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Comment by Geee | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure if it makes sense as an investment to own a 3D printer when you can order anything custom from Shapeways when you need. I don't have a constant need for 3D printed parts, so it probably wouldn't pay itself back.

Edit: To add, I've never even needed to order anything from Shapeways to date. For sure I'll need it when I start building robots. I think there should be some kind of new trend hobby which requires or is complementary to custom 3D printed parts, like robot building or something similar.

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I bought a Makerbot Thing-o-Matic two years ago because I thought they were neat.

For certain kinds of people, having one would really be helpful. Some of the designers in the 3D printing space obviously get a lot of use out of them, and having to order all that stuff through shapeways and wait for the designs would be slow and expensive.

I find that now that I own a 3D printer, I use it more than I thought I would. There is a ton of cool stuff on Thingivierse, and it's fun to just print out someone's cute little design. I've taken to painting them like little models for fun.

Another advantage to Shapeways (and similar services) is that they offer significantly better printing technologies than the affordable hobby printers. SLS Nylon produces very nice parts, with relatively tight tolerances, and useful strength and stiffness properties, but last time I checked, the cheapest SLS machine was on the order of $50k US.

The difference is in turnaround time. With your own, the turnaround time is shorter by half or less, depending on the part. That said, it assumes you have a 3D printer that prints reliably without fail. The current generation of desktop 3D printers finally are pretty hands free operations for short runs.

I only recently bought a regular 2d laser printer. For so many years I almost never needed one, and would just go to Kinko's or somewhere like that to print things. Seriously, like twice a year I would maybe need to print something.

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