3D Printers absolute fascinate me. Ever since we gifted my brother a Ender 3 a couple years ago I have been absolutely hooked by the idea of owning a 3D printer myself to print… things. But I could never really justify owning a machine to create small plastic parts. Then came 2020 and with it Covid and everything changed. We quarantined, self isolated and generally just stayed away from people (+ my wife was pregnant) so there was just not a lot of stuff to do.
So I decided to rethink the whole 3D Printing story and got myself a Prusa Mini+ for christmas1. Back then I mostly opted for quality, I didn’t want one of those Enders that you only get to the print parts for it, what I wanted was the Apple experience of 3D Printing. Something I could unpack, assemble and it just works. I wanted to print, not another thing something tinker on (we already had an old VW Van from ‘81 that scratch that itch). The Mini is a fantastic machine, I haven’t done a whole lot to it the last couple years besides building an enclosure to able to reliably print PETG (though I rarely do) and also to keep some of the smell and fumes at bay. I once had one of the PTFE couplings fail on me, but besides that it has been working flawless. I have went through countless spools and printed a lot of things I probably don’t need.
Well the VW Van is history, we are in the process of selling it (I just don’t want to drive or fix old cars anymore), my son is almost three and ever since I found countless usecases to print toys for him, 3d printing had a second spring for me. And since I’ve absolutely outgrown this printer 2 and you can basically justify every purchase by calling it a hobby I’ve decided that I need a Voron.