this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2025
81 points (95.5% liked)

3DPrinting

18997 readers
456 users here now

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 !functionalprint@fedia.io

There are CAD communities available at: !cad@lemmy.world or !freecad@lemmy.ml

Rules

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 ![](URL)

Moderation policy: Light, mostly invisible

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
j4k3@lemmy.world
andypiper@lemmy.world
GrayBackgroundMusic@lemmy.zip
81
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
48 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] neclimdul@lemmy.world 7 points 13 hours ago

Couple of thoughts.

First, what you described sounds like most of the toys I've bought my kids growing up so if it brought them joy, probably about as valuable as anything else.

Second, my experience is a bit different. My sons have 3d printed nick nacks displayed on their shelves and both have fidget toys they play with on the regular. Also I've got a chain fidget in my pocket I've been playing with all day.

I've also got a box of less successful toys I'd love to recycle if I could but definitely some wins too. So I think there are a lot of toys you'd be right about but also a lot of them are actually pretty interesting and fun to the right person