this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2026
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[–] Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 11 hours ago
  • What do I do to make it more than a trinket printer.

CAD is just a tool. You can use it to make more trinkets yourself or create a special bed basket, custom camera bracket, etc. If you see something at work or home that could benefit from a product that doesn't exist yet, you might be able to design and print a fixture for it.

  • Why should I get a printer.

Unless you're constantly coming up with things to print then you don't. Plenty of libraries offer free 3d printing services but keep in mind you get what you pay for. If you're lucky, some universities or hacker spaces might let you use their printers and are of generally higher quality.

  • Should I skip the owning part and just use commercial 3d print shops?

It gets expensive very quickly. Most commercial places I've dealt with for work will rip you off because they're targeting industries that have more money than common sense. I once needed to print a few simple boxes with ESD safe filament and they wanted over 400 dollars for just one. A lower end prusa costs the same as 3 of those prints so it made more sense for us to purchase our own printer and filament and make it ourselves. The cost of making additional fixtures plummeted too once we considered avoiding some traditionally machined parts in favor of printed ones.