132
What’s something you own that has truly paid for itself?
(lemmy.dbzer0.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2025
132 points (98.5% liked)
Asklemmy
52996 readers
412 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
My 3d printer(s). I bought my first one used for $100 ~10 years ago and offered to print a small model for someone's college capstone project. People learned I had a printer and started coming to me for all sorts of small things. I would only charge for substantial jobs but people would end up paying me anyway. I quickly got a resin printer and started selling miniatures for friends. I eventually got contacted by one of the major manufacturers who would send me return units and replacement parts so I could repair and tell them what was broken, if anything, then I could keep or sell them.
Everything I have done with 3d printing has been subsidized by side jobs. It's a super fun hobby because 3d printing sits at the nexus point of basically every other hobby. I have done jobs for people building rat rods, model trains, cosplay, interior designers, hydroponics, brewing, architects, drones, and more.
I bought a cheap 3d printer years ago and I'm pretty sure it's paid for itself just making replacement parts for our dishwasher. Probably paid for itself several times over if I add up the price+shipping of all the other miscellaneous repair parts it's made.
I bought my first one to do exactly that! The clip that held the spring in place to gently lower the door snapped twice and I saw that someone had a beefier one modeled and decided I would buy a printer rather than pay the $17 dollar for another part that would break.
Designing exactly what you need and printing it for pocket change is amazing.
My favorite replacement part was cloning a missing window frame clip from the 80s (original was extruded aluminum).