I just think it’s so cool that anyone can just make custom toys now and sell them.
Yes a lot of stalls just sell the same thing, but yesterday I went to a fair and the 3 big stalls were so unique.
1st stall was all about high precision toys. Like I can’t explain how smooth the toys were. Talking to him he was all about making them as dialed in as possible with these tiny super delicate gears and moving wings on toys, or puzzles that glide like they are oiled off each other. I’m too lazy to go find the thing I bought as I was walking around the house playing with it.
2nd stall was all about large cartoony ones using a printer that can do up to 5 colors! I ended up getting a little dino!
Then the last one was a guy who only printed things he personally designed! With all his pieces being toys that are giant version of lego things like his giant lego light sabers that are straight out of lego star wars
(off his website as I didn’t buy anything from him)
It’s just so cool that these people can build their own little toy factories and make a variety of toys either in special ways, or make their own unique toys. I know it’s not star treck replicators, but it’s still just exciting to me.
I actually owned 3d printers in the past, but the effort to dial them in just wasn’t super worth it to me, since it felt like an all day activity to get my cheap printer to print my little $2 toy. Would much rather spend $5 to get a much better version off of someone else who spends all day working to make the print quality ace and put their own spin on the toys.
Check out thingiverse or printables for free stuff to print. There’s so much to make!!!
Also, I’ve messed with Wanhao printers, and the slicer profiles were not great and did require a lot of fine-tuning. New printers either come with their own slicers or a Cura profile.
Oh yeah I used to look at thingiverse all the time! Looking at it now it’s obvious that the skill of both designers making stuff for 3d printers and the quality of 3d printers has jumped a lot since I joined. Since most of the top stuff for last year have integrated hinges/joints, which are so satisfying.