3DPrinting
3DPrinting is a place where makers of all skill levels and walks of life can learn about and discuss 3D printing and development of 3D printed parts and devices.
The r/functionalprint community is now located at: or !functionalprint@fedia.io
There are CAD communities available at: !cad@lemmy.world or !freecad@lemmy.ml
Rules
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No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia. Code of Conduct.
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Be respectful, especially when disagreeing. Everyone should feel welcome here.
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No porn (NSFW prints are acceptable but must be marked NSFW)
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No Ads / Spamming / Guerrilla Marketing
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Do not create links to reddit
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If you see an issue please flag it
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No guns
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No injury gore posts
If you need an easy way to host pictures, https://catbox.moe/ may be an option. Be ethical about what you post and donate if you are able or use this a lot. It is just an individual hosting content, not a company. The image embedding syntax for Lemmy is 
Moderation policy: Light, mostly invisible
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I may agree in a DIY setting, but for a business it's a sunken cost fallacy. I've owned 2 businesses where productive equipment were integral. Replacing machinery where there is a substantial improvement does make absolute business sense. Also, if you allow a machine to wear out you are shooting yourself in the foot. It's much better to unload them in the second hand market, and renew. I haven't owned a print farm, but I'm certain that amortization is fairly quick.
Question is, how long is the expected lifetime of a consumer-grade FFM printer in one of these settings anyway? My bet is that it's only a couple of years—certainly no more than five. Short enough that many businesses would be able to afford to wait for the expected end-of-life before replacing their old printers, even if there's new tech out that might make some difference to their bottom line. At worst, the older printers will still be perfectly good and competitive at producing single-material prints, since I don't think an MMU you don't use incurs much of a penalty.