3D Printing Is Finally Fun
I’ve used a 3D printer in a hobby capacity off and on for over 10 years. I recently got a new printer and it is a huge leap above and beyond what I’ve used before in terms of simplicity, reliability and fun. This is a great time to consider getting a 3D printer.
Early days (2013)
I assume 3D printing sounds as magical to everyone as it did (does?) to me: a machine that fabricates objects? Unreal. Of course, the reality is much more pedestrian… especially when I first started messing around in 2013. We got a 3D printer (I don’t recall the brand) at the office (Delphix) for no particular purpose, but a buddy in marketing and I decided that revenue was up enough, and the accounting team was bullish enough that we wouldn’t get in too much trouble expensing it.
We made some OpenZFS swag and some other weird stuff in Tinkercad:
My son was 7 at the time. We had a great time designing stuff… and a less great time actually fabricating stuff. Even a CAD program targeted at kids was pretty challenging for me, and more challenging for a kid. Coaxing the printer to actually make the stuff was harder. Usually we’d start it printing over the weekend, and I’d come into the office on Monday to see if we had, say, a Pokéball or a pile of spaghetti on the printer bed.
We did manage to make a box with a lid for his Pokémon cards that’s still floating around the house.
Printing at home (2020)
Fast-forward a few years to August 2020. I’m sure we had exhausted every possible at-home activity mid-pandemic so invested in a Creality Ender 5 Pro. My son was now 14, and I think we both expected it to be a fun activity–designing stuff, downloading designs, making neat stuff. It never was particularly fun.
3D printing in that era required a bunch of tinkering. For each type of filament and model, what was the right nozzle temperature, bed temperature? Was the room the right temperature, was the head moving too fast or too slow? It could have been a hobby we did together, but the multiplicative patience of father and son never really met the required threshold. After failing to produce the object we wanted several times, it just felt like a burden.
Trying again (2024)
The avalanche of time continued. In late 2024, my younger son and I unboxed the old Ender 5 (the older son at 18 was happy to have it out of his closet). I approached it with more reasonable expectations for how much focus, research, and tinkering would be required, and a more realistic understanding of the patience of a (then) six-year-old. We made some neat stuff with designs we downloaded and a few we remixed.
As the printer and the filament aged, and our patience declined, the hobby became less of something we’d do together, and much more of a second job I did at the behest of an impatient and quixotic boss. It was only fun in theory; in actuality, it was a drag.
Fun… at last (2026)
A few weeks ago, my frustration bubbled over. I’m often a victim to the sunk-cost fallacy; the printer we had, after all, was FINE. But–I thought, in a rare moment of rationality–what if my time were both valuable and limited? So I started exploring ways to buy my way to success. I settled on the Bambu Lab P2S and it is simply outstanding. Every review and video gushed over its consistency and simplicity, and it’s all true.
I could have paid less for one of the lesser models, but I’ve had enough experience with both how fun 3D printing can be when it’s working well, and how frustrating it can be when it’s not. I was willing to spend a bit more for a good experience.
Three weeks in, and the thing has been phenomenal. Literally my only gripe is that I wasn’t aware of the brand new model (X2D)–for another $100 we could have had dual extruder heads, which would have made multi-color prints a bit easier. Then the price dropped on the P2S by $100. I would be cranky, but Bambu Lab gave me $100 in store credit after the price drop–not cash, but I’ll happily spend it on filament.
Give it a shot!
Why did I write this? I’m genuinely excited for 3D printing, and my son (8) and I are having a great time with it… finally! Decent printers are affordable, and great printers are good value. The user experience is incredibly simple, the results are great, and, best of all, we’re having fun! If you like to tinker, design, and build, or have a kid who does, it’s a good time to give 3D printing a shot.
