Does anyone here also like 3D printers?
Yep, i do have a filament printer (Bowden, so no TPU for me, yet), and i mostly do functional parts of any kind.
This thing has saved me a ton of money already and made me even learn 3D modeling using 3D Builder (the easy route) and FreeCAD (mainly for threaded stuff and parts based on advanced geometry). Some of you might know FreeCAD, it's a bit of a pain in the ass to use, but delivers perfect results if you do it the "FreeCAD way" from start to finish.
One advice I always give to those with 3D printers: don't just print ready-made parts you download from the net. Instead, try to make your own 3D models in tools such as Autodesk Inventor, or even Tinkercad. Unleash your creativity and make your own unique parts. The possibilities are almost endless, limited only my the material used and the capabilities of the printer, which nowadays are pretty impressive for the price.
3D Builder is a good starting point for beginning modeling. It's basically combining/substracting simple parts to/from each other, and also included from Windows 10 and higher.
EDIT: Slicing is a different story, though.
Though at first I thought I had gotten a defective machine, because I didn't know that you are supposed to toss the first 3-4 cups it makes while it initializes and calibrates (I thought, wow, this coffee is so weak and diluted, is something wrong here? Lol). But after that it got really great. Also I agree with you about the cleaning regimen, I do a complete machine cleaning every 3-4 months. But so worth it.
Fortunately, I had read about that in my research so knew to expect and just blasted a whole bunch of cups through. It still wasn't perfect but it didn't take long to get to where it's good. I usually go for Lavazza Espresso beans. It's that good that my wife is now a coffee drinker where she wasn't before.
Yes, those Lavazza beans are really good.
I prefer Lavazza over any other brand since years now. Strength 8/10 minimum.
