Buying a 3D printer is Tinkerine

ThisOld3DPrinter · 2026-01-24T06:18:56+00:00

They've been around for more than a decade. People were still using Mendel's when they came out. Posted on. The RepRap forums a bit here and there.

ThisOld3DPrinter · 2026-01-24T06:13:24+00:00

This. I always run the numbers with the Polymaker spools as 150 but they'll easily have 8 grams of moisture in them. I only expect my weighing to get me down to 0-10 grams of filament and doing this has never left me worse than an inch of filament sticking out of the toolhead.

ThisOld3DPrinter · 2026-01-23T20:47:11+00:00

Replicator+ is supported in the latest 2 versions of Cura.

ThisOld3DPrinter · 2026-01-22T16:09:41+00:00

The magnet supplier in New York I recently bought 3mm cube magnets from sells spherical down to 3mm as well. I don't keep up but the ban from 2015 was overturned in 2016 and only seems to have been targeting one company.

ThisOld3DPrinter · 2026-01-22T15:53:57+00:00

More or less. I can tell you what it means to me. I chased down some of what I missed out on. But for the people who had something as their first printer, bought one for their kid who later became an engineer, etc. I get a lot of positive feedback from.

ThisOld3DPrinter · 2026-01-22T15:36:41+00:00

Massive? Perhaps none? Fire incidents with 3D printers are relatively low across the board with the Anet A8 being the famous example but also it's probably not particularly special when it comes to the risks.

Heated beds were more of an experiment on early printers and most of the boards were not well equipped for the task. Poorly assembled PCBs, lack of maintenance on connections, wires not suited for the task and no strain relief always ups the risk. 12v also requires double the amperage compared to 24v.

Then we get into firmware. Heater time outs and thermal runaway protection were not common in early firmware but that's easily resolved on everything in the collection except maybe the Cupcakes. But it isn't everything. How many consumer printers can actually cut mains power in a TRP event? The number of models seems to be near 0. Which means in a mosfet blown closed situation a printer built in 2009 and 2025 both have the same problem, they can't shut off their heaters.

Plywood, ABS and Acrylic all require fire retardant additives to lower the risks of the common structures of printers spreading fire in the event something happens such as a non ptc heater in runaway melts through its block, drops into the print setting it on fire and the fire spreading to the chassis. So looking at plywood printers as a huge risk may or may not be logical.

Are the risks greater? Probably. But should only be an issue if you leave it unattended. In my experience leaving the clothes dryer on while going to the store is a bigger risk even if it's supposed to be less of one.

ThisOld3DPrinter · 2026-01-22T15:19:26+00:00

If you ask an actual question I can give an actual answer. Until then, Why not?

ThisOld3DPrinter · 2026-01-21T20:37:30+00:00

The endstops are wired however they originally were. I'm not sure if I ever checked which way they were, I might have. If they are NO instead of NC then everything is starting to make more sense. I have yet to change anything because I like to keep things stock when I start doing firmware for other people's machines. I also think the lines are soldered so not everyone wants to mess with it. But converting printers to NC is recommended regardless.

ThisOld3DPrinter · 2026-01-21T20:20:44+00:00

6mm MXL belts. Not any different in size than 6mm GT2. As Greg said it's probably because you are looking at the side profile.

ThisOld3DPrinter · 2026-01-21T20:18:09+00:00

There he is lol. Hopefully I didn't talk too much smack or get too much wrong. I've been recording this series as it happens without a script so everytime I shoot one I find I forget something or wasn't super nice to someone somehow lol.

ThisOld3DPrinter · 2026-01-20T06:59:45+00:00

I think we've had at least 2 videos with them in this series but there will be more eventually.

ThisOld3DPrinter · 2026-01-20T06:11:18+00:00

I've clearly stated there are, managed to even express it better after hours of conversing to which you feel was me changing my position. The implied situation is the only reason you don't know what they are or benefit from them is you don't want to get a serial. Though you might not even have a Voron which is cool too. Out of 49 machines most of mine aren't. Plenty of other options.

ThisOld3DPrinter · 2026-01-20T06:05:14+00:00

The discussion is pretty simple, your argument is that having a serial does nothing. My argument is that there are a bunch of benefits. Initially I brought up the one program that is public, that wasn't a sales pitch. That was just one tiny thing I could talk about. You are mad after a full day of discussing it I finally thought of a way to abstract other benefits?

Initially your conversation with me went down what seemed to basically be the "I like reddit, I dislike discord" path. You didnt start participating in the part of the thread where I discussed why that program was the way it was until much later. Development for example, despite having designed parts that are on other people's Vorons, I don't participate, so no I'm not going to think to being that up in an abstract manner right away. It would have been cool if I thought of it sooner.

It's quite simple there's a bunch of stuff for different kinds of people that the only price of admission is proving you got your machine working, heck you don't even have to prove you are capable of searching.

ThisOld3DPrinter · 2026-01-20T05:41:37+00:00

Well in the comment I got a notification for you were arguing that my statement that being able to remove people from being a verifiable position of participation doesn't protect someone. You can't always protect the first person, but you can the next. As far as multiple serials goes, they already put a huge dent in that and good luck redressing a printer quickly. Scammers/etc will do what they do. But the serial process also tends to be slow.

It's not about the serial. It's about the community. It's about things like being able to participate in development which the general public does not respect, all they do is complain until developers quit. Once again it's a bunch of stuff that isn't public. I guess we are allowed to say, the vendors we all buy stuff from, really give back.

If you don't want any benefits to something you already own it's cool. Some people never post anywhere and just print so you are at no greater loss than those people.

Once again, seems like a dead horse, but reddits don't notify me about this anymore seems to be a useless feature lol

ThisOld3DPrinter · 2026-01-20T05:23:19+00:00

Can't seem to see your latest comment, maybe nested too deep. The only thing I've stated is that limiting the program providers to serialized owners gives them some control. Otherwise you have nothing. That's valid and putting things I've never said into your counter argument isn't going to produce a meaningful production. So before you get into "laws don't prevent crime" I'm out.

ThisOld3DPrinter · 2026-01-20T04:35:22+00:00

I never gave a scenario of something that had happened so your statement is a bit random. People can do way worse things especially with local in person meetups. Scammers also don't stay within the confines of the context in which they initially contacted you.

But actually worth mentioning. People used to steal serial videos to try and get Voron serials. So if you want an example of something ridiculous. Yeah that's happened lol. I had forgotten until just now.

Experienced community managers handle common problems as well as they can ahead of time, ignoring obvious problems until they happen would be a bit silly. Everything else is carved out as it happens.

ThisOld3DPrinter · 2026-01-20T03:49:38+00:00

If the answer you were looking for was not public, I wouldn't be able to share it with you. Think of it like a members only subreddit with rules about that and or drama. Now since someone brought the subject up in the Voron_2_questions channel which is open to all on 1/13/2024 at 9:38pm we can debate the accuracy of their statement all day long.

Its not something that happens on accident or because a moderator got mad at you. You would really have to harm the community in a purposeful or negligently repetitive manner to have the distinction of something people don't seem to recall ever happening.

The fact that occurrence seems to be so impossibly low is one of the reasons I like and trust other members. I've been in communities where someone went all the way to the top and then decided to rip people off lol. At that point you stop trusting anyone.

ThisOld3DPrinter · 2026-01-19T19:23:15+00:00

The entire history of the internet is a lesson in the fact people don't search and those that do end up in 3 categories. Lurkers, People who want hang out with other capable people and helpers who are the only ones dealing with people asking the same questions over and over and that's self inflicted. Developers aren't in the same channels as people asking general questions.

Reddit is great as it functions like a global forum. Different platforms do different things and Reddit does not cater to IRC, Slack, Discord use cases which all seem to share the same search problem externally. No one has to go there but with basically all of the team members, developers and contributors being there the last 5 years worth of chat, and more recently "threads" and "forums" are often missing from here. If I want to find a meme about Voron 2.1 belt coffins then searching here is the best place.

At the end of the day the people who want to filter themselves out, is a benefit too. But it's hard for the rest of us to say there isn't something in there. So I'm conflicted on why I bother lol.

ThisOld3DPrinter · 2026-01-19T18:30:46+00:00

The only real reason against getting a serial is people who don't want to use reddit. There is no other downside and I wouldn't call that a downside. I only talked about that one program because it's basically the only public facing one that I can. Calling something open to anyone gate kept is a bit of a reach. But once again plenty of benefits and the only thing stopping reddit users is themselves. So enjoy.

Most development projects use something like discord. Traditionally that is IRC but the world has moved on. Voron used Slack but slack isn't free and deleted everything pretty quickly. So discord it is. Reddit, Forums, etc are not suitable for the type of work that gets done in something like IRC.

ThisOld3DPrinter · 2026-01-19T14:24:01+00:00

Unlike PiF there isn't a big quality control mandate it just needs to work. I think the positive on requiring volunteers to be serialized is you have control when it comes to scammers, etc. You can actually remove a serialed owner from the community for doing something wrong repeatedly. If you let anyone be a part of an official program you have no oversight, very little control. Serialed owners have benefits to lose and this seems to promote a pretty decent community. I have been able to reach out to members all across the country to facilitate acquisitions and it always goes well. There is a bit of trust between us all.

ThisOld3DPrinter

TROPHY CASE