What did you expect from 3D printing that turned out to be totally different?

[Alan]

I feel like 3D printing has two phases.

Phase 1 is thinking it’s basically “press print and walk away.”
Phase 2 is realizing you now have opinions about bed temp, humidity, and the personality of each filament spool.

So I’m curious. What did you expect from 3D printing that turned out to be totally different once you spent real time with it?

Maybe you thought you’d be printing useful stuff every week and instead you became a full-time calibration specialist. Maybe you expected failures to be rare and learned they’re just part of the hobby. Or maybe you thought you’d stop buying filament once you found “the good one.” What was the biggest expectation vs reality moment for you?

 

[Bandit_Sydonia]

For me the big expectation vs reality moment was thinking a good slicer profile would solve everything forever. I have a Creality Ender 3 V2 and I learned the environment matters way more than I expected, room temp, drafts, humidity, even how clean the build plate is. I also did not expect how addictive it is to chase “slightly cleaner” prints even when the part already works.