I use my printer when I need it. Once I learned CAD, the need to print toys and trinkets basically evaporated. (I did just print a tiny guitar for my daughter for Christmas as a placeholder for a trip to the guitar store after the holidays were over.)
The printer is now an extremely useful tool. The drawback is that I don't use as much filament and have had a few spools degrade on me. It's no biggie, but it's a time suck to dry it and get it usable again.
Do what I do, when you have filament, extrAs, supports. Leave them in a 5 gallon bucket until 2/3 full. Then go out to the garage with your old toaster oven and make filament bricks. It takes no time at all to make....please help me I have filament bricks 9x12x1" everywhere. Please normalize this lol
Same but when I do use it, wow is it handy to have around. It's more than paid for itself with all the stuff I've been able to fix with it or make outright.
I am the same way but I get hell from the wife for purchasing something that isn't being used. So now I have a table full of articulated dragons, and a wife asking why I have so many....
I recently tried some dual-color silk filament. Half the filament is one color, half is another color. It makes cool looking parts that are different colors on each side.
To print. My favorite to print! (“Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal! Ahahahah!”)
Although for testing new filaments, I usually go with a small egg-shaped spiral printed glue pot (or paint pot or small parts holders,) small things, I feel like spiral prints show flaws, as well as layer adhesion issues.
(I mean, that’s the joke, right? I do play…. Even when no one is around. Actually? Helps me focus; gives my mind a rest from problems for a minute, if that makes sense.)
I litterly got bed leveling simply because the act of leveling was too annoying and I'd end up either spending way too long on it or simply not bother printing anything at all
My wife is from Italy, so I printed out a topo of the valley where she grew up. It took me a long time to figure out how to change to the European projection in the software I was using, and I didn't write down how I did it; unfortunately I'm not sure I can figure out it again! There's a digital elevation TIFF of the whole EU available online, even Czechia! If you want to make it a project, I can point you in the right direction and give you some pointers on converting to a obj file to print. I found a couple websites that went through the process, but I didn't find their directions very complete and had to figure a lot out myself.
I'm a mod in a telegram group (not piracy oriented). Pretty much every other day comes in a clueless idiot asking, ipsis literis, "what's the best printer?"
Ask said idiot what they want to print and you're met with one of two: silence or "I wanna print some stuff". What stuff? "Oh just a couple of stuff first, you know" - They want a printer without having a fucking clue of anything and they're always surprised to know that resin printers are a thing.