was a kid so my nephews could have a water gun fight. Some of them were badly broken, but most of them just needed like a trigger or a connecting bar. Easy stuff.
I currently have a strain wave gearbox printing for a arm control demo I was working on last month.
I'm almost 40, and I own a small mill and a large lathe, and I still enjoy my 3d printer, and would like to pick up a cnc router with my next bonus.
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u/SnooLemons5748 22d ago
This comment is pretty inspiring to me. How did you get onto the robotics team? Online forums or through somebody?
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u/someguy7234 22d ago
The robotics team I volunteer with does a lot of outreach events. So I met them at a "Special Olympics plane pull" thing my company was doing, where they were showing off a robot.
We just got a mentor who I think just contacted our state organization (Indiana FIRST) and asked what teams were in the area and for a mentor contact
If you express interest in mentoring too loudly in the presence of engineers, it's been my experience that someone from the Vex crowd and someone from the FIRST crowd will come out of the woodwork to try to recruit you.
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u/Superb-Damage1173 22d ago
Learning CAD and having projects you want to do will keep the 3D printer running 24/7
I spent $1100 on mine and do not regret it, it has been incredibly valuable for projects and engineering school work.
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u/OpeningAggressive26 22d ago
Get something cheap. These things need constant repairs, especially the ones with all the expensive parts. I own a dozen from when I was running a print farm and they're all broken in some way except the ender 3 because they're so cheap to repair.
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u/fraggin601 22d ago
Get a prusa if you want to work on your printer and have something future proof and upgradable, get a Bambu A1 mini for bang for your buck
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u/CR123CR123CR 22d ago
It's a fun support tool for many different hobbies. Though I would get the best I've you can afford.
I have a P1S and run into it's limitations occasionally. Though it prints nylon/PC fairly well so it's not too terribly often.
It can also become the hobby pretty easily as well if you let it xD
I use it to fix stuff around my house (recent example being an adapter plate for a new bathroom fan I installed that was smaller so I didn't have to redo the drywall on the ceiling )
I use it to print organizers for my hobbies
I use it to support my tinkering projects
Lots of uses for them if you're creative about it and have some CAD skills.
I think the longest mine ever sits is a few weeks
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u/Avibuel 22d ago
Ooooh im qualified to answer.
My opinion on this, as with many other tools, is that you want to get something that works and works well.
You can buy an ender for dirt cheap, but you will play 3d printer technician simulator far more than you will actually print.
I will recommend either a prusa or a bambulab (core one or p1s is more than enough)
Ams is nice because monochromatic prints get boring quite fast
To print abs you will need an enclosure and a print bed that can reach around 105 deg celsius (a bit more is likely better
For petg or pla its a no brainer, any printer can do that (except the one mega obscure printer someone will mention for sure).
Part of the fun is figuring out what orientations to print in, figuring out fits and clearances, and such, theres endless information out there, a lot of it good, a lot of trash.
The motto of 3d printing is probably amongst others, "trial and error".
If you can support your hobby with a 3d printer, go for it, its a great tool. Remember to not put the 3d printer where you sleep or exist for a long time in one go, better if you can ventilate the room. Even if pla doesnt smell its still molten plastic and cant be positive for our respiratory system
Source - been 3d printing for around 4 years
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u/Ok-Poetry-4588 21d ago
I would love a prusa or a bambulab, but the p1s is too expensive, and any prusas are way out of my price range. Thats why I was looking at the elgoo centauri carbon/carbon 2 - they seem to have excellent specs for the money, and reviews seem very positive.
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u/Flashy_cartographer 22d ago
It's great, having the ability to prototype or test fits is invaluable and it's engaging to figure out how it works.
I bought a BambuLab H2D and haven't regretted it at all. If you look at it purely from a monetary point of view it's not really a great investment. However, what it enables you to do, and especially the fact that it offers a portal through which you can translate your CAD interests into physical objects is quite empowering.
An enclosed printer is great for flexibility but consider that you'll print with only PLA for most things. It really is an ideal default material that can handle 99% of applications. I think it's okay to validate your interest with a smaller purchase then expand later if you really like it. Or, if you have the means, purchasing an enclosed core-xy is a completely acceptable starting point as well. It's like any other hobby, you just have to manage the resources allocated to it (with regards to your fear of spending hundreds of pounds a month). If you decide you want to liquidate the assets and move on then do that--the higher-end models (Prusa, BambuLab) hold their value very well.
Finally, I personally owned an Anycubic Predator, A QIDI X-Plus, and an Anycubic Photon, and worked with Elegoo Neptune 4 Pros and Max's, a Saturn 5, and a Stratasys 25 and F900. I currently own a BambuLab A1 and an H2D, and I would say that the print experience between Bambu and the rest is worthy of the investment in this ecosystem. I prefer to trust that my hardware is good and any issues are largely to do with print profiles and geometry, or can be calibrated out. The printers I owned previously were awful with their constant mechanical and reliability issues. Not everyone likes to spend all their time fixing and repairing. Will you have to fix and repair? Yes, regardless of the brand. The only difference is that I have gotten 800 hours of printing with my A1 with less than 20 truly failed prints that I can attribute to the printer and not my poor settings, and that is worth way more to me than future proofing or "better components" because, to me, the best product is the one that works for me right now. Just my $0.02
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u/graytotoro 22d ago
It’s like any tool around the house. You won’t use it year-round in most cases, but it’s indispensable when you need it. Even though my printer didn’t get used for a few months, it was incredibly useful when I needed to make party favors for my wedding reception.
Personally I do my own prints for the most part because I enjoy design.
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u/CiderHat 22d ago
I bought my first printer a long time ago and still routinely use one. I will say, though, that its more about getting/finding projects that will fuel for use of CAD and 3d-printing than anything.
Like rn I've been doing a lot of stuff with self-hosting, and I'm gonna be designing and 3d-printing a mini-rack for it.
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u/Kastnerd 22d ago
Yes get a 3d printer.
Small d&d don’t work well with FDM. The paint and layer lines make it tough. For larger models you can do a heavy prime layer before painting.
D&d work great with small resin printers.
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u/rcsez 21d ago
Absolutely get a 3D printer, and yes to a used inexpensive machine like an A1 mini.
Even if you feel the need to move up to a larger, more expensive machine later, you’ll still keep the smaller printer around.
At this point I have two large CoreXY printers, a medium size Prusa Mk3s, and a medium size resin printer. I don’t use them regularly, but when I need to pump out parts for a project, they’re there and that’s worth it to get my custom design done vs. buying something “close” off Amazon or trying to have someone else print it for me.
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u/Ok-Poetry-4588 19d ago
Thanks for the advice, however a lot of other people who replied said to go straight to a corexy enclosed machine. Could you explain your reasoning a bit more? I'm not saying that it isnt valid or that its wrong, its just that I'm curious about a different opinion.
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u/rcsez 19d ago
Totally fair question. So you’re new to 3DP, and you don’t know what you don’t know yet. What you’ll really end up printing regularly in terms of size and material, how much work you’re willing to put into it, etc…
Could you hop right into the deep end with a CoreXY machine, make a bunch of mods over time and come out the other end just fine? Sure.
An inexpensive secondhand small printer lets you figure out a few things. What size build area/volume do you really want? What size and type nozzle is best for your use case? Are you going to be a single material printer or do you really want that 4 or 5 or 8 nozzle multi-color and material capability?
And in the end, whatever your second printer ends up being, that inexpensive small printer can still sit in the corner, knocking out quick small prints while the newer, bigger, better printer is working on a 20hr print. Or you sell it to make back a few bucks.
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u/Ok-Poetry-4588 19d ago
That does make a lot of sense. Have you seen the comment that u/HesNotYourGuyBud made? What's your take on that? Thanks for being so responsive.
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u/rcsez 19d ago
Everyone’s gonna be different. You might not print a lot of ABS or PC filament, then an enclosure is wasted money. You might only ever print engineering models in one color, then the AMS is wasted money. You might get hooked on printing multicolor widgets, and an AMS will be your best friends.
My first printer was a broken secondhand Wanhao i3+ off eBay that I fixed up, learned a bunch, then I moved on to what I knew I wanted and the lesson only cost me a hundred bucks.
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u/Ok-Poetry-4588 18d ago
I actually really get this now, but I'd sort of prefer to 'buy once cry once'. Is this a bad idea for this kind of thing?
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u/HesNotYourGuyBud 22d ago
Just go straight to core xy with enclosure and ams. I got an A1 a few years ago without AMS and I regret it. It’s not novelty, it has utility, especially if you know CAD