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Hot take: 3D printing toys kinda sucks
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2025
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I can count on one hand how many "toys" I've printed. I have printed thousands of useful/needed items, though. That tool is indispensable to me. It's crazy how far prototyping tech has come.
On one hand I think "wow I want to develop this skill", on the other hand it seems like quite the time suck of a hobby, with quite a high barrier to entry.
That's printer building, modding and maintenance of those
3D printing in 2025 is easy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBQ-QfcY3Qs
That's mostly outdated. Sure, you can still get an Ender 3 in 2025 and spend years fixing it up and upgrading it, but you can also spend €200, get an Anet A1 Mini and be done with it.
These things print almost flawlessly out-of-the-box and are dirt cheap.
€200 for the printer, €20 for a roll of filament and you are set.
So I should buy the Anet A1 mini?
I recently got a flash forge adventure 5m and was printing in 30 minutes with no prior experience. There's definitely a learning curve but if you can get a paper printer working, you can do a 3d printer
It's a good printer if you just want to print and don't care for hardware modding. If you fit into that profile, yes, get it.
TBH I prefer the older machines, I stay away from the proprietary all-in-one stuff. I'm all about modularity, and usually means keeping parts and processes standard between builds for production's sake.
That's a totally valid viewpoint, and I myself am also running an Ender 5, modified to death. The only original components are the frame, the motors and the bed, and I even have a toolchanger setup for multi-material prints.
But it's not the right device if your goal is just to print. For that, the proprietary ones aren't a bad choice.
I’m currently printing parts for a Voron on a Prusa MK3S. The fact that I can make another printer using a printer is still such a cool concept.
My fleet of ender 3's have upgraded themselves all to direct drive linear rail dual z, etc. but they've also been instrumental in creating dummy and temp parts to build multiple CNC machines, which then are used to make their own final parts. It's wild what you can do!
I'm currently rebuilding a brand new AnyCubic Kobra2 max, since the factory controller hardware is trash. I bought it for the frame and hotbed. It's getting all new motion control, klipper, direct drive, bl touch, and a input shaping among other things.