What should you do with your beloved — and now obsolete — desktop 3D printer?
The past two years have been a revolution in desktop 3D printing. If the introduction of high-speed printing, CoreXY motion systems, fully enclosed printers, engineering material compatibility, high temperatures, AI wizards and countless ease of use functions weren’t enough, add in some severe competition driving prices downward.
The result is that today’s equipment is vastly superior to machines of two years ago, and it’s not even close. I constantly read of long time 3D print operators that “discover” how good today’s machines are when they produce their first parts.
We’re in the midst of a transformation right now. The typical lifetime of an old-style desktop FFF 3D printer was 2-4 years before it wore out and required replacement. This means that today we are seeing many operators of older equipment doing upgrades to these much more advanced machines. Equipment is failing, parts are no longer available and there’s that fear of missing out on something new.
This is an emotional moment for many owners of older equipment, as their first 3D printer introduced them to a magical world where you could produce nearly any object you could imagine on demand.
And now they have to dispose of the machine that brought that magic.
This was best illustrated by a recent situation encountered by Jiří Fiala, who unexpectedly had his venerable Ender-3 fail in rather unusual fashion:
“A 20yo incontinent cat pissed onto the bed, and it got into the board compartment (even with the fan guard). It worked for a bit after cleaning and drying, but then it completely died. I suspected a blown fuse in the PSU but it works fine. But the screw holes of the PSU were stripped to a degree I couldn’t fasten it back onto the frame.
All in all, even when I could theoretically fix it, I would be looking at ~ $100 parts, and that’s just not worth it.
All soaked, screw holes so stripped the PSU didn’t hold onto the frame… It was already an Ender of Theseus, no sense trying to salvage it.
RIP my beautiful friend, you were no match for an old, incontinent cat. I will always love you.”
At top you can see the outcome of this particular Ender-3.
It won’t be the only unit that suffers this fate (the disposal, not the cat!)
Via Mastodon
