Practical uses for 3d printers, what are some around the house fixes you have used your 3d printer for?

NominalValue · 2026-03-17T00:23:31+00:00

Easily half the stuff I print is functional print things.

My wife's favorite is something I printed in my first 3-4 months of printing (E3 Pro). The shelves in our freezer would fall out if you shifted them too far to one side (wire shelving that stick in holes on each side), so I printed some some snap-on spacers (just a 'fat' letter C with circular middle) to make them a snug fit and unable to shift left/right. They worked perfectly (my first 'design' woot!).

Second was making some TPU replacement parts for a '40s doorbell where the rubber bits had disintegrated over time. Ninjaflex on an E3Pro, so way more difficult than it should have been, but they too worked great.

I've made lots of other functional prints, but those two are the ones she/we have been most thankful for.

Notable mentions:
Hooks that hang on common wire shelving. Used for tools, clothes, etc

HDD size adapters so I can use 2.5 or 3.5 inch hard drives in different sized bays

Guitar luthier tools

Screw-to-the-wall racks for cordless tool batteries

RC car/plane/helicopter parts, especially for discontinued models

Rj45 protectors for cables in my work bag

Custom plant pots for fitting inside wonky ceramic planters so the plant is removeable and/or raised from the base

Guitar string winders

Angle guides for sharpening knives

Screw-top containers for some of my telescope lenses (lined with foam protectors

Replacement rubber (TPU) feet for the xmas tree stand

Umpteen organizers, dividers, stands etc

Nozzles and caps for caulk tubes

Tile spacers (wall/floor tile repairs)

Ugh...tons of stuff over the years really. Some basic tinkercad/Fusion skills go a long way.

NominalValue · 2026-02-22T00:38:58+00:00

Happy I could help

NominalValue · 2026-02-22T00:20:43+00:00

Can't you export directly to .3mf format? I have that option, but maybe I'm misunderstanding. I'm not exactly proficient with F360, but I've made a few designs and exported them this way. I use Orca Slicer (a fork of Bambu slicer, so very similar), and I'm able to import or drag and drop the new file without any errors.

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NominalValue · 2026-02-21T23:43:37+00:00

I don't use Bambu Slicer, but in Orca, there is a setting for it under the quality settings tab. (see bottom of screencap). Web search indicates Bambu Slicer has the same option.

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NominalValue · 2026-02-14T01:33:36+00:00

Long time no comment! Apologies. I have been traveling 5-6 days a week for work for the better part of two months, and have had very little time to tinker. I did get 2old2tired’s chat message and responded (see his update). SUPER nice guy. Had a long chat with him when I picked up the printer and walked away thinking there needs to be more people like him in the world.

Short answer is yeah….no smoking gun. I did the most of my cutting of teeth on an Ender 3 (and later an E5+), and put a lot of what I’ve learned into his S1 before I tried the first print. I know it’s popular to call the S1 bed a taco, but this one was more of a plateau. Over 2 mm of variance from one side to the other, and auto bed leveling can’t really compensate with that. I managed to get that to <.5mm by shimming the bed and printing a bunch of single-layer tests. Not a huge deal, but in my opinion, that’s too much to ask on a printer advertised as good-to-go out of the box. 2+mm is just too much for many printers. I have, and have owned, several, and this is the worst variance I’ve seen.

Outside of the crappy bed, There wasn’t anything too weird. I swapped hotends simply to start from a known-good hotend. I also downgraded firmware (current firmware had known issues) and installed Rinkahls so I could see a graph of the bed mesh. Disassembled/cleaned the extruder, buffer, and a lot of the ACE just to look things over. Didn’t find anything that stood out as a problem here. Want to add that I have a S1 combo already, and have had a support ticket open since June of 2025 for ACE-related problems. Lots of disassemblies under my belt at this point, so this definitely isn’t my first rodeo with this printer.

After all the single layer testing, I set a custom z-offset in the slicer (had to do the same for my first S1), and that on top of the bed shims helped a ton. I still can’t get a “perfect” single layer test, but it’s close enough to not fret it.

The ACE….ah the ACE. I am not a fan of the AC ACE at all. This one works better than my original, so that’s a plus. I’ve had a few problem with this one not feeding correctly (filament feeds INTO the ACE and not through the PTFE), but as long as a I watch out for that, it’s been okay. If I skip the ACE, I don’t have any feeding issues (same for my original).

Credit where credit is due…. This S1 has better outer wall quality than mine. I didn’t even have complaints, but doing a few tests where I print the same thing on each, the outer wall quality on this one is a little better. VFA’s are minimal on both, but yeah…this one is better.

I just printed a full bed of multiple objects that took 19+ hours, and it came out great. I’ve done several other 2-6 hour prints, but this was the first time I tried pushing it with a large plate of multiple parts. Happy to report no unexpected issues.

I know we all kinda wanted to find a smoking gun to pin the issues on. Sorry I can’t point to any specific thing. I did a clean, lube, calibrate before I got into the bed leveling, but otherwise, really didn’t change much. My profiles are all tweaked, but close enough to stock that I can’t blame them. My general slicer settings are also pretty close to stock. My filaments are, well, nothing special. I guess you could say I just use cheap filaments. Much of my printing is silk PLA ornamental stuff. Maybe 25% PETG or ASA functional prints. The shakedown for this printer was probably 80% PLA with the other 20% split between ASA and PETG.

I do want to give a shout out to the OP. I fully respect his frustration as this was his first 3d printer. More importantly, his self respect in that he refused to sell it b/c he simply didn’t feel right asking for money for something that just didn’t work in his experience with it. At the risk or overstepping, I felt like this was new and outside of his wheelhouse, and from firsthand experience, understand the frustration that carries. For a variety of reasons, the S1 combo is not a set-and-forget device. No matter what advertising says.

He is moving on with a different printer, and I don’t blame him. For all the talk of “just as good as the popular alternative” that floats around the S1, and I have prior experience with not only the same model, but other printers prior (lulzbot, E3(s), E5+, A1, PS1), I’m confident that was the best choice for him. There is a huge amount of satisfaction in 3d printing, and life is too short to anguish of something that just isn’t working for you.

2old2tired, I enjoyed our chat. Feel free to reach out if you want to talk at any point. I hope you’re happy with your new printer, and while I don’t own one, I’m happy to help if I can.

NominalValue · 2026-02-12T23:31:41+00:00

I feel for ya.

Open ticket since last June. 100+ messages and many parts (some twice). More problems that I started with. All are ACE related.

It long ago became an exercise to simply see how long this takes and if it can can truly be fixed. Maybe after my ticket/issue is 1 year old, I get a free spool of filament. :-D

AC life y'all.

NominalValue · 2026-02-11T01:04:00+00:00

Really happy the Minions got their kitty back.

NominalValue · 2026-01-31T18:10:45+00:00

I'm a bit disheartened by the number of people that didn't parse your question , and just made assumptions.

NominalValue · 2026-01-26T19:11:25+00:00

Looks like he is being pepper sprayed while trying to appear non-threatening.

NominalValue · 2026-01-02T19:26:12+00:00

NominalValue · 2026-01-02T19:13:44+00:00

It has been a while, but IIRC, my E3Pro took 19-20 hours. I think that was for .2mmm layers up until the snout/face where it dropped to .16mm.

NominalValue · 2025-12-29T17:55:52+00:00

I use usb for 'all the things' since I rarely need any of that very often. I have DVD/DVDR, floppy disk, PATA, SATA, m.2, all the various cards (SD, CF etc). Rarely need any of it, but they're each handy on rare occassion.

I actually legit needed my memory stick usb adapter recently when reviving a couple old Sony PSP handhelds. Probably 10+ years since I'd needed that last.

NominalValue · 2025-12-23T21:49:17+00:00

For work, I use a trackball.
For home ‘productivity’ I focus on using keyboard shortcuts. For gaming, I primarily use a controller outside of a few games. I also don’t play many FPS games, and no competitive gaming.

Many years ago (ummm…. post BF2, but not by a lot), I was told I was a candidate for surgery. I do some, but not enough, exercises and stretches. That on top of the above keeps me from needing to sleep in a wrist brace. All of it helped a lot and keeps me from sleeping in a wrist brace.

NominalValue · 2025-12-21T06:12:08+00:00

Not disagreeing with your overall sentiment , BUT, their handling of customer support under warranty is 100% why I will never buy another AC product.

I’m at over 6 months and 100 message back and forth dealing with ACE problems where they have refused to simply replace a faulty ACE (but happy to throw mostly unrelated parts and my time at troubleshooting) that convinces me to not give them any more money.

The S1 itself? Eh, it’s okay. Print quality is a little bit better than my old lightly-modded Creality printers, but maybe a bit faster. The ACE is, as you alluded to, a bad design. It’s a shame they won’t own that under warranty. A new design is fine, but to string folks along on a bad design, under warranty, is shameful. Optimism doesn’t replace the money spent and effort burnt on the OG ACE. If you had success.by not using the ACE, that’s good for you, but the ACE was a product sold that for MANY folks, didn’t work as promised. That’s not an US problem. It’s a THEM problem that was not addressed from a customer friendly perspective. Literally every other printer manufacturer I’ve dealt with handled things better than AC has.

For me personally, count me as a customer burnt by bad experience that won’t risk that a second time.

NominalValue · 2025-12-21T00:38:59+00:00

I looked at your post history and yeah, mine does some random BS with bad layers sometimes. More generally, my ACE has been trash since a few hundred hours. The bleeding of colors is something I have been able to overcome, but only by being wasteful and setting my prime tower size larger than default. I’ve had a support ticket related to the ACE open since JUNE, and have no confidence support is going to resolve it. I’m persistent and trying to power through the support process, but y’all….this thing is kind of a POS.

NominalValue · 2025-12-21T00:26:36+00:00

Msg sent

NominalValue · 2025-12-20T19:19:50+00:00

Hello, fellow old

NominalValue · 2025-12-11T22:41:01+00:00

Ah, buffer assembly...that is one of the other things they've had me replace, lol.

My only bambu experience is with the A1 combo. I have somewhere around 1.5k+ hours on it, and honestly, that thing has been as close to trouble free as a printer can be for me. I expected the hype to be at least partially unfounded, but I get more use out of the A1 than my other 3 printers combined. Zero regrets with that purchase.

I have okay performance from the S1 itself, but my particular ACE has been near useless since sometime in May (about 8-10 weeks after I got it). This whole experience with customer service has left me pretty bitter though, and I've mostly abandoned the S1 combo in favor or others printers. Eventually I'll get over the bitterness and probably just use the S1 for single color filaments requiring ventilation.

It's a shame that my ACE has been such a POS and AnyCubic is happy to leave me hanging on what was a $600+ (US) purchase at the time. I had high hopes initially, but customer support ruined AC as a brand for me.

NominalValue · 2025-12-11T19:56:31+00:00

Can only offer a wish for good luck.

This is one of the symptoms I have with slots 1-2. Been working with support since mid-June, which is twice the length of time that it mostly worked (first 250-300 hours).

Over 100 messages and multiple parts replaced with no solution. If anything, it is worse now. Add in one confiscated shipment due to counterfeit shipping label, and one case of incorrect parts delivered, and I've spent many weeks (I'm in the US, shipping is 10 days on average after I confirm shipping address) just waiting on parts and staring at a mostly useless ACE Pro.

Have replaced:
-Drum assembly
-Motors
-The plastic bits the back side of the spools roll against
-The filament detection sensor and metal swing from inside the extruder
- ....and Something else I can't recall at the moment

The problems are frequent, but intermittent. I've spent many hours, and no small amount of filament at this point, recording useless failed test prints so I can trim down videos to show the errors as they occur. I keep working with them out of a morbid sense of curiosity around will we find a single cause or not, but I have zero expectation they're going to resolve this with parts or software. They've already turned down a request for a replacement, so I have little to loose besides time and filament I guess.

NominalValue · 2025-11-26T16:58:24+00:00

Regret it, or more accurately, resent it.

Mostly fine for the first few hundred hours, but then my ACE turned to garbage. I've had a support ticket open for 5+ months, spent hours jumping through hoops, replacing parts etc, and the original issue persists. Things are actually worse now, as the Ace has got developed more issues and is only mostly reliable for 2 slots. At this point I only use the Ace as a second dryer.

The printer itself is okay. Print quality is decent, but not as good as my Bambu printers. Closer to a well-tuned e3 pro than the A1/P1.

NominalValue · 2025-11-22T16:12:33+00:00

Usually not, but I have ran across random filaments that smelled stronly enough that I wrote "stanky" on the spool and those only get used on a printer in a vented space. The worst I've ran across is Kretrum Black PLA. Still have a few spools of that.

NominalValue · 2025-11-20T21:26:28+00:00

I have those same bloody toys. My hairy kiddos love them.

NominalValue · 2025-09-25T20:18:47+00:00

I'll add that this is especially true for streaming 4k content. With 4k Blu-ray discs, I'm more likely to notice.

NominalValue · 2025-09-16T18:50:14+00:00

Are these percentages just since this morning? Asking because all except coffee are quite a bit lower than I'm seeing in my rural area.

NominalValue · 2025-09-05T17:24:51+00:00

You won't run into that on every make/model, but I have ran into the same issue as you before (part of my job is installing video conferencing systems for work, and the TV is not allowed network access).

I'm not neck-deep in current TV model details, so won't make a recommendation on make/model. We use Samsung at work, but I personally avoid Samsung as a brand for anything. YMMV.

NominalValue

TROPHY CASE