I’m creating a board game that has custom 3d pieces. I’d like to test out my print before I send it to the game manufacturer and also want to make demo sets. They need a huge tooling fee before they’ll do samples. There are app. 10 designs and no bigger than 45mm.

I’m not sure as to whether I should buy a starter printer or would the learning curve be so big that I should just have a POD company do it. I know blender really well but have never printed anything from a file. I was going to make the file from blender for the company too. Any thoughts? I think my SO and I would use it for other things, probably, maybe, if it’s not so complicated that I give up on it.

Thanks for any advice on this, I don’t know what direction to point on this and I have a ton of work to do already.

Edit: You guys are awesome. I went from totally lost to ordering the Neptune 3 Pro and it should be here next week. Thanks for everything and I hope it goes pretty smoothly, I’ll keep you posted. Thanks again.

  • @cryball@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    4•11 months ago

    This is what 3d printing really shines in. Churning out prototypes for minimum cost.

    If you’re already familiar with blender, you would only need to learn how to use a slicer, which is not that hard in comparison. Just import the model and fiddle around with print settings if needed.

    I came into 3d printing as a complete noob, and most of my time has been spent learning to do modeling in blender/cad. Slicing and printing itself is simple in comparison. Resin might be more involved.

    • @PeleSpirit@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2•11 months ago

      That’s super great to hear that the slicing should go easy. I’ve been looking at YouTube and I downloaded Prusa, it looks like if I follow the directions and don’t change much, it should be fine. I appreciate the encouragement because I am a total noob at this part for sure.