Brain wave.
I assume you all are familiar with my Adélie 3d printable, CQC hook pocket hook openable, fully printable utility knife thing. If you weren't, you are now.
Just the other day I had an idea.
Actually, no. Back that up. Just the other day, I remembered the Secret Of Show Business, vis-a-vis another arctic bird adjacent folder, our good friend the QSP Penguin. One thing that's been a thorn in my side with the Adélie since the beginning is that, since a 3D printer is not a lathe, the inevitable overhangs on the crossbar/Axis lock part are problematic. I burned through a couple of strategies for that, including replacing the sharp shoulders with a chamfer (which caused binding issues) or reshaping the slot that the crossbar rides in, and so forth.
But then along came QSP's knife, which deals with the protrusions on the Axis crossbar by making them separate pieces.
Uh. So why don't we just do that?
Duh.
So meet the new and improved, cool and froody, always ready and never glooby, Adélie M6.
Why M6? Oh yeah. Because I also revised the screws to be M6x1.0 a while ago so you can use 12mm setscrews in place of the printed screws if you want to.
Printables link: https://www.printables.com/model/928938-adelie-crossbar-locking-utility-knife-with-pocket
Well, I guess it's finally time. What's a decent <$500 printer that doesn't require too much fuss or fiddle?
I've been happy with my two Qidi printers so far. My current X-Max 3 is probably a bit out of your range, but their Q2 is precisely $499 USD at the moment.
I have a friend who was into 3D printing since before it was cool. He says quality stock for his printers is the problem, as it is more expensive than the printers themselves. You gotta feed them, just not after midnight. Just a low effort FYI
I've found this to be decreasingly the case as time goes on, thankfully. Of course you can pay any amount of money if you want to for filaments made of fancy engineering materials and subsequently drive yourself nuts trying to get them to print on your machine. But if you're just sticking to basic PLA and even PETG I'm continually astonished at the good results I achieve even using cheap and highly suspicious spools straight from China.
Printing in ABS is about as fancy as I bother to go on a semi-regular basis (the Rockhopper is designed around it, in fact) and I have a couple of spools of glass fiber filled Nylon and even a roll of polycarbonate lying around for a rainy day, you know, just in case. But I haven't found a compelling application for them yet. For the majority of what most people print, PLA is just fine and also far and away the easiest to work with.