Choosing a printer (or skipping the purchase)

In Chapter 1 we looked at what 3D printing actually is and why FDM (fused deposition modeling, the kind that melts plastic filament and lays it down in layers) is the right tool for a small kitchen gadget. Now comes the first real decision of this whole project, and it is not "which printer should I buy."

It is this: do you even need to buy a printer to make a lemon squeezer?

The honest answer is no. You can complete this entire project, start to finish, without owning a machine. Let me walk you through the no-purchase paths first, because for a lot of people they are the smarter way to begin. Then, if you decide you do want your own printer, we will go through what features actually matter so you do not overpay for things you will never use or, worse, save money in a way that costs you weeks of frustration.

You do not have to own a printer

There are three legitimate ways to get a printed part without a machine of your own. All three can produce the finished squeezer. This chapter weighs them; once you have a file to print, Chapter 14b walks every route end to end, step by step.

1. Online print services

These are companies on the web that own the printers so you do not have to. You send them a model file, choose a material and color, pay per part, and they print it and mail it to you. It is close to ordering a print the way you would order a photo print.

What the whole process looks like. Almost every service works in the same five steps, so once you have seen it once you have seen them all:

1. Get a model file, in STL format. STL is the standard 3D-print file: a plain description of the object's surface as a mesh of triangles. You get one in one of two ways, covered just below.
2. Upload it. On the service's site you drag the STL into an upload box. Within a few seconds it renders your model on screen and runs an automatic check for obvious problems (walls too thin to print, gaps in the mesh, and the like).
3. Choose material, color, and finish. You pick from a menu: the plastic (for a juice tool you want FDM PETG, for reasons in Chapter 14), a color, and sometimes a smoothing option. Set the units to millimetres, so a 70 mm bowl does not arrive 70 inches wide.
4. Read the instant quote. The price appears right away and updates as you change material or quantity. Shipping is added at checkout, and on a small part it can rival the part's own cost, so read the total, not just the part price.
5. Pay and wait. You order, the shop prints and ships, and the part arrives in a few days to a couple of weeks, depending on the service and where it is.

Where the file comes from. You have two honest routes, and the fast one surprises people:

• Download a ready-made design. You do not have to design anything to outsource a print. Free model libraries (Printables, MakerWorld, Thingiverse, Thangs, all in the references) hold many citrus squeezers and reamers that other people have already designed and tested. Download the STL and upload it to a service exactly as above. Some model pages even carry an "order a print" button that hands the file to a print partner for you, so you never download anything. This is the quickest way to hold a printed squeezer, because it skips the design work entirely.
• Design your own and export an STL. This is the path the rest of the book builds toward. Whether you use Tinkercad (Chapter 8) or OpenSCAD (Chapter 10), the last move is the same: export your model as an STL (Chapter 13 finishes with exactly that). That STL is what you upload.

Seeing the model before you commit. You can look at the thing on screen long before any plastic is involved, which is reassuring when you are about to pay for it:

• The service shows you a rotatable preview the moment you upload, so you confirm it is the right shape and the right way up before paying.
• A free in-browser STL viewer (viewstl.com and 3dviewer.net are two, listed in the references) lets you drag in any STL and spin it around, with no account and no install.
• Your design tool previews as you work: Tinkercad shows the shape while you build it, and OpenSCAD renders it on screen when you press F5, before you ever export (Chapter 10).

Which service. I am not going to crown a winner, because lineups and prices shift, but it helps to know the shapes they come in. Names and plain web addresses are in the references:

• A broker (Craftcloud is the well-known one) is the easiest first stop. You upload once and it compares many print shops around the world for price, material, and speed, then routes your order to one. You get the range without visiting ten sites.
• Budget per-part shops (JLC3DP is a common one) are the cheapest for a single small part, sometimes a dollar or two before shipping, with the trade that you choose the settings yourself.
• Larger, more industrial services (Sculpteo, Shapeways, Protolabs Network, Xometry, Treatstock) carry more materials and finishes and lean toward professional work. Useful, but their default material is often nylon or resin rather than the FDM PETG a juice tool wants.

Don't be confused. "FDM PETG" and "whatever the service prints by default" are not the same order. Several services default to SLS nylon (a slightly porous powder-fused plastic) or resin, both of which look good and neither of which suits a tool that holds juice you drink. When you order a squeezer, choose FDM and PETG on purpose.

The catch that outsourcing adds to food safety. Chapter 14 is the full story, but outsourcing changes one part of it you should know before you order. When you print at home you control the nozzle (you can fit a stainless one) and you know your exact spool. When a service prints, you control neither: you cannot verify their nozzle is lead-free, and you usually cannot confirm the colorant in their filament is food-rated. Three sensible responses:

• Order in PETG, and if the service offers a filament it labels for food contact, choose that.
• Plan to seal the juice-contact surfaces yourself with a food-safe coating after the part arrives, the same finishing step in Chapter 14. Outsourcing the printing does not outsource this.
• Or sidestep it: order only the reamer cone and let the juice drip off it into your own glass or steel cup. The outsourced plastic then never holds the juice, and a small solid cone happens to be the cheapest, fastest thing to order.
• Skip resin for this. Resin services are cheap and very detailed, but resin parts are not food-safe, the same reason we skip resin printers later in this chapter.

Pros: No equipment, no setup, no learning curve. You can hold a real printed squeezer without ever touching a machine, which is a good way to find out whether you like the result before spending money on hardware.

Cons: You pay for every part, and small functional prints often cost more than you expect once shipping is added. It is slower than walking to a machine, because you wait for printing plus delivery. And you learn almost nothing hands-on, which matters if the hobby, not just this one object, is the point.

Rough cost: Highly variable. A small part might run from a few dollars to a few tens of dollars plus shipping, depending on size, material, and service. Treat that as approximate and get a real quote, because prices change and every service is different.

2. A library, makerspace, or school shop

This is the path I would push hardest. Many places now have printers you can use:

• Public libraries. A surprising number of libraries have a 3D printer in their maker corner. You often pay only for the grams of plastic used, sometimes nothing at all.
• Makerspaces and hackerspaces. These are membership workshops (think a gym, but for tools). They usually have several printers, plus people around who already know how to run them.
• Universities, colleges, and some high schools. If you are a student, or live near a campus with a public maker lab, you may get cheap or free access.

Pros: Cheap or free. You get to watch a real machine run, ask questions of a human standing next to you, and find out whether you enjoy this before committing any money. Staff or members can rescue a print that is going wrong, which is exactly the kind of help a beginner benefits from.

Cons: You work on their schedule and their machines, not yours. There may be a wait, a sign-up, or a short training session required. You usually cannot leave a long print running unattended overnight the way you could at home.

Rough cost: Often free to a few dollars for a part this size. Approximate, and worth a phone call or a look at the place's posted rates.

3. A friend or a local maker

If you happen to know someone who already prints, ask. Most people in this hobby genuinely enjoy printing one small useful thing for a curious friend, and it is a low-pressure way to see the process up close. Offer to buy the filament and bring snacks. That is the whole arrangement.

Don't be confused. Using a service or a borrowed machine is not "cheating" or a lesser version of the project. The lemon squeezer you end up with is exactly as real either way. The only thing you give up is hands-on practice. If you want the hobby, owning a machine teaches you more. If you mostly want the squeezer, the no-purchase paths are perfectly good.

If you decide to buy: aim for a beginner FDM printer

Suppose you have tried a print at the library, you liked it, and now you want your own machine. Good. Here is what actually matters for a beginner printing a kitchen tool, in plain language, with the reasons attached.

Auto bed leveling

The bed is the flat plate your print is built on. For a print to stick and come out clean, the nozzle has to be the right tiny distance above the bed across the whole surface. On older or cheaper machines you set this distance by hand, turning knobs and sliding a piece of paper under the nozzle. It is fiddly, and getting it wrong is the single most common reason a beginner's first prints fail.

Auto bed leveling means the printer measures the bed itself with a sensor and corrects for any tilt automatically. If you buy one feature on purpose, make it this one. It removes the most frustrating beginner chore and dramatically raises your odds of a good first print.

Build volume (bed size)

Build volume is the largest object the printer can make, given as width by depth by height in millimeters. The lemon squeezer is small, so you do not need much. A bed somewhere around 180 to 250 mm on a side is plenty, with room to spare. Do not pay extra for a giant machine you will never fill. Bigger printers cost more, take up more space, and offer no benefit for a part that fits in your palm.

Heated bed

A heated bed is exactly what it sounds like: the build plate warms up. Some plastics shrink and peel off a cold bed as they cool. The material we will use for the squeezer, PETG (a tough, mildly heat-resistant plastic we cover in Chapter 3), wants a heated bed to stick properly. The good news is that nearly every current beginner FDM printer has one. Just confirm it is there before buying.

Assembled vs kit

Printers come assembled (works more or less out of the box) or as a kit (you build it yourself from parts over an hour or several).

A kit is cheaper and teaches you how the machine works, which pays off later when something needs adjusting. An assembled printer costs a bit more but gets you printing sooner with fewer chances to make an assembly mistake. Neither is wrong. If you enjoy putting things together and want to understand the machine, a kit is fine. If you want the shortest path to a working squeezer, buy it assembled.

Community, spare parts, and documentation

This one is invisible on a spec sheet and matters enormously. When something goes wrong (and at some point it will), you want to be able to search your printer's exact name and find thousands of people who hit the same problem, plus clear official guides and easy-to-buy replacement parts.

An obscure bargain printer with no community can cost you far more in lost evenings than you saved at checkout. A few brands are commonly recommended for beginners because they have large user communities, decent documentation, and available parts. Prusa, Bambu Lab, and Creality come up often in beginner discussions for this reason. I am deliberately not naming a "best" model or quoting a price, because lineups and prices change quickly and I would be wrong by the time you read this. Look up current independent reviews, and weight community size and parts availability heavily.

Two terms you can mostly ignore for now

You will see these in reviews, so here is what they mean, followed by permission to not worry about them:

• Direct drive vs Bowden extruder. This is about where the motor that pushes filament sits. On a direct drive machine it sits right above the nozzle. On a Bowden setup it sits further away and pushes the filament through a tube. Each has small tradeoffs, mostly relevant to flexible filaments and very fast printing.
• Enclosed vs open. An enclosed printer has walls and a lid that trap heat. This helps with certain fussy, warp-prone plastics. An open printer has no walls.

For a beginner printing PLA and PETG (which is us), do not obsess over either. Both extruder types print these materials fine, and PLA and PETG do not require an enclosure. Pick a well-supported machine with auto leveling and a heated bed, and these details will not hold you back.

Rough budget tiers (approximate, check current prices)

Prices move, so treat everything below as a ballpark to set expectations, not a quote. Always check current listings and reviews before buying.

What the extra money buys, in one sentence: reliability and time. A pricier beginner machine generally levels itself well, prints faster, fails less often, and asks less of you. For a first printer that you want to actually use rather than constantly fix, paying a little more up front is often worth it. But plenty of people start happily at the entry tier, especially if they enjoy tinkering. Both figures above are approximate. Confirm before you spend.

Why not a resin printer (for this project)

You may have seen stunningly detailed prints made on a resin printer, a different technology that hardens liquid resin with light. They are wonderful for tiny, finely detailed models. They are the wrong choice for a beginner making a food tool, for concrete reasons:

• Liquid resin is toxic and smelly. It can irritate skin and eyes, so you handle it with gloves and need decent ventilation.
• There is messy post-processing. Fresh prints come out coated in sticky resin and must be washed (often in alcohol) and then cured under UV light. That is more equipment, more mess, and more care than melting a spool of plastic.
• Resin parts are generally not considered suitable for food contact. That alone rules it out for a squeezer, which touches juice you intend to drink.

For a kitchen gadget, FDM is simply the right call. We dig into what "food-safe" really means, and its real limits, in Chapter 14. For now, just know that FDM with PETG is the sensible path and resin is not.

What else you need besides the printer

The machine alone does not make a print. Here is the short list of extras, most of them cheap:

• Filament. The plastic itself, sold on spools. You need this no matter what, and we choose the right kind in Chapter 3.
• A scraper or thin spatula. For lifting finished prints off the bed without gouging it. Many printers include one.
• Flush cutters. Small snips for trimming stray bits of plastic and clipping filament cleanly. A regular pair of side cutters works too.
• A glue stick (optional). A plain washable school glue stick on the bed can help prints stick. Cheap insurance for tricky first layers.
• Digital calipers (nice to have). A small measuring tool that reads down to a fraction of a millimeter. Genuinely useful here, because you will want to measure your actual lemon and check that printed parts came out the right size. Not required to start, but you will reach for it.

You do not need a workshop full of gear. A printer, a spool, something to pop prints off the bed, and a pair of cutters will get you a long way.

New vs used

A used printer can be a real bargain, and a hobby this popular means there are plenty on the secondhand market from people who upgraded or moved on. The honest tradeoff: a used machine may need cleaning, small repairs, or replacement parts, and you do not always know how it was treated. If you buy used, favor a well-supported model (so parts and help are easy to find) and, if you can, see it print before money changes hands. If you would rather not troubleshoot someone else's machine as your very first experience, buying new is the calmer start.

Takeaways

• You can do this entire project without buying a printer. Online print services, libraries, makerspaces, schools, and friends are all legitimate ways to get a real lemon squeezer.
• Trying a print somewhere first (a library is ideal) is the cheapest way to find out whether you want a machine at all.
• If you buy, get a beginner FDM printer. Prioritize auto bed leveling, a heated bed, a modest build volume (around 180 to 250 mm is plenty), and a large support community with available parts.
• Assembled vs kit is a real choice: kit is cheaper and teaches you more, assembled is faster to start. Neither is wrong.
• Budget tiers are approximate. Entry machines work but ask for more tinkering; mid-tier machines mostly buy you reliability and time. Check current prices and independent reviews.
• Skip resin printers for a food tool: the resin is toxic to handle and resin parts are generally not food-safe.
• Beyond the printer you mostly need filament, a scraper, and flush cutters. Calipers are a worthwhile nice-to-have.
• The printer, the slicer, and the filament are three separate things. Owning a machine is only the first of them.

👉 Speaking of that third thing: a printer is useless without something to feed it. In the next chapter, Filaments and materials (Chapter 3), we look at the plastics themselves, why we pick PETG for a squeezer that meets juice, and how PLA, PETG, and the rest actually differ.