Are internet forums going extinct? 3D Printing

[92saturnsl2]

My son (17 yo) asked for a 3D printer for his birthday. I know nothing about them, so I deferred to him: A) decide what model you want, do some research and explain why-- bang vs buck; he knew the budget. I was still inquisitive; for subjects I have little knowledge about, I turn to internet forums. For something as popular as 3D printing, I was surprised that Google searches yielded forums that were mostly a ghost town or had huge lapses in posts/responses. If anyone knows of any that are worthwhile, I'd love to hear suggestions.

Sadly, I had to gather most information from Youtube which is not my preferred medium. Personally, I learn better by reading and can contribute knowledge by writing. You'll never see me on a Youtube video, I hate cameras. My wife says I'm not ugly , so it's just a personally quirk I suppose that I can't adapt to the new way of sharing information.

We decided to visit a Microcenter to see them in action and picked a Creality Ender 3 V3. It's been great and although I didn't need one, aquired a hobby that both my son and I enjoy (he doesn't share the car bug that I do).

 

[HonorAndHonesty]

Try reddit or a Facebook group for general 3d printing or for creality, those forums for prusa printers are very active, I believe creality forums are as well.

 

[fsdork]

Reddit is where I found the most helpful written "community" information when I got into 3D printing a couple years ago. YouTube has been the most helpful overall, particularly once I found a few channels which produce solid content.

 

[wwillson]

This thread https://rvthe.us/community/threads/3d-printing-and-your-rv.510/ at our RV site was published by our own @ctechbob He has a wealth of knowledge about 3D printing.

 

[ctechbob]

This thread https://rvthe.us/community/threads/3d-printing-and-your-rv.510/ at our RV site was published by our own @ctechbob He has a wealth of knowledge about 3D printing.

Lol, I wouldn't say a wealth of knowledge, I am very much a work in progress.

 

[GMBoy]

Lol, I wouldn't say a wealth of knowledge, I am very much a work in progress.

You are a wealth of knoweledge - seen it/read it with my own eyes!

 

[wwillson]

Lol, I wouldn't say a wealth of knowledge, I am very much a work in progress.

No need to be humble here....

 

[RazorsEdge]

I started out with 3d printing last Fall. Bought myself an Ankermake mc5. Worst purchase I've ever made. It would need constant leveling, bad hotend,buggy software,etc.

Bought myself a Bambulab P1S and have had "0" issues.

 

[Urshurak776]

I started with an Ender 3, then shifted to Prusa clones and now I have built 3 Voron's. It's a really fun hobby.

 

[joegreen]

I have an ender 3 pro I bought in 2019. Its been flawless in stock configuration. I recently bought the touch bl auto bed leveler and silent board. Both of which turns out were just luxury items and unnecessary. It was easy to manually level the bed and i never really had to mess with it after leveling once in a while.

 

[CarsSimplified]

I have an Ender 5 that I learned via YouTube and just trying it out, and a really early consumer 3D printer that I never got to print more than spaghetti.

The Hobby Electronics Section of the Linus Tech Tips Forums seems to discuss 3D printers/printing occasionally! I know the forum as a whole is active, but I don't know about 3D printing discussion specifically.

Not only are forums disappearing, but a lot of their replacements (Facebook groups, Discord communities) aren't search engine indexable, so you kind of have to have a friend in the know to gain access if the group doesn't make itself public or doesn't accept random members. With the Reddit-Google exclusivity thing that happened recently, things may continue to get worse, even with the relatively open-to-everyone web sites.

 

[ctechbob]

I fell into 3d Printing with an Ender 3. It showed up on my door one day compliments of my brother.

As far as parts upgrade, I use a silent board (It really does help if your significant other is sensitive to stepper motor whining, mine was) and a dual Z upgrade. Also a few printed upgrades to smooth the filament path and bigger fans for cooling. Other than that it is the only printer I've had. I'm really interested in the new Bambu printers, but I doubt I'll ever pull the trigger on one.

Ohh, also a Raspberry Pi running Octoprint is a very worthy upgrade to lots of printers. Makes controlling the printer and sending prints so much easier.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

Forums are definitely going away.
Facebook groups seem to be the new thing. I prefer forums. Easier to follow threads, find info and when people do builds it's a better way to document it than 500 facebook posts in a group with 10000 other people.