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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.