I’ve been able to print useful small golf discs for a while and they work well. So, I’m ready for the next phases of my effort to make small disc golf a thing that many people enjoy. For that to happen I will need to send a couple of discs to lots of different people and companies. I’ll send them to every maker of youtube videos about disc golf that I can find. And I’ll send them to a lot of my favorite disc golfers, if I can find an address I can use to reach them, such as their agent or sponsor. I’ll send them to disc manufacturers and media companies.
There is no ask. I will send them a couple discs and some information on how to use them for indoor disc golf. I’ll point out that they are in the public domain so they don’t need to license anything or pay any kind of royalties. What they do with that is up to them.
I will need to print hundreds of small golf discs to execute this plan. While I have access to 3D printers at Ace Makerspace, their very reasonable rule is that you have to be present while printing. Discs take about 150 minutes to print, so it isn’t practical to print more than a few there.
So, I did some research on printers available (in March, 2023) and narrowed it down to the one I thought was best for my needs: Official Creality Ender-3 V2 Neo 3D. It was about $450 and it checked every box I cared about. Lots of people owned it. But, when I sanity-checked my choice with more experienced people they said that if I wanted to print a lot with very little headache, I should get a Prusa Mk3S+, because it is much more consistent and reliable. But, the Prusa is $800.
I was prepared to create a gofundme to raise money for the Prusa, but my dad sponsored me in this and bought the Prusa so I could begin printing discs sooner. Of course he will get the first batch. I’m grateful to him for his help. It means I should be able to execute my plan during this season, which just started.
Thank you dad!
The printer arrived Thursday, March 23, 2023. It took me about a day and a half to build it. When I was done the self-checks worked and calibrated it. Then I printed a disc and it worked perfectly! I’ve been printing discs more or less continuously since then, except when I’m asleep. Three days later I had printed 15 discs, almost twice as many as I have been able to print in three months at Ace Makerspace.
Up Next: My First Real Video