3DPrinting
3DPrinting is a place where makers of all skill levels and walks of life can learn about and discuss 3D printing and development of 3D printed parts and devices.
The r/functionalprint community is now located at: or [email protected]
There are CAD communities available at: [email protected] or [email protected]
Rules
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No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia. Code of Conduct.
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Be respectful, especially when disagreeing. Everyone should feel welcome here.
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No porn (NSFW prints are acceptable but must be marked NSFW)
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No Ads / Spamming / Guerrilla Marketing
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Do not create links to reddit
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If you see an issue please flag it
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No guns
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No injury gore posts
If you need an easy way to host pictures, https://catbox.moe may be an option. Be ethical about what you post and donate if you are able or use this a lot. It is just an individual hosting content, not a company. The image embedding syntax for Lemmy is 
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The sad reality is that we are going to see more and more printer companies building up walled gardens. There is money in models and the end goal is going to be one model site per slicer per manufacturer. There will still be the open source build your own printers but... there is a reason everyone recommended a Bambu over one of those.
As of right now? Qidi are pretty awesome in the semi-proprietary space and have a good track record of releasing the g-code macros required to interface with their printers (e.g. chamber temperature controls). Time will tell what they do with their multi-material solution though.
I don't think we will reach the point of walled gardens for finding/downloading STLs. A lot of us are massive nerds and someone will stand up another STL host. There's also GitHub, but without a STL aggregator it does kind of stink.
Most of the STLs are also developed by the community and are generally free themselves, although some are trying to create a revenue stream for themselves on places like Cults. I don't think that's a walled gardens though - creators are choosing to post their content there and ask $$ for it. Unless someone like Bambu pays top dollar for models, I don't think they'll be able to take over the STL market.