When you're not creative enough to make a post that would give you some stickers but you have a 3D printer...

I accidentally sent my bachelor thesis to the 3D-printer. It printed a big peace of shit.

I have the best sister in the world! Look what she 3D printed for me!

When your workplace has a 3d Printer.
The raptor army grows, harhar.

We just got a 3d printer!

I'm thinking a DevDuck next?

Just finished building my 3d printer 😊

I printed this little buddy...

My friend asks me, and what did you get for christmas?
me: I've gotten SO MUCH FUCKING MONEY that I bought a second 3D Printer...
and you?
My Friend: 5 Bucks... I spent them immediatly! 3 Bucks for a chair and 2 for a Rope!

We were laughing our asses of 5 minutes strait...

You guys are represented on my 3D printer! 😎

Python be like

"Yeah this is the absolute best beginner language to learn programming concepts"

Python also be like

"Yeah well we couldnt implement 70% of programming concepts because the ast is retarded but heres a library for drawing 3d cats with a printer"

i had this weird dream. i invented a programming language that was connected to the physical world. every time an object was instantiated during runtime, a 3D printer would print this object immediately in real time, into the void of a confined space without gravitation (like a physical stack, but not like a stack). if this object was passed objects as function parameters of its methods, these little objects were printed as well and temporarily moved into the orbit of this object, orbiting it like electrons or little moons.

Got a 3D printer, printed myself a kitters

Is it ok if I have a fidget spinner if I build it myself​? On a 3d printer that I built myself.

Someone here into 3d printing? Got into the hobby end of last year and built my own new printer this year. I love this hobby! So great to print custom housings for your build electronics.

Do you know when you think "Oh that doesn't look too hard. I bet I can do it in no time"?
That is how I felt when I saw the DIY 3D printer kit Anet A8. It's only 150€ on gearbest so that is pretty cheap.
The reviews said it takes about 3 - 4 hours to build and I though "Ok I am a computer specialist and engineer so 3h sounds reasonable".
When I bought it from gearbest the first problems started: 5 days after the estimated shipping date the packet was still not on its way. After I fucked the support up, it finally arrived 3 weeks after the estimated date.
When I took the first look, everything seemed to be fine except for some small scratches but for that price that is not a problem.
So I started to build the printer at about 14:00 and even if some random sites in the manual were in Chinese I felt confident to get it done in a view hours.
And then it started to get really fucked. The first problem was that 2 screws were unusable and I had to use my own screws instead. The next problem was that the manual was just in the wrong fucking order at some points and I had to reverse multiple steps to get it right.
But the most fucked up thing: There should have been 2 threaded rods with a length of 345mm but the rods had a length of 310mm which was nowhere listed in the parts list. So I had to go buy some aluminium rods to fill the gap temporary so that I can at least go on with the build before getting a replacement. And I could go on and on and with the problems but the point is, it is now 19:30 which is about 5.5 hours after I started and I am still not fucking done with this.

So what have I learned?
Cheap Chinese hardware is good, but only as long as you don't have to assemble that shit yourself.

1 friend who is currently studying in Canada.
I am not aware if he uses devrant or not.

Met him in a national robotic competition 3 years back.
Somehow, we exchanged numbers and nowadays we talk often whenever we get time (considering our busy life and timezone difference)

He is studying robotics and frequently sends me his designs and output with 3D printer.

About me, I left robotics(to be specific embedded) and got a job and working on backend these days.

Though, it's great talking to him and getting to know how the education goes there and his new works.

He also has a beautiful love story(not yet completed) which is another fun part to listen from him.

STEP 1: Buy a 3D printer
STEP 2: Print a 3D printer
STEP 3: Return the 3D printer

If I had a dime for every single time a developer has been asked to fix a printer I’d have enough to afford the 3D version.

If i have 3d printer i will print this

Power shortages plus 3D printers don't mix... FUCK, 2 hours of work.
Next upgrade: UPS.

Spent today building a 3d printer, and i have a feeling that tomorrow its gonna be configuring undocumented open source code for it to work, but this delta style looks really cool

'I will just fix the 3d printer before going to bed'
-- 3 hours later --
'aaaalmost there!!'

Got bored in Digital Arts class

It's time to put my 3D printer together 😍

All the parts I ordered have arrived accept for two timing belts.

Super excited, will post pictures in a couple days when I finish building it and writing the firmware for it.

TL;DR: Printers suck. MS-Word sucks.

Yesterday I wanted to print a few participation certificates for my blender project students.

*Turns on printer, runs downstairs, gets paper, runs upstairs, puts paper in*

So I tried to print in word. Nothing happened. Printer was online. I checked queue: Nothing.

*a couple of tries later*

Okay, fuck it! I export it as a pdf and open it in edge (8 times. 8 documents. Edge is a neat pdf-viewer, fight me). I press print on one. It works. I print the others and check: They look shit. The images look like 25% resolution and 50% jpg compression. I check word.

It by default exports in low quality. Yea, thanks for asking me. I export pdfs again and check "high quality". Open them, print. Done.

These were like 30 wasted minutes and print color. And paper.

Btw they look fucking neat. I can't show them right now but gradient text headline, project name is a rendered and edited 3D object :D

When you're broke, don't have access to a 3d printer but still wanted to make a raspberry pi portable. Cardboard + power bank is the easiest way

Properly setting the height on my 3d printer and spending time tweaking settings? Nah.

Putting pieces of cardboard under the bed until it prints okay is the way to go

My friend: I built a 3D printer and coded it to self calibrate at startup and connect to my encrypted remote server through VPN to securely retrieve Cad files I constructed and start itself printing when everything is ready or alert if theres an issue

Me: aren't you less than a year older than me?

This was when we were underclassmen in college a few years ago 😂 turns out the dudes just a savant

This shit happend when I tried to print devRant logo Key fob. The printhead totally scratched the tape of the buildplate. Luckily the printbead itself was fine. :/

STEP 1: Buy a 3d printer
STEP 2: Print a 3d printer
STEP 3: Return the 3d printer

@dfox @trogus Hooked me up with a second set of stickers! Thank you sir now i get to trick of my 3d printer 😁 Lol i took this picture forever ago and forgot to post

Fixing my 3d printer ... for the 6th time in 2 month :(

You're gonna use the 3D printer she said… You're gonna learn JavaScript she said… nope, all we learnt was three HTML tags that confused most people

My Debug Ghost to go with my Debug Tribble at work. Best part is he is entirely 3D Printed!

Got my 3d printer yesterday.. I'm already completely hooked by this hobby 😂

The first filamment for my 3D printer had to end at 4h30 in a 5h30 program. FUCKKKKK
Tryed to replace while pausing the printer, but the fucking merlin doesn't reset the extruder stepper motor, so... when I resumed the print it wouldn't extrude filament, because the position of the extruder was wrong....
Well. At least printer time is cheap... I'll just print all the pieces and leave it until tomorow night printing lol

!dev Made my first lithophane with my 3d printer. Think I need to toy with some settings

-Learn Python
-Use Python to create a game on a GameShell...
-Get a 3D Printer (Its on its way(HYPE))
-Learn how to use Fusion 360 (Kill me pls its so hard)
-Learn how to use Simplify 3D
-Use 3D Printer to print Ducks and stressballs...

Fucking Chinese designers...
Spent all afternoon leveling the 3D printer table while scratching it a lot.
all afternoon to understand that one piece is bent and the extruder is a lot lower it should have been...
Meanwhile, leveled the table with my knowledge of CNC and a specific tool that allows me to take measures up to 0.01mm...

Could have saved €20 on this fucking auto leveler that doesn't really work.

So... I had some money left over and added a 3d printer to my terrorist workshop (some of you might remember the picture I posted a while ago. A friend of mine gave it the name after the police stormed a hackerspace in Nuremberg and I wondered when they would kick down my door. )...
That's how far I got in two hours (from cutting open the package), and I don't really fancy myself dexterous... Not anymore at least.
I suppose this will be a weeklong project 😂.

Get a 3d printer to make peripherals for my pc and tabletop rpg games.

So last week I got my second 3D printer. I have done a few prints with it and this weekend I wanted to connect it to an Octoprint instance on my Raspberry Pi. Yesterday everything went great, got some plugins installed, changed all settings within octopi, connected it to my network and this morning I thought let's connect it to my printer and try to print something with it. But everytime I executed my gcode it gave an error about the heated bed not being able to heat up. Even though I did see all communication between the printer and octopi, on both ends.
I've disassembled the build plate to see what could be causing the heating issue. Did not see anything. Strange...

I assembled the whole thing again and then turned on the printer and tried printing again. Hmm, now it does work, why? Me thinking a bit and then realizing that before I didn't hit the power switch on the printer and apparently the Pi gave enough power through USB to turn on the display and do basic logic like doing beeps on touches and changing variables on the screen. The worst thing is that octoprint gave me warnings about low voltage on the Pi even though I was using the official Raspberry Pi power adapter...

Repost from Reddit, i will probably do another with certain color theme, i just prefer this to be 'dark' build as it is how i initially immagined it.
I plan on expanding with certain micro pc, as server, 3d printer and some true hifi.
Suggestions?

Just convinced my manager to get us a 3D printer so we can print out rubber duckies.

Now the hard part comes in.

Where do i find a similar model for the devRant rubber ducky.

I like the rubber duckies they used to have in the store.

So here's a rant I never thought I'd write.

I'm pretty happy with my current job. I'm working for a small non-tech business where I'm making a complete solution by myself. It's pretty chill just coding away all day and being my own project owner and manager.

The iffiest aspect is that my boss(es) don't know what (or if) I'm working on when I'm implementing a vital logging system, fixing bugs that cropped up due to implementing necessary, baseline security, and so on. They see a login page and figure the entire project is shippable, and when the login breaks because I'm configuring the wsgi for https the reaction is "it worked, why mess with it; just put it how it was". But I digress.

Today I got a job offer with a pay increase that made me exclaim "are you fucking serious" irl, in a business with a more professional environment consisting of senior devs, and with benefits I had never heard of.

I can't not accept, but that means just legacying the entire project I'm working on here. They'd basically be left with nothing after shelling out wages for me for these few months. Keep in mind this is a fairly small business who debated if they could afford this to begin with.

Disregarding whether they are willing/able to make it hard for me to leave, it stabs me in my scrubby dev soul to up and leave on a personal level.

They had a 3d printer at the other place though.

I have a few questions for the people having a 3D printer and/or are interested in 3D printing.

1. Where do you retrieve your models from? Or do you make them yourself?
2. What is your thingiverse name (if you have it)
3. Personally I'm missing a single good information source where questions can be asked, models can be shared etc. Thingiverse doesn't have a mobile UI and is pretty limited in my opinion. I'm thinking of creating a "social media" platform where people can share their creations, collection of information sources about 3D printing. Would you like to help or is there a good alternative for Thingiverse that I have not found yet?

I'm working on a firmware for 3d printers. I had to send a lot of data to another microcontroller and I was making a very sophisticated protocol. When finished I was so proud of my work but in that moment I remember that there is a thing called JSON but I didn't care. Now I have to send the same data to a webserver and need to move from my own protocol to JSON.
Fuck me.

😂😂😂 lol oh no what will we do when hackers takeover the world by printing an endless stream of planetary gears. Shame on you Harvard for such a poor picture choice.

Just a random thought.. instead of sending stickers (or the stress ball for that matter) from USA to someone in India, why can't there be distributed 3D printing services spread across the globe, so that it's just a matter of delegating the delivery to local deliver services in the country/city? Sounds like an idea? 🤔

Desk inventory(not counting computer hardware):

-Three interlocking polished high density particle board squares, cut by an industrial-grade 3d printer at the office of an architect friend. I use them as coasters.
-A roll of toilet paper, as I have a deviated septum and blow my nose so often that proper facial tissue would be wasteful.
-A landline phone, for work. I'm thinking about getting rid of it though, as I can do the majority of my work phone calls through Google Hangouts and our company's webrtc client, and because it costs me about $7 a month for the service, through ooma.

What's on your desk? No computer hardware, please. Also, please try to use your words, because it's a lot of fun to imagine the layout rather than see it.

!rant
Hey guys
Building my herd list for 3D printers.
looking for Devs with a 3D printer and likes to share knowledge and Ideas?

(not really dev related, but a rant nonetheless)

I just got a new 3D printer, and all of a sudden, people are giving me print requests. I don't think that they realize that I don't just tell the printer that I want whatever, but that I have to either find the model online or design it myself.

Also, I have more friends now. Yay?

If you've 3D printed your own drone, I'd love to hear your experience. I'm shopping for a printer at the moment.

My dad asked a facebook group for help decoding a calibration script I wrote for the new 3D printer, instead of just asking me, and every single person yelled at him that "oh that's so dangerous if you didn't write it yourself don't run it, if you can't manually write gcode sell your printer" etc.

why are these groups always full of degenerate assholes? (and why do they legitimately think calibrating a printer has to be done by manually writing bits to the EEPROM with a needle, or it's not worth having a printer?)

!rant
Hey guys...
It's finally working.
Just needed to upgrade the drivers.
Using RGBL + 3 28BYJ steppers.

Just have one tiny problem and need help...
The resolution isn't right... Instead of moving mms, if I send a move of 64mm (one stepper revolution) it just turns one time instead of moving 64mm... Where are the settings to change this?
Btw this is the best birthday present ever, from me to me :-D also... My parents bought me a 3D printer, waiting for it to arrive... Me happy today

I want to build my first decentralized federated open source system for 3D printer users.

kinda sick of my friends giving me super basic advice when I mention my mess of 3d printer files

'group similar things together'
'have folders for main projects with nested sub projects'
'put the slicer project file with the stl files for the specific model'

I'm not fucking 5 I've lived long enough to have some level of basic common sense.
Worst part is they forget we've had this conversation and next time I even mention my files they bring up the exact same fucking comments EVERY damn time

For the guys familiar with 3D printing.

Does your slicer also give you time estimates that are completely off? I'm printing something that would take 10 hours according my slicer. Started it at around 10 AM and its 1AM now and still printing. Halfway during the print I increased the printing speed to 150% because it was way to slow.

Is it just me or are the estimates completely off at each print and the longer the print takes the less useful the estimates are.

Any advice?

How hard is it to make a custom steno-lithography API? And do I even need one?

Hi, all. My name is J.A and I am co-owner of 3DPrintedDreams with my best friend. (We are both 17.)

During a brainstorm of what should be the flagship feature of our shop should be. We decided to take user images, (exact specifications TBD), and then use an API to transform them into .stl files so my friend can print it on his 3D Printer.

I am asking how hard or "easy" would it be to make such an API and what would be the bottom dollar if I were to make a collab post here about it? If anyone would be willing to listen, I could explain how all this would work in relation to the full stack of my website.

p.s. I understand that experience costs money and I myself have experienced this, but, we spent most of our money on the Pallete 2 from Mosaic. (about $500).

HOWEVER, we still have some money left. If a suggested price is to much for us to pay up-front, 3DPrintedDreams is willing to pay you in installments dermined by mutual agreement.

Thanks for your time and have a nice day!

-Josh

Co-founder of 3DPrintedDreams, LLC (Pending).

!rant
Eletronics question.
Hey guys.
Question here.
How do I calculate the cost of a machine in power consumed?
Like, my 3D printer has a 40A power suply, how could I calculate to get a € value from it?
Thanks

Aye folks, im looking for a 3d printer and i saw some people with one on here, so ill ask, is there like a model that is universally good? Or a manufacturer or something. Budget is 350$ tops.

3D printer.
fillament.
Pieces won't fucking stick.
Hey 3D guys. So... I changed to my second fillament rool, from white to black PLA.
The white worked perfectly, but I'm having lots of problems with the black. It just doesn't stick right on the table and than drags strings , with ends up fucking the piece.
I was printing at 200C, now upped to 220C and it just seams to cool to fast or something...
Cleaned the table, leveled like 30 times so far, using lots of airspray...
Do I need to up the heat more? Or may I already givint to much?
the fillament says from 220C to 260C, but I'm afraid the 3D printer can't handle arround 250C

K guys... Don't expect to hear much from me for a few days...
Not like jase. It's just....
I upgraded my CNC last night with "real" steppers (only need one more for Z)
I just got my 3D printer and have a puzzle to mount...
First pieces I'll do (after tests and learning curve) are pieces for my third CNC lol

3d printer
I only assembled it from prusa parts but still it was lots of fun, learned a lot about how 3d printers work.

Then it was printing trex using 3d printer and it was funny to because it took me about a month to do so just because of amount of parts and the problem with parts that were broken and needed to be fixed.

From software projects, once I build a browser plugin in 2-3 hours cause I was pissed off with those shitty popups all around. I published it on browser store, made code opensource and forgot about it.

Recently I got some survey from a german university about it and I was like wtf ?
I looked at a statistics and my plugin had about 500 daily users and I was amused because the ui is shitty as fuck and the ux is even more shitty.

I plan to update this plugin but since I am focused on a bigger personal project for almost half a year now I have no time to do it.

Someone knows about delta printers? I build one with a 8 bit mcu and I'm planning to upgrade to 32 bit. What do you think about it?

There is no joy in life

So I finally managed to set up networking on my 3D printer's raspberry pi: now it can connect to my phone's hotspot or to my uni's wifi network, depending on which is available.

Then I set up OpenVPN, using a remote server as a middleman so I can connect to the printer remotely and start/stop/monitor prints from anywhere.

Everything works great, except for one thing: whenever the Pi connects to the uni's network first, OpenVPN fails to start and connect to my server, rendering the printer unavailable (unless I use an ethernet cable, but that's not a viable operation since I need to lift the printer, and it's heavy).
The only for it to work as intended is to either:
a) keep my hotspot active (which kinda defeats the point), or
b) let it connect to my hotspot first (so that OpenVPN can start properly) and then turn off the hotspot, allowing the printer to reconnect to the uni's wifi and reconnect to my vpn.

Why won't things just work the way they're supposed to? 😭

So... Portugal already have CS classes for almost 20 years. Don't know what they teach now but everyone would know how to use windows, word and excel (specially kids without computers). My course was computers (what was called back then) and we spend half an year doing logic programming in paper and algorithms...
Any class that teaches programming should always start with logic programming, because you can apply it to any language...
Example: my latest programming class was 3 years ago, I did a CNC course (to work with machines that make molds... Think a 3d printer that cuts steel instead of pushing polimers) and my first question was :don't we start with logic programming or algorithms? The teacher first teased me... Then asked what is logic programming....
Resuming... At the end I was the only one who could use functions and variables... (check g-code and heidenhein, you'll get it).

Other then that I was the only one who got a job working cnc machines, everyone else that also got a job whent for the manual labor part (the molds are finished by hand)...

So... My thoughts... Any CS class that teaches programing should start with logic programming and algorithms... That's the foundation to learn any programming language.

2019
growing actual hatred for apple.
worked full time for 0/hr for the last 365 days on a mobile app.
got a resin 3d printer.

2020
hopefully get an income.

Best holder ever used

My main problem with programming on android phones(not for android) is it's keyboard, almost none of default layouts don't have the needed buttons(i.e. ; [ ] ( ) ...), I managed to find a good one "Hacker's Keyboard", 5 rows almost every button(even shift, ctrl and arrow keys). But here's the problem with this: it's buttons width is very low on portrait mode, on landscape, even if you're used to lanscape typing, you won't be able to see shit because it's covering most of screen.
"Hey, what about an external keyboard", well it's not totally a bad idea, but you would need a stand for your phone, and if it's connecting via usb and not bt, you have to buy a usb2[yourPort] convertion, besides I want to hold my phone while typing "How about you make you make your own bt/usb attachable mini keyboard for your phone.", Wow that's a very good idea, it would take maybe a year to make it, but maybe instead of making the whole thing myself I can buy a mini keyboard and make the attaching part myself, it can't be THAT hard, right? Need a 3D printer(√), need time(have alot of it), need to design it(no problem), now start... uhhh nevermind, who am I kiddin', I won't be able to make such a thing, just use that "Hacker's Keyboard".

I got asked to teach a bit 3D printing to a physics class at my old high school. But I consider myself an amateur at 3D printing at best and don’t think these kids are going to learn as much as their teacher thinks they will.
Especially if the printer is above the hobbyist level and doesn’t require user added upgrades and improvements

There seems to be a market for custom 3D printer firmware, consulting and debugging. What should I charge for something like this? I live in Germany and this will be a side quest.

Im planning to buy a 3D printer soon, and I got a budget about 150$ and I could go higher a bit maybe. So do you guys know any nice 3D printers for that price?

DEV dream journal: I dreamed about a decentralized A.I. that injected itself on every device and reprodused itself on a 3D printer. Well, in the end some sort of super quantum computer killed it tho. 🤣 should go out more often and stop watching terminator

I want to code this stupid little tool just to toy with a GUI system i was reading about on github. But I'm so burned out and sick of code I just can't bring myself to even start it. I can't bring myself to work on my 3D printer I keep telling myself to get back up and running. I can't even bring myself to talk to anyone outside work even for just stupid little conversations

All I ever fucking do anymore is work, sleep, watch YouTube, and make plans ill never even fucking start I'm sick of this shit.

I'm considering working in retail for a few months just for something a little mindless compared to programming.

Another arbitrarily decided stupid work meeting is tomorrow and I'm 70% set on quitting rather than waiting to see when/if I get fired
i have enough savings to easily survive until I find a new job

Printers are the most annoying thing. Why can't iPhone and iPad print to normal printers? WHY CANT WORD PRINT TO MY 3D PRINTER???

Can you print 3d objects made with blender using a 3d printer?

I was changing the PEI sheet on my 3D Printer and in the process I manged to also destroy the temperature sensor😭.
I was trying to order a new one and internet went down too. I also have school tomorrow so I need to go to sleep.
😣I need the printer for a thing I have to deliver in 5 days.
Guess I'll have to take the sensor from another bed (hopefully without destroying this one too).
Fffffffuuuuuuuccccckkkkk

1) learn react native
2) finish my masters
3) use Linux full time
4) start my post-grade degree
5) get a 3d printer

@#&$%₩
Stupid fucking Astrobox, why won't you pick up the 3d printer anymore??
Why is this fucking piece of shit giving me issues every goddamn time I try to use it? Why??

Watch, as I deftly make something not really related to coding BE related to coding...

I finally found something more frustrating to get working properly than WebSphere:

A 3D printer.

I'm probabaly 50/50 at this point with succesful prints, and the successes are just okay quality.

It's my first 3D printer so I'm learning a lot, which is the up-side. But damn, very frustrating at the same time.

Oh yeah, and of course: fuck WebSphere. SSSOOO glad I don't have to deal with that anymore!

I'm a terrible adult. I convinced my dad to pay for a $30 network switch for me so I can waste $60 on 3D printer bolts and supplies 😅😅 oof

At 23 I should be more responsible than this. Oops

3D Printer problems
Anet A8
Fan problem.

Hey guys.
So, I have a problem with my printer.
The fan that cools the printed model (fan1) isn't working... and everything seems fine.
What should I do to find out what the problem is?
Thanks

How long will it take until Amazon finally does something against all these fucking review cheaters?
I looked for a spool of simple solder and...the first listed product had reviews for 3D printer filament and the second one's reviews were for a fucking drinking straw. You can still see the customer submitted pictures of their shitty coffees.

Amazon should just discard all reviews if the product name gets edited or something like that. Although at the same time I wonder how many people only look at the star rating if pulling this shit pays off for the seller.

!rant

Spend the past few days 3D printing those mask holders on my 3D printer, currently sitting at about 72 pieces in total to give away to friends and family around here :)

today I will have the last of my high school finals.
I feel like after today I will be a free boy (for three months, at least). Like I have won the game, beaten the boss level.
After 7 years of resisting to comply to this system which tries so hard to shape every pupil into a compliant individual, it will be done.
My creativity and productivity (which lies in tech, which isn't really represented in any subject in my school), set free.
No more mandatory pseudo-interest in loads of literature and cultural history. The bits that are interesting would have come to me anyways through Reddit.

Victory is mine. YAY \o/
World, here I come!

P.S. yes, of course, there were also positive things. I'm actually thankful for that time I failed the year's end exam about literature which ended in me having to redo that year. It landed me with loads of free time, which got me into tech-tinkering, a now two-year employment as a programmer, and a juniar participation at the nearest Hackerspace. And a chance to pretty much build and operate a 3D-printer, for which the physics department mostly covered the cost. The school unknowingly gave me the opportunity to extend my own horizon outside of school, and it brought me so much nice things. :) But the mandatory interest in literature and cultural/religious history and the lack of technical subjects and the digital oppression still sucked.

P.P.S. oops that was only supposed to be a short P.S.

! Rant
Fellow ranter do you have an 3d printer?

Is it hard to get into it (designing own models)?

Is it fun?

Spent about 2 weeks 3d printing splash visors to get distributed to hospitals / care homes etc.

Logistics got fucked up and even though I posted them mid April, they still haven't arrived.

That's nobody helped with visors, 2 weeks and 5kg of 3d printer filament completely wasted.

Thinking about getting a 3D printer like the Creality Ender 3. Any of you guys print and what are some of the fun hobbies or tinkerings you've don't with it?

!rant
This is not really a developer thing but has anyone bought the Anet A8 3D printer from GearBest? And if so what is your opinion and can you recommend it? It is currently priced at about 170$ (160€) and for that price it looks quite good.