I am interested in getting a 3D printer but I have no idea where to even started. Is there such thing as a multi-purpose printer? What’s a good source to read up on printers, software, filament?
I am thinking small replacements items like drawer guides, funnel for espresso machine, essentially little parts and pieces that break around the house and farm. Also maybe some device cases (including outdoor ones) etc.
Ideally I don’t want a closed system. I have a Cricut for 10 years or so and I hate being locked into the app so much. Unless there is a really, really good reason.
Edited to add: Thank you all! What an amazing community!
What about software? Locked in? Can you design anywhere and load to print or do you have to design in their software?
All slicers, including bambu-studio (which, as a fork of prusa-slicer, is open source) work by loading .stl files from any source, so yes. You can also techniclaay use any slicer, and no network at all, if you put .gcode files on the printer’s sd card. Not convenient, but functional. But again, bamu-studio works great
All your design work would be outside their software (Fusion, Solidworks, Tinkercad, etc). You would then export to a 3mf (native) or stl and then import that into the slicer program (this is where the “walled garden” starts). That translates it to gcode that the printer then uses, almost like a backwards CNC.