https://community.element14.com/technologies/3d-printing/3D printing is everywhere. Join our new group and keep up on all the latest trends around this burgeoning new movement.en-USTelligent Community 12https://community.element14.com/technologies/3d-printing/f/forum/56568/i-am-thinking-to-buy-a-3d-printer-but-my-budget-hangs-around-200-dollars-i-am-a-student-and-need-it-for-small-non-comlex-designs/235366Tue, 05 May 2026 16:17:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:7f6161d9-e695-435e-94c9-9683ef08c503MattThere are a bunch of accessories you might want to consider getting.. I've blogged about it previously, so I'll paste in the list I collated: £3 Digital Caliper ; essential for designing your own 3D models! I've recently upgraded to the Duratool steel caliper and really like it; Duratool steel caliper £5 3D Printer tool kit ; there are multiple kits to choose from, but the trimming knife, scraper, cleaning needle, tweezers, and pliers deburring kit is more than enough IMO. £6 Storage box (216x165x95mm); sure you could print one, but they're cheap, well built & have foam inserts. Great for storing all your accessories. £3 Humidity sensors ; for putting with your filament to warn you when the humidity is too high. £7 Amazon Vacuum Bags and Hand Pump ; for storing your filament away from moisture. £3 Desiccant ; orange reusable silica gel beads for keeping moisture away from your filament in storage. Allow 50g per spool. In v.sunny weather you can even dry them outdoors. £50 Ikea Air purifier ; in my tests it does a good job filtering PM2.5 particles. New filters are £5 each. £6 Dust Cover ; There are times that you won’t be using your 3D printer for a while, so a dust cover is a good investment for the A1 Mini (45x45x48cm).https://community.element14.com/technologies/3d-printing/f/forum/56568/i-am-thinking-to-buy-a-3d-printer-but-my-budget-hangs-around-200-dollars-i-am-a-student-and-need-it-for-small-non-comlex-designs/235365Tue, 05 May 2026 16:08:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:52b5b831-d6ee-46b8-8996-9ace8ca28ecaAniket_kumar_rajTaking notes...https://community.element14.com/technologies/3d-printing/f/forum/56568/i-am-thinking-to-buy-a-3d-printer-but-my-budget-hangs-around-200-dollars-i-am-a-student-and-need-it-for-small-non-comlex-designs/235364Tue, 05 May 2026 16:04:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:274947c2-49ce-4bb0-93f3-ab26728e7593MattAbsolutely.. they're often on sale. Then you can get some filament without breaking the budget.https://community.element14.com/technologies/3d-printing/f/forum/56568/i-am-thinking-to-buy-a-3d-printer-but-my-budget-hangs-around-200-dollars-i-am-a-student-and-need-it-for-small-non-comlex-designs/235363Tue, 05 May 2026 15:54:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:61f5f5a9-dd9e-4877-b899-4cdc7b83d9d8rsjawale24Bambu Lab A1 or A1 mini. They were on sale few months back. Keep checking the website for future salehttps://community.element14.com/technologies/3d-printing/f/forum/56568/i-am-thinking-to-buy-a-3d-printer-but-my-budget-hangs-around-200-dollars-i-am-a-student-and-need-it-for-small-non-comlex-designs/235351Tue, 05 May 2026 13:24:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:814c2612-1b23-4f5b-968d-b52fd9bd40fcMattI'm relatively new to 3D printing after buying a Bambulab A1 Mini last year, which has been brilliant. It took about 20 minutes to set up and is very much plug-and-play. I've been using PLA for all my prints.. nothing more exotic than that, and have maybe had 2 failed prints in over 100. For designing my own stuff I've used OnShape, and have loved how it all works in a browser, letting me jump from my laptop to my gaming PC to pick up where I left off.https://community.element14.com/technologies/3d-printing/b/blog/posts/upgrading-a-spacemouse-enterprise-with-a-detachable-usb-c-cableWed, 08 Apr 2026 17:36:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:950c62be-7c40-48bb-a6fd-26fee7889940vmateLate last year, I got a decent deal on a SpaceMouse Enterprise. I've grown to love it after suffering through the steep learning period (at least for me, as I only do 3D design every once in a while, to 3D print stuff). I basically can't design things without it anymore, it's super convenient and useful. For anyone unfamiliar, it's basically a 6 DoF controller, where the big central thing can be twisted, pulled, pushed, lifted, pressed down, etc. It makes moving the camera so much nicer and more natural, and the programmable keys are great to map frequently used actions to. The most useful part is using it with my laptop on the go though, where navigating things is a massive pain otherwise. There's only one problem: someone at 3DConnexion decided that a permanently attached, 2 meter long USB-A cable would be a great choice for this. I constantly get tangled up in it, it's a pain to pack it up to fit in its official carrying case, and my laptop's USB-A port is usually occupied by something else. I took it apart to start thinking about the best way forward. Unfortunately the hole for the stock cable is too small to fit a USB-C port behind, so I had to get creative. I found these "USB-C extension" cables online, which are super non-standard and dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. Do NOT use them if you can avoid them, it will end up one day at someone not familiar with electronics and burn their house down, as it lacks any of the E-markers and other safety features regular cables have. For example, you can extend a 240W cable with it, the charger won't be "aware" of the extension cable(as the extension just 'passes through' the identification signals from the 240W cable), proceed to pump 5A at 48V through it, and possibly light the thing on fire, if the extension cable was not designed for those power levels. However, for what I need, this is perfect. I cut the female end off, and test fitted it into my SpaceMouse. I really liked how this looked, so I ordered a JST-SHR cable, which the factory cable uses to connect to the PCB, and figured out the pinout of the extension cable. One thing to keep in mind when working with USB-C is the CC pins. A compliant USB-C source will not enable VBUS until it detects a connected device. For our purposes, all we need is two 5.1k pulldown resistors on the CC lines. This identifies the device as a power sink and causes the upstream port to supply 5V. There are also a bunch of extra wires we do not need, namely four separately shielded twisted pairs(the two USB3 TX and RX pairs), and the SBU1 and SBU2 sideband wires. I trimmed these short, and only kept the single twisted pair needed for USB2.0 (the white and green wires), the two VBUS wires(red), and the two CC wires (blue and yellow). The CC wires were soldered to 0.25W through-hole resistors and connected to ground. The two resistors are under the heatshrink, and the two VBUS pins are tied together, then soldered to the JST-SHR cable. I opted to splice a premade JST-SHR cable on there, instead of crimping my own, as the crimp contacts are *really* tiny. I routed the cables inside so I could fit the two halves together, and quickly test if everything still worked. Thankfully everything worked just fine, so I reassembled everything, and added back the sticky rubber feet. And here's the end result: It's way less bulky than the original cable, and also fits better in its carrying case now: It's also much quicker to put away if I need extra space on my desk, and then get it back when needed, as I don't have to crawl under the desk to mess with the cable.3d modelingusb-cspacemouse3D Printingusbretrofitupgradehttps://community.element14.com/technologies/3d-printing/f/forum/56568/i-am-thinking-to-buy-a-3d-printer-but-my-budget-hangs-around-200-dollars-i-am-a-student-and-need-it-for-small-non-comlex-designs/232895Wed, 07 Jan 2026 22:44:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:c1877539-431e-4cb5-9754-875bb22b7050Robert Peter OakesYour not going to get much for the 200$ but as said, just google "3d printers under 250$" for example. creality, anycubic etc all have offerings in that category and all big enough for printing PI Cases etc. just dont expect a lot of featureshttps://community.element14.com/technologies/3d-printing/f/forum/56568/i-am-thinking-to-buy-a-3d-printer-but-my-budget-hangs-around-200-dollars-i-am-a-student-and-need-it-for-small-non-comlex-designs/232868Wed, 07 Jan 2026 05:30:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:16570292-5333-4b7d-bc1f-fe66c74ea2c9Aniket_kumar_rajnope,i just want somethng durabe and of rnough size to ringt rasberry case,it wont bother me if its time consuminghttps://community.element14.com/technologies/3d-printing/f/forum/56568/i-am-thinking-to-buy-a-3d-printer-but-my-budget-hangs-around-200-dollars-i-am-a-student-and-need-it-for-small-non-comlex-designs/232866Tue, 06 Jan 2026 21:40:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:e75a9642-34f6-4b5a-90aa-bb29b46ac85dvmateWithout any description of what you want to do with it, how big, how fast, what materials, want to upgrade it, etc, you could've just googled it. www.reddit.com/.../https://community.element14.com/technologies/3d-printing/f/forum/56568/i-am-thinking-to-buy-a-3d-printer-but-my-budget-hangs-around-200-dollars-i-am-a-student-and-need-it-for-small-non-comlex-designsTue, 06 Jan 2026 11:16:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:f5b2f7ff-5b8a-4595-9b9c-823fde37db8aAniket_kumar_rajAny idea ,something which i can use for a long timehttps://community.element14.com/technologies/3d-printing/f/forum/51290/pre-processing-challenges/232843Mon, 05 Jan 2026 20:49:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:4b33c621-b0ba-4945-94e2-6454cdf40818olivia_49Pre-processing in 3D printing is challenging because selecting optimal slicer parameters is complex, time-consuming, and highly dependent on geometry and material, which is why AI and machine learning can help.https://community.element14.com/technologies/3d-printing/f/forum/56190/what-is-the-best-inexpensive-metal-3d-printer/232842Mon, 05 Jan 2026 20:48:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:306dbeb7-6540-46ef-9cf0-893841085eafolivia_49For carbon fiber 3D printing in North America, Markforged Mark Two, MakerBot METHOD Carbon Fiber, and QIDI X-CF Pro are popular and available from MatterHackers, Dynamism, or directly from manufacturers. For metal 3D printing, Desktop Metal, HP Metal Jet, and Velo3D are top options, usually purchased through specialized dealers or manufacturer quotes.https://community.element14.com/technologies/3d-printing/f/forum/56535/experience-with-custom-3d-printed-raspberry-pi-cases/232837Mon, 05 Jan 2026 17:14:00 GMT93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:bd81a6e4-ed62-4ff8-aa05-6e82d892788fRobert Peter Oakesthere are plenty of options on printables and thingiverse with or without fans for cooling https://www.thingiverse.com/search?q=pi+4%2C5+case&page=1 https://www.printables.com/search/models?q=pi+4+or+5+case over the years I have used many models from both sites without issues, but as already stated, Pi 4 and 5 do need a cooling solution if enclosed so pick wisely