Do you have a home or desktop 3D printer?

Son-in-Law has one (got it free from a neighbor that was upgrading). !

Thirty years ago worked for an aerospace company that was using “Rapid-Prototyping” – - – 3D parts for fit in jet engines!

I was into the hobby somewhere 2015–2016ish, but then I was laid off so I stopped the hobby for a while. Some of this advice might be outdated but here goes:

Do you have one?
I had a Printrbot Simple Metal and it ran me about $500. You can’t find it anymore because Printrbot is out of business, but there are similar models where you can assemble the printer yourself (maybe some soldering required for the board).

What do you do with it?
Mostly models. I made a Stormtrooper helmet and a low poly Buddha. They weren’t too big though. I highly recommend Thingiverse for ideas. There was also a children’s charity where you can print hand prosthetics, but the name escapes me and I’ve no idea if they’re around anymore.

Any suggestions?
A couple of tips that I’ve learned:
1) NEVER leave your printer unattended. This might be “well duh” to some of you, but I’ve seen people still print at home while they were at work.
2) Painter’s tape, rubbing alcohol, and cotton balls will be your friends
3) Your first print is probably going to be a disaster. Hopefully they’ve made some progress in the technology where the printer head can automatically calculate the distance between the tip and the bed, but if not, you’re going have to figure out how to calibrate your printer.
4) Think small and know the limitations of your bed size. Smaller prints will be more successful and if you want to do bigger prints, I suggest breaking up the model into smaller parts to print

I played with the thought of getting one, but it always comes down to the realisation that I would barely use it beyond the initial experiments, and then it would take up space and catch dust.
That’s what happened with both my PS4, and to a lesser extent, my VR headset.

My BiL has one, he makes toys for the kids.

(nice pic, Michael)

We have one in our house. In addition to the original price, supplies are very expensive. Watch out for lower price = lower quality.
There some excellent support groups with tips and ideas.
My son makes gaming accessories for sale.
He first tried a used, cheap one, but it broke down regularly, so he ended up buying a brand new, higher quality.
Our local library has one for people to try out.

I have thought about getting one just for fun, but I can’t think of what I would do with it.

I do. While I love making and modeling things with it, I actually prefer my pottery wheel activity over this.

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