this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2025
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Hot take: 3D printing toys kinda sucks (lemmy.world)
submitted 18 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) by squaresinger@lemmy.world to c/3dprinting@lemmy.world
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I used to print quite a lot of toys for my kids, but I stopped doing that, since it feels mostly like a waste of plastic.

3D printed toys are rarely enjoyable. The toys are usually either not interesting enough (think static, non-movable, single-color figurines like the low-poly-pokemon series), or not durable enough or both at the same time.

My kids liked the printed toys when they got them, but they barely looked at them after like 10 minutes and then they ended up rolling around the house until they broke, usually very soon.

I love 3D printing, I use it a lot for all sorts of things, but toys are just not a very good application for 3D prints, in my opinion. It's just not worth the plastic.

Edit: Just for context: I've been around the block with 3D printing. I started about 7 years ago and I've been the 3D printer repair guy for my circle of friends ever since, fixing up everyone else's printers. I design most of the things I print myself. The reason I am posting this is because pretty much everyone I know who has a printer and kids prints toys all the time, and any time I'm at any event where someone can shoehorn a box of give-away low-poly-pokemon in, there is one there.

IMO, this is all plastic waste and nothing else.

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[–] NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml 12 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

The fragile part is easily fixed by changing the print material and/or infill percentage. You're right on all other points though.

3d Printing can lose it's luster over time if you don't make the effort of learning 3d CAD software and making new designs. -This is my current struggle as FreeCAD is a painful piece of software to use.

[–] squaresinger@lemmy.world 2 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

The fragile part is easily fixed by changing the print material and/or infill percentage. You’re right on all other points though.

You can make it clunky, but then it's not appealing any more. That's why I said that it's a trade-off between clunky and not interesting on the one side and fragile and not durable on the other side.

infill percentage

Btw, perimeters do a huge amount more for stability than infill.

3d Printing can lose it’s luster over time if you don’t make the effort of learning 3d CAD software and making new designs. -This is my current struggle as FreeCAD is a painful piece of software to use.

I've been 3D printing since 7 years now, and I mostly design the things I print myself. For functional parts and prototyping, 3D printing is amazing. I am specifically talking about toys here.

[–] NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml 2 points 11 hours ago

Fair enough. I guess I can't relate to that.