So you’re considering getting a 3D printer? Well, before I get you too excited with my
other video about why you /should/ get one, maybe first consider this video about why
you should not get one. There’s quite a few things that only become
apparent once you’re in deep, and I’ve been in deep for the last decade. So here’s five aspects to factor into your
decision on whether you should get a 3D printer for yourself or even recommend getting on
to a friend. Right after a message from today’s sponsor,
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sponsoring this video. Consideration number one: 3D printing can
be quite the absorbent hobby to get into. Sure, you can totally get a machine and just
use it to print stuff, but there’s always that little thing that you could tweak or
improve or upgrade, and if you’re not careful, you’ll spend most of your time just working
on the printer itself and modding that instead of actually using it for its intended purpose. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing,
the intended purpose of some machines /is/ being a hobby and being a platform to play
around with, but if you end up getting the wrong machine for your use case or are easily
lured towards always seeking something just a bit better than what you have, you can easily
get lost in that cycle. If the top Google hits for the model you’re
considering getting are full of “top 25 upgrades” videos and articles, you’re
probably looking at a project, not a tool. And cheap machines can also fail and degrade
over time, for example, the stock Teflon-lined hotend in many of the more basic machines
is built in a way that can give you hard-to-diagnose issues after a couple kilograms of filament,
which often lines up with the point where the initial enthusiasm will have worn off
and running into a roadblock issue like that may just be enough to end your 3D printing
journey as a whole. And when it comes to diagnosing issues, well,
first of all, there are plenty of things that can go wrong, and the way they manifest in
the print results can be quite ambiguous, so diagnosing and fixing them does take some
expertise, or alternatively, trial and error. And you can’t just rely on the online community
helping you out, which brings us to Consideration number 2: The community. It’s wild. So when it comes to finding help online, where
most of the interactions happen, you’re not guaranteed to get helpful answers at all. I’ve seen Facebook threads where a pretty
obvious printer issue was confidently misdiagnosed a dozen times after which the original poster
ended up getting belittled when none of the “fixes” worked for them. On top of that, many of the discussions online
now revolve around “my tribe is better than yours”, where in the wrong groups all you’ll
get is fanboys screeching at each other. I mean, some communities even decide it’s
a good idea to create Discord channels dedicated exclusively to hating on specific people,
and there’s 3D printing YouTubers whose entire point of existence is spreading conspiracy
theories. I guess those are the sorts of issue when
any online community has grown big enough, but you definitely don’t want to feed the
trolls or get between the hardened fronts of 3D printing loyalists. These days, it’s probably even worse than
car guys pecking at each other for driving the wrong brand of car. Speaking of which, Consideration number 3: 3D printing is efficient,
but it’s also pretty efficient at making trash. I mean, yes, being a “car guy” and casually
guzzling down 20 gallons of dino juice for fun probably is the more wasteful option compared
to 3D printing, but ultimately, you’re working with plastics in various form and every extra
gram of material you use will eventually end up in a landfill or getting burnt, even if
it has a useful service life of many years, it is still plastic. Unless you meticulously sort by material and
ship your failed or used prints to a dedicated 3D print recycler, because it’s unknown
and unmarked material, the plastic in 3D prints simply won’t be used in a large-scale recycling
scheme. And yes, the most commonly used material,
PLA, is based on cornstarch instead of petroleum, that’s better, but it still requires a specialized
setup to decompose, otherwise it’s not going to be much different from “regular” plastic
waste. Resin print materials are thermosets, and
for those, there isn’t /any/ viable way to recycle them at all, and on top of being
harmful in their uncured, liquid state, you’re also having to use organic solvents to clean
and post-process your parts. In any case, no matter what material you buy
for filament or resin printing, it’s still going to come on a spool or in a bottle, plus
a vacuum-bag, plus a box, plus a shipping box, plus transport and production impacts,
there simply is going to be some environmental impact no matter which way you spin it. And lastly, consideration number 4, as flexible
and “easy to use” 3D printers have become, they’re still actually quite limited when
they can only produce /plastic/ parts that, on top of that, for maximum usefulness, you’re
going to need to design yourself. And yes, I’ve only got 4 cons vs. the 5
pros that are in the other video, I’m kind of into 3D printers, so I’m probably biased
here, but still, if you go into this entire thing, I would rather get you started with
realistic expectations. So, yeah, about that, yes, the 3D printers
that are in the attainable range for low-cost manufacturing and for hobby use only do plastics. There are varieties out there that are suited
for different applications, but at the end of the day, it’s not metal, it’s not an
organic material like wood that you’re creating your parts from, it’s simply plastic. Don’t get me wrong, you would probably underestimate
how strong fairly basic 3D printed parts can be, but you’re just not going to get the
wear resistance, super high strength or temperature resistance of metals. 3D printed parts are usually going to be pretty
bulky if they need to be strong, and they’re also not going to come with a perfect surface
finish. Resin prints do get close to a smooth mass-produced
look, but otherwise, unless you spend hours finishing, sanding, painting your parts, it
will always be immediately apparent that you’re looking at a 3D print. And downloading the designs that other users
have created will only get you so far - for me, a 3D printer is only really useful if
I’m capable of designing my own parts to print. So on top of having to master the machine
and everything that comes with that, you’re essentially having to pick up another completely
unrelated skill to make proper use of the machine. If you’re not already versed with the tools
to design parts, it can be quite the learning curve and perhaps even a bit too much all
at once. Now, of course, getting into 3D printing is
not an impossible task, but you should know what you’re in for and what to watch out
for, and hopefully, with correct expectations, you’re going to have a better time in the
end. Check out the video with some of my top reasons
why you /should/ get a 3D printer here, if you found this video helpful, likecommentsubscribe,
thanks for watching, keep on making, and I’ll see you in the next one!
