Mildly Interesting

Me too, that was a Shyamalamaladoobiedoo level twist at the end.

been printing for 9 or so years now. it definitely comes in waves of both of those attitudes, but it also depends on your use cases. if you consider yourself a maker in any regard, it could be a tool you use daily. electronics parts, functional pieces, cosplay, and home goods are just a few of the categories i've used mine for.

3d printers can be super inexpensive to get into if you have the expendable income, especially compared to when i first started.

I had the same curiosity and concern, so I bought one (in the name of science, obviously).

I've now had it for about half a year, and it is in fact tons of fun still.

There are some supplementary activities/hobbies that help:

• Electronics (holy fuck, I hope my SO doesn't find out how much money I've spent on digikey.com)
• 3d design (doesn't have to be anything fancy. I do most of my stuff in blender, and I consider myself a beginner).
• Minifig painting (not me, but I'm sure some with 3d printers find that useful)

My printer is in use almost daily. I'm currently printing a bicycle pump mounting bracket that I can screw onto the wall, because I'm fed up with having to figure out where the fuck the bicycle pump is every fucking spring.

I bought one mostly just to have a new toy. But it has become an essential tool in my household.

I mostly print functional stuff, but I also use it a lot for my electronics-projects, which does happen to include an RC project that I hope to see fly this summer, budget permitting.

I feel like it's not much of an investment really. They are free after all.

Just gotta find a friend that has a 3D printer, and ask them to print out a 3D printer for you.

eh, I feel like a lot of people are interested in one just to print a bunch of shit that they won't use

I have three. my original one (ender 3), and two new bambu printers (a1 and a1 mini)

obviously I never use the ender anymore. I mostly just use the a1 mini now, because it's quieter than the a1 and the majority of the prince I do fit on its smaller bed just fine

I use it for functional stuff. When it's printing, it's very convenient. It's not printing all the time.

here's a list of stuff I semi recently printed:

• garbage can lid knob

• drill template

• shower hook

• bracket to hold my computer external power brick on my monitor mount arm

• Kindle stand (although the model I found online sucks and I'm going to just make a better one. or I'll just make one out of wood)

• spacer to fix my car fob button

• bracket to raise the rear leg of the TV stand up to tilt the TV forward

• sheath for a very sharp paint scraper

• sheathes for very sharp chisels

• sheath for pointy awl

• custom mounts for my bike peripherals (camera, computer)

• bracket to hold my Eero blob on a shelf edge

Oh yeah I also printed a centering three jaw chuck that I found online, which actually makes a great fidget toy. I printed that as a test for trying to print a chuck so I could actually turn something on my wood lathe. I ended up going with a four jaw chuck and it actually worked pretty damn well.

I've been printing for ~4 years, first with a supplement printer and then with a resin one. Like others said it really depends on the person, there's months where I won't print anything and there's other months where every second of my spare time is spent toying with the things.

I've been going strong with printing for a year now. So much so that I bought a second printer because I have projects I'd like to do but each print takes hours which often means only one print a day because it runs over night.

Then there's all the printing to making printing better like wall organizers, new print head designs, etc.

As far as fun goes, unless you like tinkering it's just consumerism with extra steps. Don't buy one for funsies.

But for functional prints and being able to replace small parts and bring your ideas to life, they're great.

I think it depends on the person. I don't have much interest, but I know two people that have theirs printing something almost 24/7. I'm also not the creative type, so that's probably a factor for my disinterest.

Make a friend or significant other who has one and will let you mess around or teach you, then see how you feel.