[jeroenhd]

> would have a 3D printer to make one off repairs

The problem with that is, like many people found out the hard way, that printing is the easy part and 3D CAD design is much harder.

Many people now have 3D printers to print all kinds of useful tools, though, and there are businesses dedicated to one-off prints for the very occasional repair.

[saulpw]

Similarly, it seems like people are finding out the hard way that coding is the easy part and software design/architecture is much harder.

[zeroonetwothree]

It was always the hard part, hence why experienced eng get paid 5-10x what new grad do. It’s not because they type faster.

[mitkebes]

>printing is the easy part and 3D CAD design is much harder.

I'm curious if AI will make that part more accessible. You can ask Gemini to make you a parametric openSCAD model and it can do a pretty good job for most designs I've tried. Then just plug in your measurements, export the stl to your slicer, and print.

[fragmede]

3D cad is avoided by having a critical mass of other people putting their cad online. I used https://makerworld.com/models/77668 to replace my one that broke. Easy-peasy.