Hi, I am brand new to 3D printing. I recently had someone make something for me. And after seeing it, I was hooked. I am looking at a couple printers, a used Creality CR10V2, and a new Voxelab Aquila x2.
HI, @brun5150 Welcome to the forum, Glad to see you here. Please stick around and we will all take the adventure together. Great group of people here, everyone is always willing to help.
On this you are completely correct and many others agree, at least the ones that understand 3D printing and what it really is. The tech is a loonnngggg way away from being at a point were printers will work without knowing anything about them and how to operate and repair them. I doubt a true plug and play system will ever exist.
Anyone that watches Star Trek knows that the replicators are always breaking down.
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Yep. Much of what everyone’s saying is true of most technology innovations. I’m sort of in both camps - I just want the thing to bloody well work, but, I also find delving into the source code interesting at times, applying my mechanical skills to make repairs is satisfying as well. I have a baaaaad habit of picking hobbies that have dichotomy of being both simple on one level, but also contain hours and hours of masting little details.
In the two to 3 years I’ve been tinkering, I actually only just printed my first replacement part for a household object. It turned out well enough I printed a second and swapped the original out. What was it? the knob for our Air King range hood. In fact, the 3d printed ones feel more solid at 30% infill than the original ones did. She who must be obeyed was actually very pleasantly surprised, esp. given the amount of pla scraps I’ve tossed (and successfully recycling/reusing pla etc. is a whole other can of worms we can open here but one thing at a time eh?)
So, 3D printing has begun to accelerate in people’s minds and interest, much like cell phones have, until we’ve all apparently become pizza slice holding, cat video watching on little black glass bricks zombies compared to the old luggable systems that took a suitcase and built your strength. Thank Star Trek for the flip phone.
I don’t know what the curve of interest to adoption vs ease of use looks like - not my area of expertise by any means, but I think we will reach that tipping point, and then suddenly you’ll see more and more systems that just work, and we’ll start having a few specialists who know how to fix them but they’ll be a household appliance - can you imagine what the gift registry’s will look like there after? Perhaps hostess/host gifts will be someone gifting a premium roll of filament vs. wine…
Perhaps I’m wrong, and it only happens within the commercial space, and you get to see them in action, as fast as @mykepredko states, and you literally walk in, order the part you need from the dealer of whatever it is, they print, and hand it to you in as little as 15 minutes - say the same time it takes to walk in and order a pizza and walk out with a hot pie.
That’s the way I can see the market looking to reduce shipping costs: Industrial suppliers feeding raw material to the shops in their region. The shops getting access under license to the STL’s to sell the parts. Then you’ll have the custom mod shops who take a part, scan it, or have licensed access to the engineering files or permission to tweak the stl’s/mesh files, who will then charge for the bespoke tweak you needed.
(and secretly I want to put my printer into a closet so that I can get some horizontal workspace back, and seal up the distraction when I’m working from home 
)
It’s to late for you, just keep printing.
I agree with @Loosenut, It may be too late for us all…
We need to find a self-help group… WAIT, I think I’m on it…
Therapy starts tomorrow 
