One doesn’t buy a 3D printer to make a knob. One is suddenly presented with a need for a knob (or a thingy, or a flangle, or a twizzlet…) and suddenly remembers, “hey - I have a 3D printer.” Followed by “I wonder if there are any matching designs in one of the several massive free databases of models.”
It’s true that you should not expect to save money in the short or long run with 3d printing as a hobby, but if it’s your thing then it’s nice to have a hobby that’s occasionally useful. Also, autodesk fusion is free for consumer use.
I wouldn’t say I’ve made back my investment on 3D printing in the past half a decade I’ve done it. But in terms of “prints for friends” like this one above I may be close. Plus there’s just something nice about going “I need a measuring cup for dog food” and printing one to the exact serving size.
Software is free if you aren’t using it for commercial use. Fusion 360, onshape, etc. are all free for personal use. And that’s assuming someone didn’t make it already and share it free.
Filament costs $17 for 1kg of perfectly fine plastic. You’d probably use 100g at most for this, so $1.70.
A Bambu A1 mini is $200, and is a modern, high quality printer that would be fine for this project.
So you only need like a half dozen of these projects to come out ahead.
To be clear, I’m the last one to say one shouldn’t invest in money saving innovation. But the breaking even should be number one priority. I, for instance have all kinds of energy savers in my house that have cost me several hundreds. They’ll only be returned in a few years and I need to manage them properly.
The recent 1.0 release is actually very good. It is probably better at this point than some of the entry level commercial options and most importantly compared to those is not intentionally hobbled in any way.
The time for everyone to stop parroting how “everyone knows” that FreeCAD is unusable is… now. You can go ahead and delete that one; it’s time to learn a new soundbyte.
Still cheaper than getting a 3D printer and filament and stuff. And CAD/CAM software.
One doesn’t buy a 3D printer to make a knob. One is suddenly presented with a need for a knob (or a thingy, or a flangle, or a twizzlet…) and suddenly remembers, “hey - I have a 3D printer.” Followed by “I wonder if there are any matching designs in one of the several massive free databases of models.”
It’s true that you should not expect to save money in the short or long run with 3d printing as a hobby, but if it’s your thing then it’s nice to have a hobby that’s occasionally useful. Also, autodesk fusion is free for consumer use.
I wouldn’t say I’ve made back my investment on 3D printing in the past half a decade I’ve done it. But in terms of “prints for friends” like this one above I may be close. Plus there’s just something nice about going “I need a measuring cup for dog food” and printing one to the exact serving size.
Software is free if you aren’t using it for commercial use. Fusion 360, onshape, etc. are all free for personal use. And that’s assuming someone didn’t make it already and share it free.
Filament costs $17 for 1kg of perfectly fine plastic. You’d probably use 100g at most for this, so $1.70.
A Bambu A1 mini is $200, and is a modern, high quality printer that would be fine for this project.
So you only need like a half dozen of these projects to come out ahead.
To be clear, I’m the last one to say one shouldn’t invest in money saving innovation. But the breaking even should be number one priority. I, for instance have all kinds of energy savers in my house that have cost me several hundreds. They’ll only be returned in a few years and I need to manage them properly.
On software SIDE, kinda criminal not to mention FreeCAD, it’s FOSS and runs on Linux, unlike the non-free freemium and paid alternatives
But it’s got a long way to go before it’s at usable as the others. Definitely not a good place to start learning cad.
No, it doesn’t.
The recent 1.0 release is actually very good. It is probably better at this point than some of the entry level commercial options and most importantly compared to those is not intentionally hobbled in any way.
The time for everyone to stop parroting how “everyone knows” that FreeCAD is unusable is… now. You can go ahead and delete that one; it’s time to learn a new soundbyte.