I’ve Been: 3D Printing All The Things

A 3D printer is one of those gadgets I’ve wanted for a while, but haven’t been able to justify. But the prices have kept going down, and I kept finding cool little widgets, and finally pulled the trigger when I saw Monoprice has a $350 version (affiliate link). And since then I’ve been 3D printing all the things.

Like a glasses stand:

And some pretty awesome desk accessories:

And a snail that holds letters in it’s shell (which my dogs ended up eating the eyes off of):

I’m also learning 123D Design and Tinkercad from Autodesk, which are part of their free suite. I’ve not gotten terribly far in it, but I did design my own CD dividers:

I wasn’t expecting prints of this quality with a printer this inexpensive, so I’ve been incredibly happy with the results so far. I’ve been working on my finishing techniques, but I am starting to hit the point where I need to look at modifying the machine to be able to get better results with more types of plastic. But that’s part of the fun with a product like this. You buy in at a low price, knowing you can do things to make it better down the line.

Now to find an inexpensive laser cutter……