3D Printing

Has anyone here purchased a 3D printer? I have stayed away from them because they were expensive but just looking at them now some are sub $200. That said, the voice in the back of my head says "you get what you pay for". The ALUNAR 3D printer is a DIY kit for $156. Sounds like spare parts can easily be purchased which is a plus to me. If you assemble it yourself and are familiar with how it works then if something breaks you should be able to fix it. At least that is the theory.

I'm just looking for a beginners 3D printer to experiment with and learn about 3D printing. I was intrigued by it when they first came out but the costs at the time wasn't worth it. Last week a cheap plastic dinky little part broke on my dishwasher. I had to by a $35 part just to take that little piece of plastic off and snap it back into the dishwasher. It should not have cost more than $.25. I thought to myself if I had a 3D printer I could have made that part pretty easy.

No experience here, but I'm expecting some cultural tipping point eventually when 3D printers suddenly become in the public consciousness as a household appliance. Probably will be slightly limited to competent PC users though for a good while yet.

As for the self-repair idea - is good if you can get a suitable digital model of the part, otherwise you're looking at modeling it yourself, which depending on your abilities could be hit or miss. There is software that can make a mesh from several photos of objects at different angles, they generally make messy meshes but can be used as a template layer for your own mesh on top. Getting the scale right would be key in that case.

This site 3dBeginners looks informative. Currently reviewing Zephyr3D software for creating models from images. Regarding scaling the size of the model/part, I hope to learn how to control that in this software.

You might want try PM'ing f15sim. Gene is quite accomplished with 3d printing. I don't know if he has much information for a budget-minded approach, as he was an early adopter, but it can't hurt to ask.

Guess this is an extreme example https://www.foxnews.com/tech/marines-3d-print-amazing-concrete-bridge