I Bought a 3D Printer to Sell Functional Parts — Here's My Exact Setup

A few days ago I bought an ELEGOO Centauri Carbon 2 Combo for CA$509.15 with one goal: print functional parts people actually buy. Not toys, not decorative trinkets — brackets, stands, mounts, replacement parts. Things with a job to do.

Here's the exact setup I'm running.

The printer: ELEGOO Centauri Carbon 2 Combo

Enclosed CoreXY, 256×256×256 mm build volume, 4-colour printing, 350°C hardened nozzle. The enclosure is the whole point — it lets me print ASA and ABS, the strong materials functional parts need. Open-frame printers in this price range top out at PLA/PETG. I paid CA$509.15 for the Combo (printer + 4-colour system).

The filament: PETG, not PLA

I started with a Creality PETG 4-pack (black, white, red, blue). PETG is tougher and more heat-resistant than PLA — a laptop stand sitting next to a warm laptop shouldn't warp over time. For anything load-bearing or heat-adjacent, PETG is the floor.

First product: honeycomb laptop stand

14.5 × 5.3 × 7.5 cm, 2 cm slot, fits most 13–16" laptops. The stand itself weighs 108g. I'm selling it for C$15, made to order in four colours.

Buy the laptop stand on my Shopify store

The math

Printer CA$509.15 + filament C$49.99. At roughly C$10 profit per stand, that's about 56 stands to break even on the hardware. That's the target.

What's next

Custom functional parts on request — brackets, mounts, replacement bits. That's the actual business; the stand is just product #1.