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: !functionalprint@kbin.social or !functionalprint@fedia.io
There are CAD communities available at: !cad@lemmy.world or !freecad@lemmy.ml
Rules
-
No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia. Code of Conduct.
-
Be respectful, especially when disagreeing. Everyone should feel welcome here.
-
No porn (NSFW prints are acceptable but must be marked NSFW)
-
No Ads / Spamming / Guerrilla Marketing
-
Do not create links to reddit
-
If you see an issue please flag it
-
No guns
-
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
view the rest of the comments
So you can get an Ender or similar printer for $100-200 and it would mostly work out of the box, but there is often a huge amount of troubleshooting that follows. I got a 3D printer originally to try to earn extra revenue but never ended up selling anything because the hobby took over for me. I spent hours learning how it works and hundreds replacing parts (trying to perfect my machine, not at all necessary). It's a bit of an investment of time and money but you may find that you end up enjoying it and using it beyond the scope of your current project. It's definitely something that takes a lot of commitment to learn unless you have a lot of money you're willing to invest towards a more no-issue printer like a Prusa.
It looks like there are a ton of makerspaces in Seattle. If you have the time, you can actually often volunteer to use the machines for free. And it would give you the ability to use other machines there, like laser cutters. I actually also volunteer about a couple hours north of you at the bham makerspace. If you happen to be in the area and want help printing stuff -- or you decide to get a printer and you want help learning how to do it, you should hit me up! I'm super passionate about it and I would be happy to give you advice or help out. :)
I wish I had the time to volunteer, but that's a great idea if things start to slow down. I just ordered the Neptune pro 3 as a starter for this project so we'll see how the ease of use goes. I tried all the maker spaces I could find locally and they were either all booked up so you could use the space or they charged $25/half hour and I have no idea how long everything would take. I will definitely hit you up when we get a break from all the stuff we're doing, that's a gorgeous drive. Thanks for the offer of help, I really hope I don't need it, lol.
Hey sounds great! You've made a good choice. If/when you have any issues pop up that you need a quick solution to, I'll be around :)
Thank you, I'm kind of overwhelmed with how awesome you guys are in here. I'm from Seattle and we actually have the Seattle Freeze as a thing so I'm not used to it, lol. Well I guess you already know that, but others don't.