3D printer, I resisted as long as I could...

I resisted as long as I could, and finally broke and bought a 3D printer when they came under $1k AUD.

Whilst i've mostly printed drone/quadcopter parts and the odd toy/thing for the kids, showing cousins and others how they work and triggering ideas in others, is a great thing

I chose the Wombot Exilis which for $980 AUD is awesome value. It's semi hobby-ist, but no soldering, no complexity, just initial alignment and then adjusting every 40 hours of printing they suggest.

It came like this:

Some of the parts are 3D printed, see below -it's actually cracked straight out of the box.. Apparently now they are injection moulded to avoid this, I should really contact them to replace

"standard" 1 button/wheel interface, works well once you use it

I had to change the filament and it got stuck, so un-screwed the extruder as below and cleaned it out. Now i'm using an old sparkler wire with padding on the end to push the filament through once heated, which means I don't need to disassemble as below :)