• UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      Printing takes forever and I need to get it exactly right on the first go, so I’m just going to noodle on the diagram for another 40 hours.

      • Test_Tickles@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        That’s ok, it will still come out wrong because of some issue that you never thought of.

        This is why people share their models so freely online. It’s not pride in what they’ve accomplished. It’s because they’ve just spent 3 weeks and $60 in plastic to finally “correctly” print something that cost the original manufacturer $0.15 to print and would have worked perfectly if they had just stopped cutting corners when they got to $0.17, but saving that extra $0.02 per item made sure that it was definitely going to fail.
        And by sharing it you pass the curse onto others and enable yourself to finally produce a print that is still totally fucked but just good enough that you are willing to call it done and start the cycle over with something else.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          5 days ago

          It’s because they’ve just spent 3 weeks and $60 in plastic to finally “correctly” print something that cost the original manufacturer $0.15 to print

          Sure, but that’s because the manufacturing is working in bulk while the hobbyist is doing a one-off. The original modeling likely cost a comparable amount. It was just amortized out over the production life. And there are plenty of instances in which the $.15/unit manufacturing just doesn’t have the thing you’re looking to make, because it is some kind of artistic eccentricity rather than a standardized widget.

          The thing I see 3D printers used most commonly for are TTRPG models. And at that scale, it really doesn’t hurt to just print off a two-headed Owl Bear with a scorpion tail, rather than hunt around on the secondary market for the weird thing you’re looking for. Even the specialty D&D printing services aren’t going to come in much less than $60 for that sort of thing.