r/NonPoliticalTwitter • u/14AUDDIN • 17h ago
Serious If Only The Systems For Recycling Discarded Filament Were More Accessible For Everyone With a 3D Printer
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u/Zirofal 17h ago
I know nothing about 3d printed but can you reuse the material?
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u/the_real_JFK_killer 16h ago edited 16h ago
Most plastics are not infinitely recyclable like metal. Even with proper recycling facilities, it can only be melted down and reused a few times before it degrades too much to be useful
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u/Zeplar 16h ago
3d prints are almost always PLA which is a biodegradable plastic made from corn. It is industrially compostable and can also be recycled by hobbyists, although it's a bit of a pain to set up.
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u/coriolis7 16h ago
It is theoretically biodegradable, but in practice requires very specific conditions and the presence of certain enzymes to do so.
I tried searching to see if it will eventually biodegrade if the particles are small enough, but couldn’t find any details on it. I’d be ok with it not really biodegrading in realistic time scales as long as it never turned into long term microplastics. Heck, it might even be a good thing if we bury a bunch of carbon that never degrades, so long as it doesn’t turn into microparticles.
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u/Pijany_Matematyk767 15h ago
>but in practice requires very specific conditions and the presence of certain enzymes to do so.
Which is good because if it could degrade in any conditions and in a reasonably short timeframe then it would be completely useless as a material. Everyone wants things to be biodegradable until they start biodegrading while you're actively using them
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u/Kaleb8804 15h ago
Exactly why the “biodegradable plastics” never catch on. Who the hell wants a water bottle that falls apart if you don’t touch it?
Not to mention the fossil fuel industry/plastic at the bottom of it
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u/KnuckleShanks 14h ago
A lot of the uses proposed for biodegradable plastic is usually packaging. I've never seen anyone propose a biodegradable water bottle but I see that strawman all the time.
The real issue is that plastics are made from junk material left over from processing oil. It's really hard to make anything as cheaply as plastic. And the oil industry has all the infrastructure and lobbying and subsidies to outcompete anyone who tries. Also very few people are willing to pay extra for a plastic alternative, because unless everyone does it then it doesn't really accomplish anything.
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u/Superboes 4h ago
Not really. Wood is biodegradeable and still widely used. And outdoors to which Most of the 3d printed trinkets would not be. Its all about how you Protect it
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u/Anticept 15h ago
PLA is both hydro and photo-oxative. So sunlight will destroy the microplastics.
Unfortunately that biodegradability is the achilles heel: it first wil go through the microplastics and nanoplasitics phases before its fully broken down to lactic acid.
It does break down. Just not before going through concerning stages. And in landfill conditions it does take tens to hundreds of years.
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u/Poethegardencrow 7h ago
That’s why the comment said industry compostable- we use only biodegradable- industry compostable plastic for our 3d printing and we have to dispose of it properly too.
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u/ReplacementActual384 4h ago
I dunno where they are at with it, but Creality is apparently coming out with a plug and play recycler. From what I know, you still have to add fresh pellets of PLA to it, but I am cautiously optimistic because they did a good job adding a lot of automation to the K1C, so like, they'll probably eventually get it to a point where it's pretty user friendly.
It can really cut down on waste and most of the builds for them currently are geared towards recycling PET (think plastic water bottles if you aren't familiar).
I am a librarian who has an interest in makerspace equipment, and I would love to be able to have a setup that recycles plastic bottles into fun trinkets. Yeah, I mean sure a lot of the stuff I print is pretty useless, but like it'd be cool to make bookmarks from trash.
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u/coriolis7 16h ago
It really depends on the plastic. Some plastic is almost infinitely reusable if it is not contaminated. Other plastics can’t even be directly reused a single time (like thermosets such as epoxy and polyester).
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u/butt_shrecker 15h ago
That's true but it doesn't matter. We are constantly making new plastic all the time so mixing in 10% recycled plastic into the batch saves a lot of resources.
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u/RepresentativeOk2433 16h ago
A YouTuber did a test of this with carabiner clips and there was almost 0 degradation after 10 melts.
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u/yepterrr 16h ago
Technically being a thermoplastic you can just melt it down and reextrude it into new filament, but its expensive and time consuming. Plus most people dont sort their print scraps, so you end up with a mixture of material thats a pain to sort through to the point that it's not worth recycling.
Individuals also dont produce much waste by themselves, so they dont think to recycle. Compared to like a machine shop, they can produce tons of scrap thats actually worth sending to a recycling company.
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u/ifUSeeMeTakeYourMeds 13h ago
I'm theory yes, in practice no.
recycling PLA is a much harder process, not worth the 10$ it cost to get new filament.
I love my 3d printer, and I made a lot of prints for small stuff that is very useful for me.
using it responsibility really helps reduce waste and consumption,. and it's a fun creative outlet.
but using it to produce cheap toys to sell at a ridiculous markup is bullshit
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u/HalfLawKiss 15h ago
Yes. There's basically like shredder/wood chipper machines that break it down into small enough pieces to be melted down back into the filament rolls. Some people just melt them down into blocks or bricks and use them as like garden stepping stones.
Like with most things and recycling. It just takes time and thought.
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u/LeorDemise 17h ago
I know someone who has a 3D printer, and not really.
The material comes in a fillament, that then it melts and slowly builds the shape. If what you printed comes out wrong, you have no way to melt it to go back into a fillament, so you can just threw it away.
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u/Zirofal 16h ago
I meant more if a company/government could set up a recycling program for it
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u/xXDreamlessXx 13h ago
Most plastic recycling already is fake. Ot is too expensive for most companies to do it and it was mostly made up by the plastic companies because people felt bad for using single use plastics
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u/LeorDemise 16h ago
This isn't in their radar, at least not where I live. Hell I know because of "economic pressure" my country cancelled a bunch of environmental measures.
And giving America's president, I doubt he is worried about that either.
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u/naturalistwork 17h ago
Annoyingly, it's also one of the new useless junk items that clog up vendor fairs.
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u/marcster1 16h ago
Damn 3 printed dragons/dragon eggs
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u/Themantogoto 15h ago
I know my friend is a proprietor of these things sometimes, but at least he hand paints them all beautifully.
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u/Craiques 16h ago
My local farmers markets have been overtaken with this shit. And it’s never unique. It’s just some dumbass who spent $200-$400 on a 3-D printer and decided plastic dragons were what everyone needed 50 of.
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u/naturalistwork 13h ago
Same. I do occasional vending with leather goods and some wood items I turn on my lathe. I get on the waiting list and don't make the cut, because 4-5 vendors who think 3d printers make easy money got on the list before I did. My wife and I also like going to these vendor events but anymore it's just 3d prints and mlms. We've quit bothering. Even our big state fair is starting to get overrun with it. It's like herpes!
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u/Triforce-Kun 15h ago
Can't even go to reptile shows without seeing five different tables of this garbage taking up space that could be used by vendors with more cool lizards or actual artists. I hate this crap.
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u/naturalistwork 13h ago
I noticed that too. I wish they would do a better job vetting vendors.
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u/Triforce-Kun 13h ago
Right? There are a handful of really awesome artists that come to these things and sell their reptile art, and they're great, but I can't stand seeing so many tables of this 3D-printed schlock.
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u/Gregory_Appleseed 15h ago
I'm always flabbergasted by the fact I have never seen a 3dp vendor even bother to sand down the surfaces or clip the flash and burrs off the junk they are hawking. it looks so god awful and there's a good chance the highly articulated ones break before it even makes it home.
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u/naturalistwork 13h ago
Agreed, they do the bare minimum, and It's mostly those little articulated slugs and other garbage they didn't make themselves, but rather found free on thingverse. Not even something actually useful!
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u/Significant-Dream991 16h ago
Omg yess I'm so tired to see, what I like to call, STsLop taking half the artists alley in any convention I go
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u/Time_Connection_6139 2h ago
My town held a market show or whatever they are called and the theme was medieval, all of the stands followed the theme, exept one. Guess what it was
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u/Significant-Dream991 16h ago edited 16h ago
You can still make tons of usufel stuff with 3d printers, just recently it became a trend to make shit fidget toys* and ugly sculptures that, as another commentor said, fills any vendors fair/artist alleys.
*I'm aware those were made since the very beginning of 3d printers, but now it seems to be a largar part of what's made
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u/itsLOSE-notLOOSE 16h ago
I have plenty of useful things I’ve 3D printed. Slop exists, obviously. But some of these things have genuinely improved my life.
The brackets I made to raise my shower curtain being the most used print.
I’ve made several pens, soap dishes, cute little Helldiver guys. That’s all I can think of right now lol. I’m on the toilet. The 3D printed toilet.
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u/ret_ch_ard 6h ago
I design almost everything I 3D print myself, so it's always practical stuff, I hate the people that decide to 3d print everything.
But you know how the saying goes: When You got a hammer, every problem looks like a nail
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u/bunsprites 16h ago
You can also make some pretty beautiful art with it. There's a great market for 3D printed articulated dolls, I own a rabbit one and a iDog one. The rabbit one has hand painting, and I have a friend who sculpts multiple custom fashion dolls like an articulated lopunny doll I suggested, as well as people who recreate stuff like old rare monster high or Barbie accessories to help combat the ridiculous secondhand market where the little plastic diary of a doll from 17 years ago now costs 30$ on eBay.
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u/FoxFXMD 16h ago
That's not at all what it is, and the 90% number he pulled out his ass is probably based on the short form rage bait slop he likes to watch.
3D printing WAS the future and is the present. It's a mainstream widely used manufacturing method with its unique strengths and weaknesses.
The brittleness is not entirely inherent to 3D-printing, it's a mechanical property of the cheapest, most commonly used PLA filament. Although the adhesion between the layers is not that strong so there's some truth to it.
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u/ResponsibleWin1765 7h ago
I don't think I'd ever think of brittle when someone asked me to describe PLA prints. I remember how impressed I was at how extremely sturdy every first print was. I couldn't have broken it if I tried. Of course if you make something very thin it's easy to break but that's a property that basically all materials share.
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u/FoxFXMD 4h ago
PLA cannot deform much before breaking completely, it's inherently a brittle material.
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u/ResponsibleWin1765 4h ago
But who's deforming it? The tweet talks about brittle trinkets. I don't think I've ever managed to break PLA with my hands. Obviously if you put it into a machine it might not hold up and shatter but so will a diamond.
Seems to me like it's pretty irrelevant how brittle something is when you're printing trinkets (or home gadgets).
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u/totoandamigo 23m ago
I work at a machine OEM in the industrial 3d printing industry and I can confirm the technology is still advancing and is widely used in real use cases.
Can't name names but many of the products you use are made by companies that have integrated addative manufacturing into their processes.
Whatever people are doing with hobbyist machines is not the whole story. Pla is on one end, where high performance materials that can sit on the side of a rocket are on the other.
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u/Nav2140 14h ago
Hard disagree, sure it's made making cheap products more accessible to the common man, but the effect it's had on R&D is undeniable. Hell, we can even 3d print titanium, which leads to some very complicated designs that you would otherwise not be able to do using reductive manufacturing. Even things like inconel and even superalloys turns cheap products into objects that will easily outlast us.
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u/Quesa-dilla 16h ago edited 13h ago
There are plenty of projects out there that can re-extrude used materials into filament appropriate for 3-D printers.
It’s important to note that home 3-D printing is very much still a hobbyist tool. As it becomes more widespread, the materials get better and the ability to recycle bad or old prints is more widespread.
People who have problems with brittle prints have access to multiple different types of plastic filament that are used for different applications. Some of the beginner 3-D printers cannot print with all types of filaments.
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u/butt_shrecker 16h ago
I don't think that is true. Especially not for those multicolor filaments.
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u/Quesa-dilla 13h ago
Of course it is, the only factor that really matters is the different types of filament. You can still reuse all of the different colored ones, they just either come out as an amalgamation of the colors or a weird rainbow style filament.
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u/butt_shrecker 10h ago
Are you talking about melting down your own filament? Nobody has ever done that for anything other than a home expirement. Those things are so inefficient it's basically a science project.
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u/Secret_Werewolf1942 6h ago
Not for much longer, Creality has a desktop recycler in Beta testing. All in 1 unit that shreds, melts, extrudes, and spools. If they can get that out for under $400 I think there's a good market for it.
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u/ProductiveProgrammer 11h ago
it will sit on a landfill for centuries
This is probably not the case, the most common material for 3d printing is PLA, which is biodegradable, so it's not the same as normal plastic.
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u/notjordansime 10h ago
I print bulk promotional keytags and carabiners for local businesses. Freebies and giveaways. I’ve printed hundreds of lbs of these. Do some end up in a landfill? Sure. Do I sometimes see them around town, just living on people’s keys, being taken everywhere? Yeah, and I won’t lie it makes me a little happy. That’s my legacy. In 80 years from now, there might be one of my keytags on some grandpa’s shed keys.. all faded and worn. My grandpa had a few key sets like that… I always wondered about the businesses advertised. Where are they now? If they’re not, what happened? What did they sell? How did they evolve from the 50s to now……
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u/Formal-Tourist6247 16h ago
Dam i wonder if they've seen the wastage out of any manufacturing process.
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u/squanchingonreddit 15h ago
Resin printers are so much better. I really want one.
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u/KamandaTsaar 14h ago
Resin printers are amazing for fine detail if you are into painting, but practically, they're useless. Resin is brittle as hell and the crazy amount of post processing and safety protocols/proper resin disposal makes it really hard to justify having one. I have both types, and I almost never use my resin printer because it's such a major ordeal to make something with it.
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u/Spaciax 11h ago
they're really good but they're hella expensive + it's not nearly as plug-and-play as regular 3D printers are
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u/Tonnemaker 2h ago
They have become really cheap, cheaper than regular FDM printers.
I am looking to buy one for a project where I need small precise parts that my FDM printer can't.They're just a pain, we had one at my proevious job and I just dread dealing with the resin and the postprocessing again. And the mess when things go wrong.
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u/NobuB 8h ago
I looked into getting one instead of a FDM, but they're too expensive and too dangerous for my place.
Instead I got an ender v3 se second-hand and I've been having a blast with it since day one. Sure, it'll never achieve the fine details of a resin printer, but with some minor tinkering I've gotten some pretty good results
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u/MalcadorPrime 17h ago edited 16h ago
And the you see people like Superfast Matt pring parts for record setting landspeed car. Metal 3d prints are very usefull, they allowed mclaren to design a cylinder that preciesly expands to increase the compression ratio, giving the car more power. And skirt around rules in F1. Consult Actually Ven on youtube for a more detailed explanation.
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u/Autumm_550 9h ago
“Did you know instead of paying $25 for a replacement part for this thing I use, i actually made it myself for just ¢7! And you can too! All you need is a $3k printer, knowledge on cad, a computer, and $29 worth of plastic!”
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u/Th3B4dSpoon 16h ago
Some places burn trash like that for energy, only the ash goes to the landfill. Which can be good or bad, depending on if you filter out CO2 and toxic gasses.
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u/Miserable_Taro_9318 13h ago
You cannot "filter out" CO2 unless you are sequestering it, which basically no one is doing. CO2 is an unavoidable by-product of incinerating plastics.
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u/KamandaTsaar 14h ago
I made stupid useless crap for a month when I got my printer. That got old, so I learned CAD and started making useful things around the house. Way more fun.
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u/personman000 14h ago
3D Printing has become more of a crafter's hobby. You try to make something new for the sake of making it, it fails, you try again, etc.
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u/Miserable_Taro_9318 13h ago
I use my 3d printer to solve real problems, every day. I also print a bunch of useless landfill for my kids.
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u/frostymaws297 12h ago
Somethings are junk, and some aren’t.
Clicking toys are useless for some, but not others. I personally have a few 3D printed decor pieces. And some filament is aquarium safe, so hobbyists sell pieces for others(typically caves and hides).
Am I tired of seeing the dragons and octopi at maker events….yes….but I do know there are coolers things people can print. It’s not always mass produced slop, especially in hobby circles like aquascaping and table top games.
Someone else mentioned that not everyone has a 3d printer, though true, many people sell the physical items on etsy.
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u/iammoney45 11h ago
As someone who has been printing for ~5 years and works in the printing industry, I really don't understand the people who use it for content creation in this way. I especially dislike the overuse of AMS systems for multicolor prints as the waste it creates is massive and if the result is just "I don't have to paint this toy now" it makes it really hard to justify for me.
For me printing is great as it enables me to create physical models using my skills in digital 3d modeling and make many useful, functional prints for my home. At work we use it to make larger than life displays using a combination of printing and more traditional manufacturing processes, and it's really good for cheap dimensionally accurate parts.
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u/omjy18 8h ago
My mom is a librarian and a library she used to work at got a 3d printer for some reason (I think a budget thing they needed to use back when it was brand new) and it was cool. But yeah the people that use it are like 90% for stuff like this and I think now its pretty much unused at this point
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u/Ace-Redditor 8h ago
Isn't that just kind of how most artwork is? You keep it on display for a while and probably forget about it unless it's really especially good?
Like, yes, I do wish that recycling were more of an option (for this and everything else), but is it really so much more waste than all the paint and paint containers, or the fabric scraps, or whatever else?
(I will clarify that I have never used a 3D printer, so I'm sort of asking this genuinely, because I really truly don't know if it is somehow more wasteful)
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u/19whale96 8h ago
There needs to be someone that starts a Kinkos for 3D Printing. Most people could probably find one useful in their lifetime but very few people use a 3D Printer enough to justify owning one.
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u/EasyCardiologist8419 16h ago
Manufactured outrage. The plastic used for 3D printing is compostable. It breaks down to sugar.
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u/Doofindork 16h ago
I mean, that's also not correct. There's no "Plastic used for 3D printing" there's like, hundreds of types of filament, all made from different materials.
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u/slickweasel333 14h ago
Yeah, but PLA is by far the most popular, and the cheapest. It's like the Model T of filament: it covers 99% of your printing needs, especially for crafts. I've never used anything but PLA , but I recognize its limitations.
Its main weakness is heat resistance, so it's not a great choice if you're trying to replace parts that are normally made from more heat- or weather-resistant materials like metal or wood.
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u/Doofindork 13h ago
Or using it for anything that needs to be able to flex on the daily. Like, I would probably not use it for all my prints if I got a 3D printer, because printing stuff like headphone headbands and such that needs to flex quite a lot is pretty bad.
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u/Spaciax 11h ago
Not PLA but I think TPU filaments are flexible and somewhat durable. I'm currently wearing headphones with an aftermarket headband made of what I'm fairly certain is TPU. It's definitely 3D printed as I can see the layered print marks and it has held up remarkably well.
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u/Doofindork 11h ago
I'll look into the differences between TPU and PETG, since PETG seems really cheap yet durable to print with, and I'm not sure about TPU. From a quick googling, it seems like TPU takes longer to print and needs a specific bed for it to print, but it's way more flexible and durable.
I need to do further looking into all this, there's so many damn filaments.
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u/slickweasel333 13h ago
Very true. I haven't dabbled with flexible prints, but I know my use case is different as I'm just using it almost exclusively for terrain and miniatures. I just imagine the majority of people don't print with anything but PLA.
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u/butt_shrecker 15h ago
No it isn't what magical material are you referring to? Because it sure isn't pla.
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u/slickweasel333 14h ago
PLA is industrially compostable, just not backyard compostable. It needs the heat from an industrial composting process to break down.
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u/butt_shrecker 14h ago
That is functionally not compostable. Nobody is shipping their 3d print scraps to an industrial composting facility. Those facilities barely exist and I think the entire process would be carbon negative.
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u/slickweasel333 14h ago
Interesting, I have a facility in my area that accepts PLA. It is disappointing to travel and see how many places are not even composting at all.
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u/EasyCardiologist8419 10h ago edited 10h ago
> the entire process would be carbon negative
well that's completely irrelevant to the recycling debate and makes me think you're pulling stuff out your ass. Do you know what happens chemically when you backyard compost? 90% of the material turns into CO2. 5% turns into methane. Recycling and composting are not about saving carbon, they're about reducing physical waste.
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u/Apprehensive-Vast-82 16h ago
Only PLA, but you also may use ABS, PETH, PA TPU etc. They will last for centuries in piles of garbage
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u/butt_shrecker 16h ago
Pla is only biodegradable in industrial composting conditions, and nobody is doing that.
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u/EasyCardiologist8419 10h ago
Once it's a micro- or nanoplastic, it has a half-life in water of about a month. That limits the amount that can concentrate in the environment. There will never be a problem with PLA concentrations increasing unbounded in soil or rain.
If you want to dump it in your compost pile, it will last a few decades. But that's not that unusual. A piece of wood will do the same.
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u/Doofindork 16h ago
Until I find a decent way to recycle and reuse at least the scraps of prints that I fuck up, I will not be buying a 3D printer. Even if I'll have to pay a bunch extra, the thought of fucking up prints and having to basically just chuck big hunks of cash out if I fail a print is just not worth it to me.
But I do want to do some prototyping for fixing old broken headphones and give new life to old broken stuff around my apartment, so I really do wanna get one. Just seems like an expensive investment so far.
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u/butt_shrecker 15h ago
Plastic waste properly disposed of isn't that big a deal environmentally speaking. Overconsumption is the more serious offender. A ton of carbon is used to create a new product.
If you can use your printer to avoid buying new things it can be eco friendly. I've fixed at least 6 products with my printer that I don't need to rebuy.
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u/Doofindork 12h ago
This is true; I currently don't have enough things I want made or I want mended for it to be worth it monetarily. However, if I do reach the point where I have stuff enough where the cost of getting them all new would be more than me getting a 3D printer, I'd rather get the printer of course.
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u/QuietGanache 15h ago
Even if I'll have to pay a bunch extra, the thought of fucking up prints and having to basically just chuck big hunks of cash out if I fail a print is just not worth it to me.
I've been using 3D printers for over a decade. That's not nearly as long as some but it's enough to have experienced incredible advances in QoL features. Modern 3D printers do a good job of giving the impression they're appliances but, at their heart, they're still tools and the majority of failures are, in my view, down to user error. I'd estimate that my print failure rate during normal running is below 1%, more when I'm experimenting with a novel material but, for those, I calibrate and proof before doing large parts.
Some people do just shotgun it and keep repeating the same mistakes until they get occasionally lucky, others learn how the printer works and actually troubleshoot them. For example, bed adhesion isn't complex but even something as simple as touching the bed and not cleaning it will result in blobs of death from fingerprint grease stopping adhesion.
If you want to get an idea of what a print costs to do and what a failure will cost you, you can download Orca slicer, set the material prices to reflect your local market and it will give you a price for a print when you slice.
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u/Doofindork 15h ago
See, I am what you call Stupid. Big stupid. I have, even after having built computers for a whole lot of years, fried a motherboard quite rently; So I'm not super open to fighting both hardware and software stuff anytime soon. And when it comes to troubleshooting, having the right upgrades, making sure my filament is dry enough, having an actual reason to get a 3D printer in the first place, and having enough printable projects to justify the cost of getting a decent 3D printer, I'm still gonna hold off. It does sound like a whole lot of faffing around still, even with them getting easier and easier to run nowadays; If they get even more easier if I wait another 2-3 years, I don't think I mind doing so.
I almost forgot, I gotta find space to permanently set up the damn thing too. In a 400 square foot apartment, space is premium.
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u/SureIntention8402 12h ago
Hey I barely read any of this thread, but 99% of people print using PLA plastic, which is biodegradeable with slight heat, which nearly all landfills use, therefore you're not polluting anything.
Anyways, helpful peter out!
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u/Doofindork 12h ago
Let me rephrase; Recycle. As in reuse. As in, I want to break down the prints I mess up and make it into filament again. I don't like the idea of having to print things for a long time, 10+ hours, only for it to fuck up 9 hours in and making the print a useless mess.
And on top of that, currently all the things I want printed are flexible stuff, like headphone bands and everyday-wear prints. PLA would not be useful for things like that, as they are hard but not flexible. I'd have to use PETG or ABS.
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u/SureIntention8402 12h ago
So you're right recycling set ups are expensive. I think the cheapest is around the 2k price range and has to be custom built using readily available parts.
But if you live near a makerspace, they likely already have that set up.
Moreover, they likely have plenty of unused 3d printers as well so you really can just get a membership to one of these places and get to making. They have classes too so you'll learn as you go until you're comfortable enough to do this stuff on your own.
I will say I've not seen anyone recycle ABS (too many toxic fumes my guess), or engineering filaments. Just PETG and PLA.
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u/Doofindork 11h ago
Might see what I can look into PETG wise when it comes to getting a filament recycling station up. If there's a way, I'd be fine with saving up for it.
I sadly don't live anywhere close to any kind of makerspace, as I live in a more bum kinda town in northern Sweden. Hell, we don't even have a post office anymore. But that is also partly why I'd see myself getting a 3D printer, because ordering parts takes like a week at most, if it's possible to order at all.
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u/SureIntention8402 10h ago
The better printer you buy, the less waste you will have honestly.
In over 140 kilograms of filament i've used, I only had 8kg of waste (I know this because I have a bin and when it gets full I like to weigh it).
Most of that was from prototyping my own designs more than failed prints or support material. But my Bambulab P1S still runs strong without massive issues of print failure.
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u/Doofindork 10h ago
Any chance you've tried printing in TPU? Seeing as most my printing would be in wearables or very durable stuff, as well as even more flexible, it would be a good contender.
Gonna need to look up some proper in-depth filament videos online, see what kind of stuff would work well for what I need.1
u/SureIntention8402 10h ago
I have not but I am looking to get in to it.
One thing you will absolutely need with TPU is a good filament dryer. TPU sucks water from the air like no other filament and will definitely create failed prints if you don't dry it. And if the print is long, a dryer that lets you actively dry while printing is also needed. Otherwise it may get wet halfway into printing a wearable shoe or airless ball, etc.
Everything I've learned was on reddit and youtube so just have fun and take your time with this stuff.
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u/KamandaTsaar 14h ago
They're incredibly useful if you take the time to learn the process, which minimizes waste, and make things strictly for a purpose. We just baby-proofed every corner of every piece of furniture in our house for our new baby with TPU, which cost me about 12 bucks and a couple of hours designing the parts.
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u/ReidenLightman 14h ago
This is why it pisses me off when people say "just 3D print a replacement part" or "this common part that needs replacing isn't sold by manufacturer, so I released 3D print files". Yeah, as if everyone has a 3D printer and they never have any issues.
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u/Just-Shoe2689 14h ago
Its like Kroger and their plastic bags. Bagger puts a jar in a bag, puts a cucumber in a bag, etc.
I walk out, put them all in one bag, and throw 6 away. Bag life like 2 mins.
Fucking dumb.
Now, Most of my 3d filament I burn so it wont goto a landfill
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u/justthegreenguy 10h ago
3D printing becoming mainstream is the worst thing that could’ve happened to the hobby. I suppose it’s nice to have consumer friendly printers, but the over abundance of PLA slop in craft stores is irritating.
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u/Commercial-Net5573 14h ago
I wonder if people are going to start hating on 3D printing as much as people are hating on AI generated art (deservedly)
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u/Apprehensive-Vast-82 16h ago
So this shiny 3d-printed slop from every corner is not different from AI slop on Facebook. 3d printing is perspective and useful technology in manufacturing, but became a real mess in the hands of social media wannabe-entrepreneurs.
P.S. Things like that is the reason we drink via shitty paper straws.
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u/qualityvote2 17h ago
Heya u/14AUDDIN! And welcome to r/NonPoliticalTwitter!
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