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Oh, yeah - CAD software will be needed. I ended up with Fusion 360 (they have a fully featured free version for non-commercial use): Adventures in 3D printing Part 1: Fusion, you CAD![^]
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I have AutoCAD, but I guess I have to upgrade to a 3D version of it, or change to another (more affordable) product. Thanks for the excellent feedback on the types of printer available, btw!
Will Rogers never met me.
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I have one that's about 4 years old, and I love it.
Expect to make a lot (and I mean a lot) of mistakes. You'll have prints fail for no apparent reason, and gravity is a thing that must be respected.
Learn about how the printer actually works. Unlike a normal printer, you will probably have to pull the print head apart and re-build it multiple times, especially as parts wear out.
I use OpenSCAD to create my files. They export into STL's which I then load into the FlashForge slicer program. I then set up any supports, chose the extruder to use (I have a dual head, so I can print two filaments at once, I use it to create panels with clear plastic sections for back lit designs), and press the "make it so" button. I've only downloaded a couple of things from thingyverse, I mostly make my own designs.
Prints can take anywhere from 5 minutes to 24 hours to run through, depending on the size, the quality and the complexity, although the software I have can usually guess within a few minutes how long the print will actually take. I also tend to slice larger designs by using cut outs and other guides to help me line up multiple pieces. It's surprisingly difficult to get two pieces of a single 3d print to line up nicely if you've simply slice a model in two.
Read reviews, work out what you want to use it for, since different printers will have different dimensions, and little point getting a large printer to only print out 1 inch / 2cm figurines.
Good luck
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I've got 2 FDM printers, both from CReality. I've had the Ender-3 for about 4 years and picked up a discounted CR-10S about 6 months ago. They are similar except for size; the Ender-3 is limited to about an 8-inch cube while the CR-10S will do a 1-foot cube (actually both go slightly taller).
Both of these are pretty basic and a lot of the stuff I've added over time is now standard on the latest printers. The most significant is that most new printers automatically measure how flat and level the print bed is; when I started, it was all manual!
Fairly early on, I added a Raspberry Pi to control the printer via USB so I could sent models to the printer via the network rather than messing about with SD cards.
I find it an enjoyable hobby to be tinkering with hardware, e.g. when the printer jams, but I gather many people just want to design and print, which is what a lot of the manufacturers now offer. I've had no problems with my CReality printers; the Ender-3 and it's variants are some of the most popular printers so think others agree.
I've never tried SLA, but am put off by the need to handle liquid resin. While there advantages in the resultant prints, my cats can't do much damage if they paw at a roll of filament whereas I'd be worried about having bottles of resin around.
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See Griff's response; it says a lot.
A friend of mine has about 4 or 5 Ender-3 printers, and he recommended an Ender-5 Pro, so that is what we got.
I have not ventured into 3D designing my own items; I find pre-made models I like and use them.
My wife makes soap and personal care products like lip balm; so I found a screw-thread dragon egg mold and printed it at about 2 inches high. She put the lip balm in it and sold it at a ComiCon/DragonCon type craft fair - they went over well.
We 3D printed a LOT of small dragons, gnomes and fairies to give away to the kids; they were quite happy.
I like to play table top games, so I 3D printed a dice tower for myself.
When we got married 20 years ago, my wife and I took the same size wedding ring; her hands have swollen and she can't where her ring. She asked me to 3D print one. I found a model and printed rings from 19 mm to 25 mm diameter; she picked one, and I picked one. I have been wearing it and the gold band for months now.
The material we use is PLA and we like to try different color schemes; either single color, bi-color or rainbow (color shifts through the spool). We have it set up in our living room on an old desk (heavy) with a table top screwed down into the desk (raised edges to stop items from rolling off and bigger than the desk). There is NO fan or other breeze near it; I can watch it print throughout the day.
And, yes.. it is a lot of fun.
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I use primarily FDM printers, I've had them for about 8 years and they are certainly fun. I recently finished an F1 RC car that I printed all the parts for.
Prusa and Creality make some really decent and reliable printers, though I currently own a Snapmaker Artisan. I use it for all 3 purposes (3d printer, laser engraver, cnc machine) so it works well for me.
OriginalGriff had some great things to say about both common types of printers so no need for me to add more about that.
- Freedom is the right of all sentient beings. (Optimus Prime, or Michael Bay, but I prefer Otpimus Prime)
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These are the only 3 my printer makes:
D Ḍ Đ
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Just a general comment, having owned one for a few years.
It's a hobby item, and if you're like me, hobby time ends up on the bottom of my priority list, even being semi-retired. I have a few hobbies that fall into that category. Like other hobbies, it is also best set up in its own space, where you can easily just sit down and play with it. Otherwise, any setup time will push it further down the list.
The other thing is that, in many cases, it is not an 'instant gratification' hobby. I've made some cute artistic things and a few practical things with it. But, unlike our normal realm of software, the 'casts' aren't quite a build from alpha to beta to RC to v1.0. Maybe this is hard to explain from my point of view, but basically the design and redesign steps typically are based on a full build that can take quite some time for the printer to make. Then, it's back to the drawing board and rinse and repeat. This is truer on the practical items that might need to meet some sort of specs. I prefer woodworking since it's really rare that I have to scrap something and build it again.
Just my two cents, based on my own situation. I don't know if anyone else feels the same 
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Other Industries... How much does this cost? XYZ Dollars.
Medical Industry... How much does this cost? Just sign here saying you'll pay and we'll tell you weeks later.
Imagine quoting clients that for tech work...
Jeremy Falcon
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Tech industries still suck at estimating costs.
CI/CD = Continuous Impediment/Continuous Despair
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Sure, but at least they give you some sorta number or a ballpark. I've worked with clients myself in larger companies and a few of my bosses for smaller companies would be happy to tell me the ropes. I never met one vendor that says, nah just sign this to agree to pay a mystery amount we'll figure out later.
Also, the larger the firms, the monies exchanged are contracted. So, you know what your spending.
Jeremy Falcon
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That's pretty much how it works in the US. Medical tourism has become a thing with Americans because of insane prices and is becoming a thing with Canadians because of insane wait times. Mexico, Panama, Thailand, and India have excellent, affordable private clinics, often staffed by doctors who trained in the US.
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Real talk, if I ever needed a serious procedure... time to plan a vacation. 
Jeremy Falcon
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There are some downsides for medical tourism. I recall reading about some woman who went to Mexico for a procedure that was completely botched. Oh wait, that happens in the US as well  .
At 65, I'm reaping the consequences of chewing ice from when I was 15 to about 25. At 25, the dentist read the riot act at me, so I stopped. I've split two teeth vertical now (means no saving them). I was looking at going to Costa Rica, but their prices seem to have gone way up over the past decade.
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
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I was treated for COVID in the US in 2022.
I didn’t pay for hospitalization as:
A) I am eligible for Medicare
B) I think the US government mandated free treatment as they didn’t want untreated patients wandering through the country spreading the infection.
I did pay for tests and certain fees for the doctors, amounting to about $5,000.
As I had mentioned earlier, I had a cardiac arrest when I reached the hospital and they resuscitated me after some 4 minutes of heart stoppage. I guess the pumping of my chest supplied enough blood to my brain so I don’t have brain damage (I think).
The doctors were very good. But they were quite surprised that the two stents in my LAD artery stayed put despite vigorous pounding of my chest and possibly using electric shock to restart my heart. The doctor’s comment (he had trained at Harvard Medical School) was: any hospital in the US can put in stents but this level of quality is possible only in the top ten hospitals in this country. My stents were put in at a hospital in Kolkata, India.
The nursing care was good M-F but around 3 pm Friday, the nurses would start going home and then till Monday morning, nursing care was abysmal. I got myself evacuated to India for further treatment.
Last year, I returned to the US and caught COVID again. Ran back to India. COVID subsided but left me with kidney failure. I guess I could return to the US for free dialysis but I found I can easily pay $60 ( I could price shop and get a lower price but saving $20 is not worth it) for each dialysis session three times a week out of pocket rather than go through the US medical system.
I get excellent care, the doctor visits me during the dialysis session to find out how I am doing, any minor infections are treated at once with antibiotics (antibiotics cost me $2 for my current UTI). If necessary, the technician comes to my home for drawing blood or collecting urine/stool samples.
In short, I am treated with great care and kindness. The equipment is the same as you would find in Europe or the US. The hospital will ensure my safety as I am a cash cow for them (kidding).
Most of the doctors have undergone training in the US or UK after their basic medical degree from India and so are conversant with the most current medical treatments.
The number of patients the doctors see in India is huge. They see every disease in every stage of progression so that their practical knowledge is very very high.
I can’t ask for or get better medical care.
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There have been a few politicians advocating for legislation to require medical providers to publish their prices for everything they do, but I haven't heard of anything helpful resulting from those efforts.
Will Rogers never met me.
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Hopefully it just won't end up being one of those promises that only exist to win a vote.
Jeremy Falcon
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I've never heard of anything helpful coming from any politician's brilliant ideas for legislation.
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Couple of points:
1. Medical Industry deals with living patients, and each of us has a (slightly/largely?) different response to the same treatment (because of a variety of factors - genetics, lifestyle, habits, stage of ailment, etc.)
2. Because of this different response (complications in extreme cases), the type and duration of treatment are likely to be different for each patient.
Therefore, a fixed-price model may not always work.
Can we compare this with a bug-fixing type of software project, where the type and criticality of bugs is unknown; where a Time & Material pricing model is more suitable? (comparing an ailment to a bug/set-of-bugs).
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Amarnath S wrote: Therefore, a fixed-price model may not always work.
That's a load of nonsense. Software development also deals with unknowns and yet they still price better than that.
There's nothing preventing them from doing flat rates or rates by procedure even if it's more then one procedure. And there's certainly nothing preventing them from knowing how much a procedure would cost regardless if it needed to happen to or not. There's no honest or transparent billing schedule and it's on purpose.
Amarnath S wrote: Can we compare this with a bug-fixing type of software project, where the type and criticality of bugs is unknown; where a Time & Material pricing model is more suitable? (comparing an ailment to a bug/set-of-bugs).
Clearly, you've never hired anymore or a vendor. You may want to think a bit more about what you're saying.
To this point though, time and material is at least comparable to a fee schedule for unplanned procedures, if you're trying to quantify the unknown. And that can be priced by procedure. The vast, vast majority of procedures and ancillary procedures are known however. Which means, you have at least two options for upfront billing models.
Also, side note, time is what rookies do, but that's irrelevant.
There is zero reason why people cannot give an estimation or fee schedule upfront. Regardless of whether or not that fee schedule includes time or not. Zero. No real vendor does that. One that's actually in business instead of just spouting theory online.
Jeremy Falcon
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Fair enough.
I can only write from my experience, and that too, in India; cannot tell about other places.
- I was hospitalized in 2021, and they initially said 3 days of hospital stay. And we paid the appropriate amount (i don't have medical insurance). But the stay extended for 6 days, and the amount doubled. This is what I meant by non Fixed Cost.
- While working, the neighbouring office was an Offshore Development Centre, in India. There were about 100 people working of fixing OS bugs, some of them kernel type of bugs, for a Unix flavour. The centre ran for about 8 or 9 years, and was run on a T&M basis.
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There's nothing preventing anyone from having a fixed cost per day for a hospital stay. Doesn't matter if you stay 3 days or 30 days it's simple addition. Hotels do it all the time. There's also nothing from knowing the price of a primary or secondary procedure before it's performed. The time simple fact is they don't want to tell you upfront so you can't shop around.
Jeremy Falcon
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In India, the prices of primary and secondary procedures (both diagnostic like CT, MR, Ultrasound, etc. and treatment like surgeries, etc.) are told upfront, in most big hospitals (of course exceptions are there where hospitals lose their human touch and become crassly commercial, but they are exceptional cases).
And further, there are a number of Government run hospitals and charitable ones (professionally run), where even angioplasty and bypass surgeries are done at highly concessional rates.
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That just gives more credence to my point... it's completely possible. Over here in the US, they don't even give us that info. It's a just sign here and we'll charge whatever we want later on.
Jeremy Falcon
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