I’m going to have access to a 3D printer for a few days. I know two friends who’ve used them, but it’s only been for art and figurines, or professional purposes.
Are there any other cases you can think of where a custom-printed item is better than the myriad of mass-produced plastic items?
Gridfinity
Just buy a 3d printer and you will find that there are a bajillion doohickeys and whatsits that you never knew you needed. Half of my house is now 3d printed.
it makes me wish that someone with 3d printers would offer to print things out for other people small fee.
i’ve got lots of broken plastic things that i glued/duck-taped/melted together because they were integral to how something (most appliances) function and i would pay someone to copy and print out a replica of it so that i can replace it.
The most esoteric item I’ve printed is a tiny clip that holds the fill tube in place, in my toilet. And I didn’t have to design it myself, someone else had the same problem with the same toilet and posted their solution.
Thingiverse is great, but the real benefit of a 3d printer for me is the super-custom stuff. The gap between my kitchen sink and wall is pretty small, so I designed and printed a sponge caddy that sits in there perfectly, and drains into the sink. My sunnies didn’t fit into the holder in my car, so I designed and printed a little clip with a holder on it that fits in really nicely.
Anything that custom-fits something. I do a bunch of functional prints, mostly things that are specific to something I own. I printed my wife a phone holder sized to fit her phone and case, I printed wall mounted holders for my remote and keyboard for my HTPC, and I recently upgraded to a larger printer that I used to create custom drawer organizers that fit exactly the things I need. I’ve also used it to print replacement parts for things, replacements for missing pieces, etc.
print another 3d printer
Rep rap.
… And that’s how you gen Von Neumann probes.
I threw a bunch of broken glass, cold, heavy cream and sugar into the printer and I confidently said “Computer! One milkshake please!” with great gusto. I broke my printer. Thanks Jean-Luc!
That’s sort of a perennial question but you can look on thingiverse for lots of designs, some of which might interest you.
Me, I need a replacement front cover for my ancient vacuum cleaner, for which original parts are no longer available. It’s 3d printable but would need a fairly large printer. I might try carving from wood instead. A Shapeoko would be great for that, but since I don’t mind it looking like crap, I might just try with hand tools.
• replacement parts for appliances (dishwasher wheels, feet, brackets…) • upgrades for your 3d printer (a camera holder is a classic) • if you are a thinkerer (I’m assuming you are) custom boxes for small projects (electronics and so on)
I replaced the hinge on our freezer door with about half an hour of design time and a tiny amount of filament. Previously the fix required replacing the whole freezer door.
That fix alone paid for the printer.
Now I’m putting orthopedic insoles. It’s been a lot more effort since it required learning how to use TPU, but now I can just size the shoe and send the file.
Filament printer? I’d print a couple of microSD card holders, USB stick holders, those thingamabobs that help you organize your million loose USB cables, organizing cases for card games or specific boardgames, some hexagonal organizing shelves because they look neat
Are there any other cases you can think of where a custom-printed item is better than the myriad of mass-produced plastic items?
None at all. 3D prints are almost always worse than injection moulded plastic. Only if you need a very specific custom thing. Or it’s just convenient/fun to make your own.
3D prints are almost always worse than injection moulded plastic
Entirely depends on your use case. 99% of the time it won’t matter to most people with a 3D printer.
If I’m making a Gridfinity setup for my desk, it doesn’t matter if it’s injection molded, it sits in my desk and doesn’t come into contact with any food or liquids and isn’t put under high stress. If I’m making attachments for my IKEA Skadis board, it doesn’t matter if they’re injection molded, nothing I’m putting on them needs highly scratch-resistant plastic or marginally heavier weight capacity. If I’m making replacement mounting for a bar on an item I own to make it more convenient to use, it doesn’t need injection molding to work just as effectively as an injection molded part, it’s holding a few grams of weight pulled by gravity and has no other stresses or contact with food or liquids.
Injection molding is only necessary if:
- You need a more food-safe part without layer lines
- You need a part that is absolutely as strong as it physically can be with that plastic material, even if it will only be slightly stronger than the 3D-printed part’s layer bonds
- You need to mass produce an item at scale very quickly, and have the upfront demand to cover the very high cost of tooling, custom molds, (thousands of dollars per individual mold) logistics, etc.
If I wanted molds made for all the things I’ve printed to have them injection molded instead, I’d be in debt hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars.
Not a single thing I’ve printed would have been cheaper, truly better quality (unless I had simply picked a badly made design in the first place), or more usable if it was injection molded, and I’ve been printing things regularly for the past 8 years.
For lots of stuff 3D printing makes a lot of sense.
Recently I bought a 3-pack of little baskets from the dollar store for $1.25, which are the perfect size to hold quarter sheets of paper. I know I could have researched it on thingiverse, gone to the makerspace, and printed one, but I think it was faster and cheaper to buy it at the store.
I’ve printed lots of functional stuff. Custom BedJet fan routing, angled connectors for deck rails, a wall mount to hold my EV plug, etc.
Most recent functional print, I printed some of these sheet stays for my bed.
I recently joined the ranks of 3d printer owners. The first thing I printed where a pair of risers for mounting some hall effect sensors on my garage door mechanism. Very simple shapes but super handy.
I am not knowledgeable about how to design anything :(
But I have printed a rig for kite photography and a saxophone mouthpiece, and a headphone stand bc someone already designed them.
There are a lot of minor things, that are much faster to print than to get delivered. (If you can find them at a sensible price).
