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ArjinFerman  Tinfoil Gigachad  18d ago (text post)   428 thread views

Tinker Tuesday for June 16th, 2026

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.

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Bambu Labs started their annual 3D printer sale this month and I bought their P2S combo with the AMS 2 Pro, which finally positioned it further down the product stack with a less offensive price point no longer too close to the recently released and superior X2D, which has some hobbled secondary support nozzle head gimmick. I’m told the industry is moving to hot-swap toolhead designs soon anyway.

https://us.store.bambulab.com/products/p2s

I was on the fence because of their AGPL violations but then I realized I already converted from Stallman gNewSense GPL to De Raadt OpenBSD ISC long ago.

So far I’ve only printed diagnostics and cat statues. I was going to print wargame or D&D figurines but then I realized I don’t actually play that stuff.

Anyone here 3D print? Have any fun suggestions, experiences, tips and tricks before I just start printing myself ghost guns?

https://fortune.com/2026/06/15/new-york-3d-printer-ghost-gun-law-feasibility-industry/

I recommend a mechanical engineering project, and doing the CAD 100% yourself. You'll waste a metric ton of filament on prototypes, but you'll learn a lot. You can look up designs online, but not download STLs.

Depending on your skill set you can try building a simple water pump or a pair of tank treads (arbitrarily complex - you can skip road wheels, suspension, return rollers/idlers, and tension wheels for as long as you like). Sometimes, you'll end up buying a small motor to drive your contraption, but also just building the stuff and turning the moving parts by hand is fun.

We have a pair of H2Ds at work, and I have an Ender 3 at home.

I don't find most 3D models (e.g. on Printables) that impressive. If I'm going to go searching for something to get, I might as well search a store-store for physical objects and buy them. What you gain from cutting out the shipping/storage/infrastructure costs of a traditional store, you lose in restricted materials, personal labor, and quality control.

If you want to get the most out of a 3D printer, you need to know how to design 3D models to match your needs. This starts with problem definition, goes through measurement and design-for-manufacture, and ends with actually using the new thing. Train yourself to notice when a custom object would fix a problem, learn how to design it, then enjoy.

Get TPU. Having the option to make flexible things in addition to rigid ones gives you a lot more options, if you know how to take advantage of them.

I've found PLA to be good enough for most stuff, but PETG or ABS are fine as daily drivers too. They're harder to work with, but last better (impact resistance, heat tolerance, and mechanical fatigue are all better. Strength is near-identical.) You can get fancy engineering filaments if you want, but I haven't found much to be in the niche of too demanding for PETG, but not demanding enough for someone else to injection-mold or machine it instead.

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