Quote Originally Posted by crash View Post
Good to hear that the filament material is cheap. Are there any other consumables on the printer?

Sounds like your time, and probably the upfront cost of the equipment, are the biggest expenses?
At some point, everything on the printer is a consumable item.

But in terms of print-to-print, just the filament cost.

So yeah, time on the CAD is the biggest "cost" on any new part, assuming hardware and CAD license are already shored up.

On the note of CAD, Fusion 360 has a hobby license that makes it free. They don't make it easy to find the link to do the registration for such, but it can be done. Also, veterans can pick up a 1yr license for SolidWorks for cheap, I think it was $25 for me last year. I don't think SolidWorks has another cheap license for hobbyists, so if you're not a veteran and your employer doesn't have it, you're out of luck.

Both Autodesk and SolidWorks have training plans that'll get you started using the product enough to make some easy objects. Also, "Google University" has been pretty good to me.