>90% of 3D printed stuff Ive seen are toys or gimmicks
Is that it? Is 3D printer useless?

There's a 3D printing general on this board.
No, 3D printer is not useless.

>>2931294 (OP)
>Is 3D printer useless?
No, but a lot of soiboys buy 3D printers that have no use case other than retarded gimmicks and toys.

>>2931294 (OP)
It's mostly useless, but can be useful for making templates for working with materials that aren't shit (wood and leather for me)

>>2931294 (OP)
You can do anything with one but 99% of people are soulless morons who will not reach beyond their purview of capeshit funko pops

>>2931294 (OP)
Did you finally get bored of trolling on /g/?

>>2931302

3D printers are incredible, they’re the furthest thing from mostly useless. Yes, they can be used to make toys, that is the use case for 90% of normies. However, with a good idea and an understanding of the limits of technology, they are the lowest barrier to entry for becoming an actual manufacturer with a real product. Keychains and flexi dragons do not a business make. However, if you have an actual real idea, the web design and software engineering experience and know how necessary to make it work with nothing but your own time and a little bit of money for hosting, it’s the absolute best way to break free of your 9-5. One machine won’t do it, no, but a fleet of printers costs many orders of magnitude less than a bunch of mills and lathes. Or, god forbid, injection molding dies. They’re an excellent way for the engineer or would-be engineer to bring an idea to market. They are not money printers, as some mistakenly believe.

Some things we use 3D printers for where I am:
>mountings
>seals
>cases for electronics boards
We could probably buy these things that fit our projects, but sometimes it's easier to just knock out a design and print it than figure out what we need, find a supplier, navigate their catalogue, potentially find that they don't actually sell something tha fits our spec, navigate our requisitions system, wait for lead time, and go to the post office to get it.

>>2931331
>but a fleet of printers costs many orders of magnitude less than a bunch of mills and lathes.
and can also do orders of magnitude less
do you think mills and lathes shit out tiny plastic parts

>>2931294 (OP)
I bought a 3d printed stand for something that doesn't have stands made for it. Its cool.

>>2931294 (OP)
>>90% of 3D printed stuff Ive seen are toys or gimmicks
>Is that it? Is 3D printer useless?

I know what you mean, but there are a few people out there with good ideas for marketable products that are 3D printed. Of course anything they come up with that is actually good will be promptly copied by the Chinese and sold below their cost until the market is saturated...

I personally haven't found a use for a 3D printer that would make it advantageous to have around. I have welders, grinders, lathes and milling machines already at my disposal and am very good at one-off parts when needed.

ive been asked to make car parts with a 3d printer. Try making that eith a lathe.

>>2931399
>ive been asked to make car parts with a 3d printer. Try making that eith a lathe.
What specific part? Plastic interior parts? That is where I think 3d printed stuff would shine the most.

>>2931403
yes and a motorcycle light thing

99% of screwdrivers are owned by people who do nothing or gimmicky 'projects' with them.
>does this mean screwdrivers are just a gimmick?
99% of chainsaws are owned by guys who aren't even in logging.
>does this mean power saws are a gimmick?
99% of sports cars are owned by people who baby them and see only their use as an indicator of status and straight line speed.
>does this mean - ACK!
So what? People nowadays have play money to spare like never before, lots of time, stupid levels of confidence and zero creativity. Fuckwits use their playmoney to buy tools and fuck around with them all the time. They have zero interest in the hard part: Imagining things, designing them, transfer to CAD, working the bugs out... they want instant gratification so they don't design shit they need they go download shit they don't need and print that. So what? You can literally buy PCB and component kits to LARP as a 60s electronics assembly worker. That doesn't make soldering irons useless. It only makes the 99% of consumers who do that spastics. I guess some people just have spare time, spare money and don't know what to do with them so they buy toys and play games. Don't care.
Bought a 3dp second hand because it was obvious it would be handy sometimes. Never fiddled with it, riding that bitch till the wheels come off. Never downloaded something to print as ig's always doing a one off I just happen to need. Not useless, not a toy.

>>2931294 (OP)
>Is that it? Is 3D printer useless?

Almost, yes.
I'm an experienced engineer and I've engineered thousands of parts for hundreds of projects, and usually there's a better way to manufacture something than to 3D print it.
That's even true in my home workshop. I use my table saw, welder, mill, etc far more than my 3D printer.
3D printers are very limited by the low strength of plastic in what parts you can make with them efficiently.

The part in your OP picture has clearly not been used a lot and is already showing significant structural degradation.

>>2931368
Tiny mills and lathes do

>>2931502
then mod the 3d printer to realiably print nylon or carbon fiber

>>2931502
>usually there's a better way to manufacture something than to 3D print it.

Counterpoint: Literally anything with thin walls or features that aren't at easy angles. Pic related. Good fucking luck making this any other way without a shitload of material waste, time-consuming setups, horrendous initial tooling investments, or a bunch of manual labor building it up piece by piece.

You might want to take a look at some of those "thousands" of parts you've engineered that were made to be injection molded, O Mighty Career Designer. Odds are very good that those are the exact sorts of parts (possibly with slight modification) that are prime material for 3D printing when being made in low quantity.

I _do_ have a well-equipped home shop, but the 3D printer is the default for small-ish parts that don't have specific physical requirements (strength, heat tolerance, high precision, etc.). Which tends to be quite a few things, as it turns out.

>>2931535
>4chan eating my pic related

It's not useless, it's just that the technology isn't viable just yet, in the future everything will be 3d printed pretty much, even the cities on Mars etc.

>>2931294 (OP)
There's some cool kids in the last couple years using printer to help making like cement/epoxy molds of plastic to make complicated, heavy, strong parts especially for lathes/mills.

Also using printer to make folding/punching dies or casting molds.

>>2931539
Ok Elon

>Dan Gelbart has entered the chat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLgPW2672s4&t=1859s