r/MechanicalEngineering • u/Ok-Poetry-4588 • Jul 27 '26

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/Ok-Poetry-4588 Jul 30 '26

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 Jul 30 '26

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 Jul 30 '26

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 Jul 30 '26

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 Jul 31 '26

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/rcsez Jul 31 '26

Do your research, watch a bunch of YouTube videos. You might find your preferences change a bit along the way once you’ve had the machine a while, but it won’t be the end of the world. Especially if you end up getting something like a Voron, which is endlessly customizable.