This use to be a very active community. It seems as time has passed it has become fairly static. Looking back it seems to me that the decline started when the forum software was changed to the current one. Several very active, intelligent, & active members left. Even Erv the founder of “Make with Tech” doesn’t seen to be active any more.
Guess I could be part of the problem too. I haven’t participated much though I do drop by to see what’s happening.
Note:
15 characters for a forum topic might be a little extreme
I agree with you, This has been a “go to” forum for a long time especially when “Dr. Vax” was seen virtually every day giving us lots of good advice and challenging all of us to do better. Sadly it seems that most “forums” are on the decline as this hobby has become more of a plug and play rather than DIY requiring tinkering with our machines to make even small improvements. I also have fallen into that mode with the recent purchase of my U1 and it just works. The issues I have had with it are handled by a very good tech support. This is an area that in the days of yore was mostly missing and the community was the only real support that we had.
I still check in each day hoping to see a familiar face just like going into the Cheers bar each afternoon.
I have to agree about the newer printers being more or less plug and play. I don’t tinker much with my Creality K2 Plus or my U1. The K2P does require a little more tinkering than the U1 but nothing like the old days when you leveled the bed with a piece of paper. I also think core XY printers are more stable than the bed slingers which at time would shake themselves apart.
Love your reference to Cheers, never thought of this forum being that way but looking back I’d say it was.
My first printer was a lets call it a beta version Tronxy 400 which was a core XY . I say beta as there were major changes made between the time I ordered it and it was shipped across the pond! It was a decent printer for the time, but did require a bunch of fiddling to make it better. It finally got to the point that I ‘retired’ it in favor of an Ender 5 which has been a workhorse for me. The major thing I had to do to that machine was replace the motherboard that blew up for some unknown reason. But overall less fiddling than the Tronxy! Now we have the U1 and I think I have made only one print on it since getting the U1 up and running. Not only because of the multi color/material reason, but mostly because of the speed!
I too got a U1, but i did mods. I thought of posting here but ended up posting on Printables witn models. I miss this form, life got got crazy with plandemic. I spend time creating, but not enough time sharing.
I think part of the problem is that our host doesn’t make Youtube videos that much anymore. The last one is a year old and the frequency of posts dropped as well. I think these helped drive new users to this forum.
Even with the advent of more consumer friendly printers, I think there still are opportunities to help beginners and others on the slicer and software design side of FDM printing.
