My roommate owns a fairly simple 3D printer (it’s by the manufacturer Anycubic and I forget the exact model number but it was considered decent when it was purchased, not top of the line but mid-to-high quality and good value for money; I believe he paid around $1000 for it) that does a fine job of printing even intricate designs (anatomically accurate and very precise to the finest detail and real size hearts, for example, reproductions of Japanese anime characters, Renaissance statues, architectural works in a very small scale but, again, surprisingly detailed and quite neat, reproductions of car and motorcycle parts, including engines…). It took him some tinkering with it but he has had the printer for about 2-3 years and, after the first 3 months or so he was experimenting successfully with some of the aforementioned designs. As long as he could find the “template”, and there are tons online for free, he would be good. Of course it crossed my mind to ask him if he would be able to print something for me and he said no problem. I wanted to leave it vague and described what could have passed for a sex toy but in my head was in fact a nozzle. I forgot how exactly I explained him the shape I wanted. I did a little drawing for him and he was about to look for a similar pattern in his template database but then I added, but please, make sure that you print it with a soft, silicone like material. He looked at me like I’d grown 3 heads. “I can’t do that”, he replied. So here is the catch, at least when it comes to his (and many other) 3D printers: they use a liquid substance called resin. They make many types of resins, but they are all very hard and they are under no circumstances meant to be medical grade materials. It says so on every bottle of resin that I have seen at my house and I have done some online research and have reached the same conclusion. So this is the first real problem.
Now, and I don’t claim to be an authority when it comes to this topic, but I have been interested in the possibilities that a 3D printer may offer to creative kinksters like me and have found that some 3D printers (a different type from what my roommate has, and that use something called filament rather than resin printers) can print items that are much softer than their resin counterparts do. In some cases (and these are more modern printers altogether) you can find 3D printers that print with actual silicone. But I don’t know enough about them to comment on them. My best guess, and the reviews I’ve read, point towards them being still in the infancy of the technology and the issues of whether what they print is medical grade or not remains.
Hope it helps.
Play safe,
B x