I just think it's so cool that anyone can just make custom toys now and sell them.
Yes a lot of stalls just sell the same thing, but yesterday I went to a fair and the 3 big stalls were so unique.
1st stall was all about high precision toys. Like I can't explain how smooth the toys were. Talking to him he was all about making them as dialed in as possible with these tiny super delicate gears and moving wings on toys, or puzzles that glide like they are oiled off each other. I'm too lazy to go find the thing I bought as I was walking around the house playing with it.
2nd stall was all about large cartoony ones using a printer that can do up to 5 colors! I ended up getting a little dino!
Then the last one was a guy who only printed things he personally designed! With all his pieces being toys that are giant version of lego things like his giant lego light sabers that are straight out of lego star wars
(off his website as I didn't buy anything from him)
It's just so cool that these people can build their own little toy factories and make a variety of toys either in special ways, or make their own unique toys. I know it's not star treck replicators, but it's still just exciting to me.
I actually owned 3d printers in the past, but the effort to dial them in just wasn't super worth it to me, since it felt like an all day activity to get my cheap printer to print my little $2 toy. Would much rather spend $5 to get a much better version off of someone else who spends all day working to make the print quality ace and put their own spin on the toys.
Printers have progressed quite a bit. I have a Bambu X1 carbon and I have never done any dialing in, just some automated calibrations. It just works. I have two AMS's so I can theoretically print up to 8 colors, but I rarely do multicolor prints, I just keep it loaded with my most commonly used filaments so I don't have to bother with manually unloading/loading. If you need more structural parts, it can print polycarbonate or carbon-fiber nylon no problem. Mine has paid for itself a few times over.
I guess it has been 8 years since I had a printer XD I had an i3.