It Started with SpongeBob
It only took one catchy Instagram reel for me to dive into the uncharted waters of 3D printing.
I’ve always known of its existence, but I never really knew what 3D printing is. So after seeing someone print a kitchen sponge holder that makes your sponge look like SpongeBob, I knew I had to learn more.
This is one of those instances where I blame AI for my spiral. ChatGPT is a good friend of mine, but its never-ending answers to my erratic brain’s curiosities mean I am in over my head before I know it.
Within a few days, I had some opinions: There are a lot of shitty things about 3D printing.
For starters, prints can take a long time. We’re talking multiple days for some projects, and for someone who needs immediate gratification, that could pose a problem.
However, the other shitty thing about 3D printing is exactly what sparked my obsession.
Getting a print right requires a lot of tinkering. Is your nozzle temperature too hot? Is your cooling fan cooling at the right times? Are your printing speeds too fast? Are your layer lines too thick?
If none of this makes sense to you, I’m right there with you.
What started out as “How do I make a SpongeBob sponge holder?” ended up as “Can I learn the 3,000 variables encountered when 3D printing before losing interest?”
Enter the Ender: A Beautiful Piece of Shit
Given my mad scientist brain, I saw this as an exciting opportunity.
I scoured the internet, learning the impact of the most important settings (bed and nozzle temperature, cooling, print speed, etc.), and decided I was ready to take the plunge.
Normally, knowing me, I would go for the more expensive, reliable, beginner-friendly 3D printer: the Bambu Lab A1.
But this rabbit hole began just after New Year’s, and I tried committing to my quickly abandoned resolution of not spending a lot of money on unnecessary things.
So what did I do? Spent a modest amount of money on unnecessary things.
This brings me to my printer of choice, the Creality Ender-3 V3 SE (don’t ask me what the V and S stand for; that was not part of my deep dive).
According to Reddit, this thing is a gigantic piece of shit. And in my experience, it is.
I cannot get it to print the same thing twice without some sort of imperfection.
But because of how my brain is wired, I like this.
I feel like I am really learning how to 3D print, not just copying and pasting a file and hitting a button.
And that is what hobbies are all about to me. I want to become an uneducated expert on the topic.
Now, I feel like I can talk the talk way more than if I were just pumping out prints on a beautiful, brand-new Bambu Lab A1.
An Entire House Full of Things Nobody Asked For
So what have I printed, you may ask?
Well, for starters, not a SpongeBob sponge holder.
Turns out, printing something in multiple colors isn’t quite as straightforward as I’d hoped. Automatic multicolor printing generally requires additional equipment, like the AMS lite system available for the Bambu A1.
My Ender doesn’t have that luxury. I could manually swap filament or assemble separately printed pieces, but for now, I’m sticking mostly to monochrome.
That hasn’t stopped me from turning my house into a wasteland of unnecessary gadgets that mildly improve our day-to-day lives.
I’m talking junk drawer organizers, juice box holders, koozies, toothbrush cases.
You name it, I’ve probably thought about it.
I’ve even dabbled in making my own designs. My pride and joy is a shotski I made for some summertime fun. It is a complete Frankenstein of an object, but it is my Frankenstein.
Should You Buy One?
So what am I trying to say here?
Should you buy an Ender-3 V3 SE?
Honestly, probably not.
If you’re looking for something that just works with minimal intervention, my particular experience with this machine would not inspire much confidence.
But if there’s a tinkerer in your life looking to sink their teeth into something new, 3D printing might just be their next brief obsession.