This thread is for anyone working on personal projects to share their progress, and hold themselves somewhat accountable to a group of peers.
Post your project, your progress from last week, and what you hope to accomplish this week.
If you want to be pinged with a reminder asking about your project, let me know, and I'll harass you each week until you cancel the service
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Is getting into 3D printing something you would recommend? I don't have any specific things I want to print. I am not into any figurines or any other such nerd table-top hobbies. I have some professional experience with microcontroller development and robotics but don't do it as a "hobby". But it feels like I would probably find interesting things I could do if I started digging into this
FDM's a great learning experience for software-side people that aren't great at self-driven efforts to learn about physical-side work -- everything from chemistry to mechanical tuning to maintenance scheduling to belt or stepper drive behaviors matter.
For actual usability, it's a mix. A lot of what's available out there are aesthetic toys at best and, frankly, more often cheap useless crap. If you've got a good use case, there are things that they excel at, but many times even they can turn into a temptation rather than an actual benefit (oh boy, a 3d-printed corner bracket!... why didn't I just get a metal one from Home Depot?). Still, for rapid(ish) prototyping, for specialty shapes, and for weird art projects.
Resin printers are more set-and-forget, since outside of support placement and cleaning there's not much to tweak with them. Better for figurines, though there are some chemistry-adjacent stuff where they have unique advantages.
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3D printing works well if you find yourself wishing you could print specific pieces to fix things around your house. You'd benefit buying a machine and learning how the process works, so, when you need to print a specific thing to fix an issue--more hooks to keep wet towels off the bathroom floor, for example--you can spring into action.
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You never know. When my toy railway project stalled because I couldn't be bothered to print 20 iterations to get the turnouts right, I stopped and my printer has been gathering dust since. I should probably sell it.
On the other hand, my former colleague has been printing stuff like a possessed man.
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