It’s finally gone. After years of lugging it between apartments and houses, and begrudgingly fighting with a thousand different issues, I am no longer encumbered by my 3D printer. It has been sold, and is now haunting a new owner. I hope they are able to tune it up and have a nice, easy-going life filled with hundreds of perfect prints, but I am thankful that this pestilence is no longer mine.
I’ve written before how I’m appreciative that 3D printing exists in the world, but how I personally don’t enjoy it or find it useful. I love the idea of it: that you can create, replicate, and share physical things with people across the world. In practice, though, I think 3D printing falls short of its lofty idealistic goals.
There aren’t that many practical 3D prints that you can make. Most prints are purely aesthetic, making plastic trinkets you can put on your shelf and admire. I have no need for these in my life. Occasionally, you can print a spare part to fix something that’s broken or missing. My favorite use-cases that I’ve seen have all been related to repairs, but I don’t want to ignore the fact that the product you end up with has limited function when it comes to raw strength and longevity. Often, that 3D-printed replacement part ends up breaking again, or in some cases causes further damage to the thing you were trying to fix in the first place.
I had spiritually given up on the 3D printing scene a while ago. I haven’t been printing much over the past few years, despite the printer being set up in my garage and OctoPrint being more than willing to accept a print any time I wanted to send one its way. There have been a few exceptions. I designed and printed the cake topper for our wedding, which I was proud of. The process of getting it just right resulted in more than one gray hair, but seeing the final result made me happy. There has also been the one-off thing here and there my wife has asked me to make her over the years. In fact, the reason I kept it as long as I did was to finish a set of Doorable display shelves for her.
But now our walls are full, my list of requested prints is empty, and the time is right. There has been a resurgence of 3D printing demand lately, with lots of folks using them to make bulk batches of Anti-ICE whistles. I can only hope that my 3D printer has gone to a home doing something as socially beneficial and punk-rock as that.
It wasn’t a bad 3D printer. It wasn’t faulty. There have been lots of new features and new innovations that have come out in the decade or so since the Ender 3 Pro was first introduced, but fundamentally it is as capable today as it ever was. It’s just ornery. Because of that, I have no problem setting it free and finding it somewhere new to live.
But I am thankful to be free of the maintenance, free of the tinkering, and free of the clutter. So long!