3D Printers/Printing CATCH ALL

Asterith wrote:

Hello all, I'm interested in joining the realm of the 3D printers. I'm thinking about a Monoprice Voxel but wanted to check in with existing users to see what their thoughts were.

Existing user here. I like that there's not a lot for me to fiddle with and that it's enclosed, but you don't get a lot of selection in terms of slicers and support for normal 1kg spools of filament with the spool-covering panel on (I take the panel off and use these to support the 1kg spool size). The built-in camera can be accessed without going through the cloud as long as you can reach the printer's IP address, but it's kind of crap quality-wise. It's been pretty reliable, and the few occasions where the nozzle has jammed have been relatively easy to rectify by reversing the filament, cutting it cleanly, and feeding it back through with a little extra force. Most problems I've had were from me playing with the temperatures, causing some warping, and not storing my PLA in an air-tight container for days and weeks between prints causing it to not adhere to the bed as intended.

I will probably start small doing minis but definitely looking at doing bigger prints as well. I am also getting in to woodworking and I have some ideas for making custom jigs and other parts that might be useful. Also like to tinker with electronics so it could also be useful there. The possibilities are endless!

I know nothing about the Voxel and hadn't heard of it before so I don't have any input on that.

You want to start with Minis. Do you want them to look real nice or just be serviceable? If you OK with just serviceable, then an FDM (filament) printer will work for you. And, a filament printer is what you are going to want for your bigger items like custom jigs, etc.

If you want minis that look amazing, then you want a resin (SLA, DLP, etc) printer. But, a resin printer isn't feasible for functional items like jigs. They will be too brittle and too small, unless you get a resin printer with a larger build plate, and those are expensive. And that only solves the size issue, they will always be brittle.

You _can_ get Minis to look good on an FDM printer once you get your profile(s) dialed in. And to do that, your best bet is to buy a printer that has a LOT of community support and can use the files sliced in the slicer programs that are most common. But, your minis will never look great, they will peak at just good.

If I were starting out new knowing what I know now and had around $500 to drop on a printer... I would get both. I would buy an entry resin printer like the Anycubic Photon for under $200 and then I'd get an Ender 3 Pro (or V2). There are other budget resin printers like the Phrozen Sonic Mini.

The restriction you would still have if you bought both is the upper size of what you can print. I don't know what size jigs you want to make, but the Enders only have a build volume of 220x200x250mm. I think that is still bigger than the Voxel, though.

The Photon is an entry level resin printer but still prints amazing minis and other figurine sized items. The Phrozen is, too. Being resin printers, they have a higher ongoing cost to own. You need a way to cure the prints, so you need to buy or make a UV light setup. Or just use the sun, of course. You have to clean the prints to wash off the extra resin before you cure them. You'll need gloves and a work area to do all the post-work on the resin prints. The LCD panel will eventually wear out and you will need to buy a new one. And the film on the bottom of the vat will eventually need to be replaced. The material cost in resin for a mini is negligible, like $0.08 - $0.15 for a normal sized mini.

The Ender 3 is one of the best budget FDM printers, albeit small (relative to other FDM printers, not resin printers). There is a huge community using the Ender 3 and other printers that are pretty much the same but with different build plate sizes. When you run into issues - and you will - there are many people out there and someone has run into your issue before.

The ongoing cost for a FDM printer is mainly just filament. You will eventually need to replace the nozzle, but they are real cheap. Besides that, there's not much that will wear out on it any time soon. Depending on which one you buy, you'll end up wanting to replace pieces of it like possibly the extruder or hotend, but they aren't items that are supposed to ear out like the resin printers' LCD panels and FEB film.

I had a Monoprice Mini Select V2 for a little while. It printed very well, and I didn't do anything to it to make it print well. My friend gave it to me and it was basically plug-and-play with Cura (the slicer software). I printed some minis on it and the quality was only barely below what I was getting with my Tevo Tornado (like an Ender 3, but bigger). I only tweaked the normal settings for printing minis. I gave it to my brother to take back overseas with him so he could print board game pieces with it. The only issue I had with the Mono Mini was it didn't let my OctoPi know when a print was done so I had to cycle the power off and on to start a new print.

If you are OK with just "good" minis (which don't come easy, there's a LOT to tweaking on an FDM printer to get them to be good), then get a larger FDM printer. Especially if the long-term goal is the shop pieces like your jigs and the minis are just a side thing. But, unless you really want the Voxel for some reason (enclosure, maybe?), I'd get a Creality CR-10/CR-10S/CR-10S Pro/etc. Larger build volume (300x300x400mm), lots of community support, and fits in your budget.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the Voxel; I don't know anything about it except what Kurrelgyle posted above and the build volume that I looked up. It may be an amazing printer with fabulous community and possibly even manufacturer support. You're not going to get manufacturer support with a Creality printer. If there is a Slicer software restriction on the Voxel, that would bother me. Not using 1KG spools natively also stinks.

Mid-post-edit: I watched some of the video above and I'm watching Joel right now review the printer. It prints very well. I hope Joel shows a mini the size of a D&D mini. As for the 1KG spools, the workaround that Kurrelgyre uses is a good one. I use the same thing Kurrelgyre uses for my spools. I printed one for my brother and for me and I really like how they work.

Now that I've seen Joel's video, I still wouldn't change my recommendation to getting the Voxel. The Voxel has some interesting features that you won't get with a Creality printer, but the drawbacks outweigh them to me. And some of the items that seem like positive features are negatives to me, or just not something I would ever want to use. Some points:

- I think the Voxel would be very appealing to someone new to 3D printing. I also think that some of the appealing features would be viewed as drawbacks later.

- I would never use the cloud features.

- It not using normal gcode bothers me. A lot. Maybe Cura supports slicing to gx files for this printer now.

- The WiFi ability (and Ethernet ability) of the printer seems good at first glance, but I would never use it. I would always print off of an SD card or from OctoPrint (if it supports gx code). I don't want my PC streaming the code to the printer while it's printing and then the print getting interrupted and failing because something happens with my PC.

- The leveling of the bed seem nice, but the leveling system has its drawbacks as seen in Joel's video. Once you learn how to manually level a FDM printer, it's easy and fast.

- I don't like that the extruder is in a cramped spot.

- Those prints of Joel's looked real nice. I mentioned it above, but it bears mentioning again. Not that a Creality won't print as well, but it's good knowing that this printer can whip out some nice prints. I bet it will print a mini as well as an Ender or CR10, though, since I was printing good ones with the Select Mini V2 without tweaking anything except the normal settings you would mess with to print minis.

- ABS: This may be important to you - if you are wanting to make functional pieces to use in your garage, you are probably not going to want to print on a filament printer with PLA filament. PLA filament is what almost everyone prints with. The problem with PLA is it isn't that flexible, it's brittle, and it can't take heat very well. For something in your garage that may be under some stress or get hot in the summer, you will want to print with PETG or ABS. The good thing is the Voxel has an enclosure and will do a decent job of hiding the smell that ABS gives off while printing. And if the Voxel can handle the temperatures that ABS requires for printing, that means it can also handle the temperatures that PETG requires.

Sorry for the big dump.

-BEP

Joel's Video:

I'll say I'll never buy another printer that does not have auto level or has the feeder and hot end as separate modules (Creality stuff).

While ABS is stronger PLA is still pretty strong. A lot of cosplay stuff is printed in PLA so it can be outside you just don't want to print something that is gonna sit in the sun all day in PLA. I've seen people print whole star wars droids in PLA.

I hope the Voxel is better then the Creator Pro. (Also made by FF). By creator Pro got jammed a bunch. I became an expert on pulling the extruder motors out to unclog it. By contrast, I have had few problems with my Prusa even using the default print settings.. I even replaced the hot end and when I powered it back up I ran the software calibration and printed perfect right after that.

Asterith wrote:

I will probably start small doing minis but definitely looking at doing bigger prints as well. I am also getting in to woodworking and I have some ideas for making custom jigs and other parts that might be useful. Also like to tinker with electronics so it could also be useful there. The possibilities are endless!

Oh, and when you start your adventure into woodworking, start a "Woodworking Catch-All" thread! I don't think there is one here.

I've spent countless hours over the last couple couple months watching woodworking videos. I just love them. I'm going to be making a gaming table for my game room at some point, so I've been going back over all the videos I saved on that subject, along with all the normal woodworking videos that I like watching.

-BEP

bepnewt wrote:

- I think the Voxel would be very appealing to someone new to 3D printing. I also think that some of the appealing features would be viewed as drawbacks later.

- I would never use the cloud features.

- It not using normal gcode bothers me. A lot. Maybe Cura supports slicing to gx files for this printer now.

- The WiFi ability (and Ethernet ability) of the printer seems good at first glance, but I would never use it. I would always print off of an SD card or from OctoPrint (if it supports gx code). I don't want my PC streaming the code to the printer while it's printing and then the print getting interrupted and failing because something happens with my PC.

- I've never used the cloud features.
- The lack of standard gcode does bother me, but it hasn't prevented me from doing anything. For a starter printer, I'm ok with it.
- It has a USB port for physically loading in jobs, and while I've only used it for that a couple of times, I vastly prefer it to a SD card.

Just wanted to say thanks for all the input all. Bepnewt, your post was especially incredibly informative. Now time to think!

Kurrelgyre wrote:

- I've never used the cloud features.
- The lack of standard gcode does bother me, but it hasn't prevented me from doing anything. For a starter printer, I'm ok with it.
- It has a USB port for physically loading in jobs, and while I've only used it for that a couple of times, I vastly prefer it to a SD card.

A USB port for a thumb drive is quite better than an SD card slot; I didn't realize it had one and it's great that it does. SD card slots on 3D printers tend to break.

There are definitely some pros to the Voxel. The small print bed would be a show-stopper for me if I wanted to print functional items, though.

I bet customer service on the Voxel is heads and tails above what you will get with one of the Creality (or Tevo, etc.) printers.

I've mentioned the community as being a big Pro for the Creality printers. There are tons of those printers on the market and lots of people that have had whatever problems you end of having. But, most of the problems you will have are going to be general problems - not problems specific to your printer. Problems like under-extrusion, bad leveling/nozzle height, bed adhesion, issues with specific brands of filament, etc. And you have a forum member here (KG) who already has the Voxel who can help you with problems specific to that machine. Plus, I'm sure there are FBook, Reddit, Google Plus groups dedicated to your printer. Community help will favor the Prusa knockoffs (like the Creality printers), but it's not like you won't have any community support.

Figure out what size prints you will want to eventually make. If they don't fit on the Voxel build plate, then I would not consider that printer. If they will fit, then keep it on your list. There's no doubt that it makes some nice prints. I think it's just too expensive for what you get. I'm frugal and drive my wife crazy when I try to find the absolute best value for my money when I buy something, though.

Every printer has its target audience. When you mention both minis and functional items for a woodshop it makes me think the Voxel isn't for you. I've been wrong before - as in, many times probably just today!

I'm living with a little regret right now. I wish I had the money I spent on this Tevo Tornado back and instead spent it on a cheap resin printer and a smaller FDM printer. The build surface on the Ender is big enough for anything I want to filament print and the freakin' amazing quality minis this borrowed Photon cranks out is mind-blowing for it's price.

I donated my old NAS to a friend of mine yesterday and took 6 minis to him that I printed on the Photon for his kids to use in their D&D games. They were all blown away by the resin prints. He has an Ender 3 (I think Pro) and while his prints aren't bad, they are so very "meh" compared to the resin prints of the same minis.

Whatever you get, we're all going to be happy for you and excited to see what you make with it. You have me thinking about printing some bench dogs for my work bench in ABS. I've never printed in ABS before.

-BEP

karmajay wrote:

I'll say I'll never buy another printer that does not have auto level or has the feeder and hot end as separate modules (Creality stuff).

What kind of auto-leveling does your printer have, KarmaJay? Something like a BL-Touch? I've never gotten to use one. Auto-level is a nice feature, especially for a beginner. A large number of issues someone new will have will be related to bed leveling at first. If you have an auto-leveler, it will get you past those. I imagine it's like car features where you don't care about them until you have them and then can't live without it. I don't have any auto-leveling and it doesn't bother me since I'm very good at leveling my print bed. It takes about 1 minute and doesn't have to be done often. If the printer did that for me, it would be nice, but not a selling point unless it was free.

The feeder, on the other hand -- I'm on the same page with you there. What KarmaJay is referring to is how the Creality (and other knockoffs) uses a bowden tube to route the filament from the extruder to the hotend. The Voxel also does this. Other printers have the extruder pushing the filament directly into the hotend w/o a bowden tube in between. I don't know of any scenarios the bowden tube approach is better. MAYBE if you want to do multi-material prints, assuming your printer supported that? Dunno. One problem with the bowden tube printers is trying to print softer materials like nylon. Since the filament will want to compress when it is fed by the extruder, the long bowden tube can be a problem, especially if it has a lot of friction.

karmajay wrote:

While ABS is stronger PLA is still pretty strong. A lot of cosplay stuff is printed in PLA so it can be outside you just don't want to print something that is gonna sit in the sun all day in PLA. I've seen people print whole star wars droids in PLA.

All true. I still wouldn't print functional items for a garage in PLA if I had a choice - at least not here where it can be over 100* in my garage in the summer. PETG can be purchased for the same price and is better all around, but harder to print with until you get the hang of it. I've never looked at ABS prices, so don't know what that costs. Regardless of what you print your functional items in, the good part is you can reprint them if they do fail for whatever reason! If it's not going to be taking on a large amount or stress, then PLA will be fine. There are videos out there comparing the stress that different materials can take and are worth watching. Bottom line is any FDM printer you will probably consider for this purchase should be able to print the 3 bigs - PLA, PETG, and ABS. PLA definitely, and PETG/ABS will be determined by how hot your hotend and potentially how hot the heated bed can get.

Another upside of ABS is the ability to smooth it with acetone vapors. However, if I'm printing something to be a garage functional item, I wouldn't give a crap about whether the layer lines were visible or not.

-BEP

Here are some 3D printing channels on YouTube that I recommend. There are a couple more, but I can't think of their names/channels right now:

Thomas Sanlanderer - General 3D printing channel
https://www.youtube.com/user/ThomasS...

Joel Telling (3D Printing Nerd) - General 3D printing channel
https://www.youtube.com/c/3DPrinting...

Angus Deveson (Maker's Muse) - General 3D printing channel
https://www.youtube.com/user/TheMake...

Fat Dragon Games - Good tips on printing, especially in regards to tabletop gaming
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5L...

Devin (Make Anything) - General 3D printing channel, some interesting experiments
https://www.youtube.com/c/MakeAnythi...

Michael ? (Teaching Tech)- General channel with some dives into tech. Strays into other "maker" fields.
https://www.youtube.com/c/TeachingTech

3DPrintingPro - Resin focused channel. Good tips for printing.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbv...

Jesse ? (Uncle Jesse) - General 3D printing channel, some CosPlay focus here and there
https://www.youtube.com/c/UncleJessy

-BEP

What kind of auto-leveling does your printer have, KarmaJay? Something like a BL-Touch? I've never gotten to use one. Auto-level is a nice feature, especially for a beginner. A large number of issues someone new will have will be related to bed leveling at first. If you have an auto-leveler, it will get you past those. I imagine it's like car features where you don't care about them until you have them and then can't live without it. I don't have any auto-leveling and it doesn't bother me since I'm very good at leveling my print bed. It takes about 1 minute and doesn't have to be done often. If the printer did that for me, it would be nice, but not a selling point unless it was free.

Full mesh bed using a laser sensor. Good analogy but it is more like the person that still used a non-smart phone telling people they have no idea why people need phones for anything but phone calls

I should try PETG one day. ABS is pretty much the same price as PLA. I have my printer in my computer room with no enclosure so I just don't print ABS.

Bepnewt, for the photon how are you handling washing and curing? They're having a sale on the photons and their Wash and Cure station that has me intrigued.

[quote="karmajay"]I should try PETG one day. ABS is pretty much the same price as PLA. I have my printer in my computer room with no enclosure so I just don't print ABS.

Same - my filament printer is right behind my work desk and has no enclosure. I don't even have adequate ventilation

karmajay wrote:

Full mesh bed using a laser sensor.

I just skimmed a video on 7x7 mesh bed leveling on a Prusa. I don't know if it was laser or capacitive, or some other technology.

I also watched this one to get a better grasp on what options there are out there:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il9b...

There are more than I would have guessed! My manual method of leveling is a faster than the 7x7 mesh method I saw. My way isn't even in the ballpark in regards to precision than a mesh system if a bed isn't very flat. With a "flat" glass bed that doesn't have clamps or the like causing it to bend, my way is in the "close enough not to matter" ballpark. When I first got my Tornado, some sort of mesh leveling would have been awesome. The bed was not flat at all; the Tornados are notorious for not having flat beds.

Now that I see the mesh system in action, I think it's pretty cool. I don't know what it would take to mod my Tornado to use it, but it's probably a lot more work that I'm willing to put in to solve a problem that doesn't exist for me. I probably WOULD have done it at the time I was replacing my hotend because I had to mod the firmware at that time - assuming it was a semi-easy thing to do. I was already in the code and I had the wires unwrapped, etc. On a new machine, if it had the mesh leveling with one of the more precise options, I could see myself paying up to $50 more for it working straight out of the box.

The bed leveling on the Voxel seems wonky if Joel was explaining it correctly in his video I linked a few posts back ( here's the link at the precise location: https://youtu.be/thf_hQzHCSY?t=970 ). There is no way I would be able to see when the nozzle really touches the bed. And then you have to hope that the bed will never lose its perpendicularness to the nozzle. I wish they would have included _some_ way to adjust the bed like they did on the Monoprice Mini V2. I would never own a printer that did leveling the way the Voxel does unless there is some way to get it back perpendicular to the nozzle if it ever does get off.

karmajay wrote:

Good analogy but it is more like the person that still used a non-smart phone telling people they have no idea why people need phones for anything but phone calls ;)

My analogy was just off the top of my head, but now that I think about it, it's even better than I had originally thought. My first couple VW Beetles had manual windows, manual seat adjustments, manual locks, etc. They worked, and if they stopped working well, they were easy to fix. Each of those things provided some sort of functionality that existed, but was manual. At some point (1988), I inherited a car (1978 Oldsmobile 98 Regency) with electric windows, seats, and locks. The electric versions provided the same functionality and it was awesome. I never wanted non-electric windows and locks again, although it was now harder to fix them if something went wrong.

My printer doesn't have auto-leveling and it is easy and quick to do manually. Auto-leveling is even easier (but slower), providing the same result ( result = a bed that is adequately leveled to print on without issue ) as the manual leveling. Same functionality, but one is more convenient and non-manual.

The phone analog doesn't work because of the vast difference in functionality between the 2 devices. WAIT A MINUTE! You were taking a jab at people my age, weren't you? WEREN'T YOU?!?

On a different subject, ... never mind. New post for that.

-BEP

Karmajay - If one of the plastic pieces breaks on your Prusa, does Prusa provide the STLs to reprint the piece?

I watched a video over a year ago of someone 3D printing their own 3D printer and just loved it.

-BEP

Asterith wrote:

Bepnewt, for the photon how are you handling washing and curing? They're having a sale on the photons and their Wash and Cure station that has me intrigued.

At first, I had 2 containers, one with some 99% IPA (Isopropyl Alcohol, not the worst beer ever made, India Pale Ale) lying around and the other with water. I had an old head for my electric toothbrush so I used my toothbrush and the old head to clean the piece while dunked in the IPA. Then, I'd dunk it in water and do the same. It worked very well. You can tell when you cure a resin print and you didn't get all the resin off of it and I was getting really cleaned prints this way.

After maybe a week, there was a lot of resin in that alcohol so I assumed that I could stick the container of alcohol under the UV light and the resin would cure and sink to the bottom. Seems legit, right? I had the whole Internet in front of me where I could find out the right way to do it, and I decided to go rogue and try a random solution that my brain came up with. This was the result:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/uAxSZdO.png)

Alcohol Jello! Probably doesn't taste very good.

There's probably a correct thing to do, but I still haven't looked it up. I was out of 99% alcohol, and my friend who owns the printer gave me a squirt bottle of Simple Green that he says he uses to clean them and swears it is better than alcohol. I'm not sure what his process was. I tries squirting some of the print then using the toothbrush on it then dunking it in water and using the toothbrush on it. The prints just weren't getting clean enough.

I have some 90% (I think) IPA, which I have poured into the container that formerly held the AlcoJello, but haven't gotten to use it, yet. The last print failed and I forgot to scale the one before it correctly so I just tossed it under the UV lamp to get rid of the uncured resin before I dispose of it.

I just watched a video on the Wash and Cure station. That is pretty nifty and appears to work incredibly well. Because the price is so high, I would never get one. Again, I'm frugal and make a lot of bad decisions trying to save money (except plumbing - I won't touch plumbing).

I don't even OWN a resin printer at this point. I have it on halfway-decent authority that I will own one in the next 6 months and it will be one of the larger (8" or 10" build plate) models. So, this is my plan:

1) Buy a sonic jewelry cleaner for step 1 of the print cleaning and a tub of water for the second. The guy that reviewed that Wash and Cure says the wash and cure does an even better job than his sonic cleaner, but I could use a sonic cleaner, anyway, for my wife's jewelry and cleaning stuff in the garage. Many people use the sonic cleaners and are happy with the results so I am confident I will be happy, too. If anyone needs a comma, I'm sorry, but I am all out based on this paragraph.

2) 3D PLA (or PETG) Print an enclosure for the UV curing. Buy a cheap UV light and cheap turntable to hold the piece then line the inside of the printed enclosure with something like Aluminum Foil. Plans for these things are on Thingiverse.

If I didn't have an FDM printer, I would make a box out of cardboard instead of printing it and do the same with the little turntable and UV lamp.

-BEP

Ok, all this 3D printing talk has gotten me over the hump. I'm going to go try to figure out why my Tornado is doing weird under-extrusion for X number of layers after Y number of layers have printed. Then it prints fine. Then it under extrudes again.

THIS is the "fun" of 3D printing - figuring out what the hell is going wrong with your prints/printer. There are at least 4 things that come to mind immediately that could cause this. And I'm sure there are at least 4 more that I haven't thought of.

What's cool, though, is 2 more of my friends have recently gotten 3D printers (both Ender 3s) and have sent some pictures in our discord. My friend (who also has an Ender 3 - same guy I printed the resin minis for) and I were able to help them get their prints going. It almost makes me feel like I know what I'm doing, and then I look at my Tornado that has been dead for a while, and reality strikes. I'm just a noob who has gotten past some of the basic things that a lot of people run into.

It's still fun, though.

-BEP

BEP I'm probably older then you

I'm sure you can get replacement files from the community for most parts I'm sure.

So is there any need for extra ventilation for using either type of 3d printer? I am thinking of setting everything up in the unfinished part of the basement with the utilities since I have a lot of space but it doesn't have any windows. Trying to figure out if I need to make some modifications. I've looked around online and there doesn't seem to be any consensus one way or the other.

These are worth a read:
https://www.fabbaloo.com/blog/2019/9...

https://3dprintingcanada.com/blogs/n...

https://3dprinterly.com/how-to-venti...

I think there's enough evidence out there showing you need some sort of ventilation system for a resin printer. And you should probably wear a filtered mask, too. Some newer resin printers have built-in filtration systems - how well they work, I don't know.

I never smell anything from my FDM printer, but that doesn't mean it isn't harming me. It's right behind me in my office so any particles it is releasing are going into my lungs.

I'm using resin that isn't too stinky and Kit can smell it in the hallway downstairs when I am printing up here. That's not good.

I open a window that is right near the resin printer and open a window here in my office and get some crossflow of air, but that's still not ideal. I'm not really controlling the air flow and it's also rather cold right now.

-BEP

Ok, thanks! I am currently working on trying to order a Photon Mono with the wash and cure station but they seem to be having some shipping issues. We'll see what happens.

Question. I have the original paper Blue Prints to the house I grew up in. It was built in 1917. I am wondering, how would I go about getting the house Printed in 3d from the original blueprints?

Thanks!

You need a 3d object of something to print it. So just commissioning someone to create a 3d object would do it. I bet there are people on etsy who do that type of thing. Also, you should be deciding on just exterior or inside also, size you plan on printing it and detail.

Might even be someone on GWJ who does that type of work. Maybe post in the question thread.

Sketchup (there should be a free trial available)
Tinkercad might also be a decent option
Blender would probably be too complex for someone new to 3D cg but it is capable and free.

Anybody familiar with Highcraft Miniatures? https://www.humblebundle.com/softwar... has me intrigued but it is not a name I recognize.

I'm not familiar with them, but I do like their style and like me some frogs.

-BEP

Speaking generally of 3D modeling software, I keep thinking that I'm eventually going to want to sit down and learn to use something like FreeCAD or OpenSCAD to create or edit my own 3D models. However, I told myself that I'd do that once I outgrew Tinkercad. However, that just hasn't happened yet. I'm kind of amazed but Tinkercad has served all of my modeling needs so far. I've even been able to modify STL files imported from Thingiverse well enough using Tinkercad that I didn't feel like I had to find a better tool. I feel like such a hack when I do that, but the printed model on my Prusa has always turned out great!

Tinkercad has got to be great to take generic figures and dress them up with (better) weapons and/or add horns and decoration to their armor.

Speedsculpt+ is a plugin for Blender that I am drooling over for creating my own figures. I just have procrastinated on pulling the trigger. Skip the video first and check out the animated gifs of all the features for $20.
https://gumroad.com/l/speedsculpt

As far as those humblebundle figures, they look great. Whether or not they are worth it for printing is more about what capabilities the printer you print them on has. Also, it is certainly worth $1 to try the first 3 out.

Also no one is a hack for using Tinkercad. Openscad and freecad are going to be an order of magnitude more complex to use and learn. In CG, the results matter way more than what tool(s) you use.

Printed this Storm Giant Seer for my son's D&D campaign and he convinced MrsJig to paint it for him.
Printed on my FFCP... seeing the images of everyone's resin prints has me thinking of getting one but for now this will do.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/65ThJT9.jpeg)
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/IhD3t2S.jpeg)

Wow! That looks great!!!

Great print and really great paint job!