3DPrinting
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: !functionalprint@kbin.social or !functionalprint@fedia.io
There are CAD communities available at: !cad@lemmy.world or !freecad@lemmy.ml
Rules
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No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia. Code of Conduct.
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Be respectful, especially when disagreeing. Everyone should feel welcome here.
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No porn (NSFW prints are acceptable but must be marked NSFW)
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No Ads / Spamming / Guerrilla Marketing
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Do not create links to reddit
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If you see an issue please flag it
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No guns
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No injury gore posts
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 
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If I remember correctly the entire home 3D printing industry was held back by patents for decades. It was technically possible and feasible for much longer than we have commercially available 3D printers, but one or two businesses held all the patents and made it impossible to sell them cheap.
I'm starting to learn that patent trolling is a much bigger problem than we give it attention for.
The worst example I've heard so far is a US patent on fungi or mycelium as a plastic and styrofoam alternative. Think biking helmets or packaging material. That's almost like granting a patent for wood as a construction material. It's outrageous and seriously damaging progress across the globe because no one gets funding for something you can't sell in the US.
Being in this community has taught me that patents are stupid as fuck. Any time someone tries to bring up the topic, defending patents, I bring up how 3d printers could have been a thing when they were a kid. We were held back for 3 decades of progress because of a patent. Because of that we are essentially 3d printing like it's 1995 right now.
Without these patent trolls I truly believe we would all be able to be SLS sintering our own metal car parts at home. But instead we're still printing plastic toys