I don’t have high expectations when it comes to technical support. I get frustrated at times with customer service in general. Sometimes, I seem to know more about the product than the representatives of the company that makes it. I can accept that, but usually I feel like they are trying to help me, not wasting my time.

I have several 3D Printers now. All of them have had problems at some point. Printers heat plastic to high temperatures, have a series of motors to move the pieces around…these are parts that wear over time. I’m not surprised that things fail over time.

I own two Anycubic Kobra 2 Printers. The Kobra 2 Plus and recently I bought the Kobra 2 Max. Both were purchased during good sales, so below MSRP. These are the exact same printer, except can print up to 320mm, the other 420mm. In the modern age, 3D Printers are starting to have cameras built in to monitor the print remotely. The Kobra series, even the new Kobra 3 line, offers a port to add a camera, and they sell it an inexpensive one as an accessory, but it is not included standard.

The Kobra 2 Plus has been a workhorse. It hasn’t broken, it rarely clogs and I only had to replace a degraded piece once. The Max, after calibration, has been about the same. There are opportunities to improve the print quality slightly with setting changes, but it is reliable. Reviews however, have gone both ways, with people either finding the Kobra 2 line wonderful or horrible.

After using the Plus for a long period of time, and getting the Max, I opted to finally get the camera. The device shows it detects a camera is connected, but it can’t be viewed in their Android app. It asked me to check if a camera was connected. When I had temporarily plugged in a Logitech camera to the Plus last year, it did work. I tried other cameras, and same. So, I assumed this was a software issue, and contacted Anycubic Support.

At the point I write this, I have been talking to them for the nearly the whole month. The rep has ignored every question I asked, continually asked questions I already answered, and finally, decided that I must need a new motherboard. When I asked if he meant two new motherboards, and asked how that would help the situation, he asked if I’d modified the printers in any way, which I hadn’t. Not that I didn’t consider it, considering that the software support for the Kobra 2 line is so limited that I transfer files to the printers on a USB drive, despite them having network connections.

Let’s contrast that with Elegoo. I also own a Centauri Carbon. It is a newer printer that was the rage to preorder this spring and summer. It produces high quality prints, and worked solidly to the point I picked it to print more and more. And it supports network printing from Linux, my chosen operating system, so no USB drive. They have no support for the Carbon in their app, but because the Carbon has open network control, someone wrote a third party Android app and I can monitor the built in camera.

So, 100% closed system on one printer, partially closed system on the other one. I am not a purist, but when someone figured out how to get the Kobra 2 line to actually support remote connections, Anycubic’s response was to close the hole, which is indicative of their approach.

The Carbon broke. It suddenly wasn’t printing correctly. It clogged and then wouldn’t work reliably even after I cleaned it up. When I dismantled it, I found the entire hotend assembly, which is the part of the printer that heats and distributes the melted plastic, was bent. I replaced it and contacted Elegoo. They asked for a picture, I sent it to them. They explained to me what they thought happened. They offered me a replacement hotend because the part failed so atypically. They have none in their US warehouse, which is a massive complaint people have about it, they not only offered to send it to me from their Chinese warehouse, they told me that if I got charged duties on the import, they’d reimburse me. They had a tracking number to me quickly.

The Carbon is not without controversy itself. They were so popular at the price point they were shipping out versions, discovering engineering issues, then correcting them for the next batch, leaving some of the earlier people who ordered it with problems. They promised automatic material switcher(AMS) support, but have experienced issues in delivering the product, and they are already launching a Carbon 2. Elegoo has a reputation for abandoning products and moving on to the next thing. But that’s the internet complaining, I have had no issues.

So far, Elegoo has done everything users asked, and risks alienating their customers due lack of long term commitment, but they gave me good support when I needed them. Anycubic produced good hardware, but their support…we are 21 days in and they just asked me for the serial number of the printer. They previously asked for video of the Android app not working…not sure how “Make Sure Your Camera is Connected” as an error message is video worthy.

I have 2 Anycubic Printers, not sure I’m inspired enough to buy from them again. I’ve left relationships with companies for less. There is always Bambu Labs, which people love, and I do like my A1 Mini.

 

For those who like modularity and creativity, Ikea has always been an option for budget items you can creatively customize your home with. If you love modularity, creativity, and solving problems with practical tools, then you’ve probably explored Ikea hacks before. For years, budget-minded makers have been customizing Ikea furniture—reinforcing it, repurposing it, reimagining it.

But once you add a 3D printer to the mix, your options explode. Over the last few months, as I’ve repurposed and upgraded some existing Ikea pieces in my home, I’ve been designing and printing small parts to improve functionality, adapt legacy hardware, and customize how each piece fits into my space.

However, when you combine Ikea with a 3D printer, you can take your creativity to a new level. As I repurpose existing Ikea pieces, I have tried:

• Reinforcing brackets to strabilixe old pieces and prevent wobblying
• Adapters to help newer fittings fit older discontinued pieces
• Shelf drilling guides to add extra shelf holes to bookcases
• reproduction of spare parts such as hinges, pegs, and clips
• Wire grommets to cleanly route wires through desks or cabinets
• Adding pegboard to the side of bookcases and others
• Custom organizers and brackets for Ikea systems such as the Skadis pegboard system
• Skadis panels of sizes not available
• Device mounts and cable clips.

Some of these are practical—stopping a wobbly Billy bookcase from breaking. Others are creative, like turning a plain desk into a smarter command station with cable management, a microphone arm, and mounted shelves.

What makes this approach powerful is that 3D printing restores and extends the modular spirit of Ikea. Not only can you get parts free from other people, you can design your own, print fast, and you can tweak them to fit your exact needs—no settling for generic “close enough” hardware.

Ikea has always been about customization on a budget. With a 3D printer, that customization doesn’t stop at rearranging shelves—it extends to the components themselves. You can reinforce, revive, and reimagine every flat-packed piece you own.

Not long ago, I was talking about wall mounted systems for organization, and the 7 pieces of wallboard I mounted, and the scores of brackets I printed to fill them. So many brackets in fact, I have to replace some parts of the printer. But, walls are not the only organizational opportunity. The next one is drawers. I have a lot of little drawers stuffed full of items I’d like to make organized.

Gridfinity- Your Drawer Organization Solution

And that brings me to Gridfinity. Gridfinity is a 4x4cm grid system you can place on the bottom of drawers. Inserts for the grid can be customized for specific sizes within the grid.  Because of the small size of the grid, you can install it flexibly in different size spaces, and then install bins and organizers of 1×1, 2×1, etc sizes.

When I replaced several drawers about three years ago, I added in some static kitchen organizing trays. They fit the drawers, but none of the bins were exactly the size I needed for what I wanted to put in the drawer. In my first Gridfinity installation, I removed the bamboo dividers and replaced them with custom sized gridfinity. The drawer now has bins for neatly getting everything I want to be able to access in there. And if what I want changes, I can remove, rearrange, and replace bins.

You just have to visit the Gridfinity subreddit to see image after image of unique ways this system is being used for creative organization.

Once you get above a certain size bin, Gridfinity is probably not the system for you. For example, if you wanted to organize a clothing drawer, a 4x4cm grid is probably not the right design. But this is yet another good way to utilize a 3d printer to organize your life.

I have gotten back into the world of 3D printing. A few years ago, I bought my first 3D printer, the much beloved(though not by me), Ender 3 V2. It was released in May of 2020, and described to me as a tinkerer’s printer. Every part on it could be upgraded. And as soon as you bought it, there were scores of places people online would tell you that you needed the metal extruder, the metal bed leveling nuts, an upgraded bowden tube, an all metal hot end, automatic bed leveling sensor…etc etc etc.

I thought I liked tinkering, and I do, but I never got to do the thing I bought the printer to do…actually print. Reading Amazon reviews now, I see things like, “Spend money, buy a better one.” or “Waste of money” Makes you wonder why so many people loved it.

So, while I am making one last attempt to fix the Ender 3 V2 as a backup(depressingly ordering $30 worth of parts the day before Microcenter announced clearing out the Ender 3 V2s they have for $50 a pop…and a later model with all the enhancements for $70), I have moved on to the Bambu Labs series. This summer I acquired a Bambu A1 Mini. The A1 Mini has a print area of 180mm square, and offers multi-color filament printing with the optional AMS add-on. There is also its slightly bigger brother, the A1, with its larger 256mm square print area.

Some of the advancements are because it has been 4 years of advancements. I was printing my first print less than 20 minutes after I opened the box. And my second…and third. And even without doing my own design, there are thousands of things I would find useful to print in future. I haven’t had to upgrade anything, I haven’t yet had to replace anything…it just works

This is what I wanted over 4 years ago. I wanted to just make stuff. And now I can.