Wednesday
Apr102013
Addicted to 3D Printing
Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 07:52PM 
You know you are an experienced 3D printer when:
- Strangely shaped bits of coloured plastic from failed print jobs are no longer fascinating to you.
- Your bedroom carpet is covered in strangely shaped bits of coloured plastic.
- You can get hold of strands of plastic at 200 degrees centigrade and think "Ooops" rather than dancing round the room holding your hand and swearing.
- Your hands acquire some funny looking scars and blisters as a result of this.
- You start to make up tunes inspired by the noises your printer makes when it is working.
- Whenever something works you instantly try to print out a bigger one. Or a smaller one. Or a red one.
- You start to like the smell of molten plastic.
- You feel that you are at the cutting edge of technology, even when your wife asks "What's that meant to be?"
- You think a little plastic bust of yourself would make an ideal wedding present for someone.
- You begin to plan your social life around eight hour print jobs.
- You don't know what PLA stands for, but you know exactly the temperature it melts in your machine. In five different colours.
- The word "plug" becomes a swear word.
- People start giving you designs they’d like to have printed out.
- You start to wonder if there might be a business model in this…..
in Ultimaker
Ultimaker
Reader Comments (1)
You have fallen in love with the musical sound of the extruder doing a musical dance when it prints something organic rather than the jerkiness that comes from printing yet more support material.
Even your failed prints are being considered for cosmetic alteration so that they can be sold on eBay.
In your mind the letters P.L.A. used to represent the red menace of communism: now they generally refer to a white stringy mess instead
Your machine already has a female name, in anticipation of the time when she gives birth to your next, even better printer. (Mine is called Wanda by the way.)