[Lardman]

I bought myself one as a new toy a tool for work  . I never knew I needed one until I bought it, I'm now running about the house recreating all the broken plastic dohickies that stop things shutting, opening, hold or hanging and creating new ones for things so they work as they should.  Small snag was the crash course needed in 3D modelling and cad.

[snowdrops]

hubby has built himself 2 or 3  I did literally roll my eyes when he said what he was going to build (there’s always something) but my do I keep him busy printing things not just me all the rest of the family too though

[Lardman]

I wimped out on assembling one from a kit - it would end up all catawampus if I tried that and the tools I need to make for work require 0.1mm tolerances. I grabbed the a1 mini and everything was done it's just plug and play. I can fully understand why he needs 3, I already want bigger, multi-colour and enclosed so I can print more exotic filaments.   

[snowdrops]

 No he manufactured them himself, even the first one I think and then used it to print parts for the next and so on. He did buy a 2nd hand one but bit by bit I’ve seen parts of it be harvested for another build & bits end up thrown away. He’s currently at 2- 1 in the study, that’s big and a smaller 1 in the garage.
But then again he built himself a CNC router & goodness knows what reincarnation number were on for that. And that’s useful to me too 

[Lardman]

Can I borrow him for a bit SD ?  I could do a lot with a small table top CNC machine..... 

I've spent the morning arguing with freecad and now have 2 friction fit brackets holding the led strip light to the shelf above my desk.

[vikingraider]

Can I borrow him for a bit SD ?  I could do a lot with a small table top CNC machine..... 

I've spent the morning arguing with freecad and now have 2 friction fit brackets holding the led strip light to the shelf above my desk.

Any chance of a pic?

[snowdrops]

Can I borrow him for a bit SD ?  I could do a lot with a small table top CNC machine..... 

I've spent the morning arguing with freecad and now have 2 friction fit brackets holding the led strip light to the shelf above my desk.

Some days I’d gladly give him away lol, but not every day!

[Lardman]

Any chance of a pic?

It's not earth shattering design work

There's enough friction on the angle to hold it in place on the shelf. Yes,I could have just screwed the spring steel metal brackets into the underside of the shelf but I didn't want to put holes in it.

[Subversive_plot]

Great work! I see the value of 3D printing, but I have problems enough just doing 2D printing!  I can usually McGyver my way through building this or that gadget by hand using bits of wood, metal or other materials.

[Lardman]

I'm feeling too old to McGyver things now. I can't see what I'm doing properly anymore and there's always the problem with where I've left whatever tool that is needed for a critical part of the project.

I did genuinely buy it to produce a single tool for an older drive type for work as Im no longer steady enough to do it free-hand like I used to. The cheapest I could find the tool (and have delivered to the UK) was 500 euros each (I needed 2), by the time vat, delivery and import duty were all added they were going to cost me 6x the price of the printer.   

It took me a couple of days with the calipers and I killed a few donor drives getting the measurements right, but I now have a tool I can print to do the job for just 8 pence worth of filament whenever I need one. They're obviously not as nice or refined as the brushed aluminium ones but they do the same job and they're cheap enough to be disposable.