The week you showed up

Two Sundays ago I woke up, checked my phone, and the traffic graph had gone vertical. Printytron was on the front page of Hacker News.

A normal day here is about thirty visitors. That Sunday it was 6,340. Models published went from a handful a day to 74. By the end of the week about a hundred of you had made accounts, 44 on the first day alone.

I spent the whole day reading the thread, answering questions, and watching the gallery fill up with things I never would have thought to build. It was the most validating day this project has had. Thank you.

Since that weekend, 211 build sessions ended in a published model. Here's how those went.

57 of you one-shotted it: one message, one model. The median build is three messages. At the other end, one of you spent 29 turns refining a single part. She doesn't get tired.

A few patterns I loved:

The iterator. One builder published a 90×60mm fridge magnet, then kept going. The live version is titled Campaign Magnet-final-final-super-final. Twelve downloads. I felt this naming convention in my soul, and it's why publishing again now updates your listing in place instead of stacking up copies.

The systems builder. One of you built a knife dock for Fiskars blades. Then a double version, then blade storage, then colour indicator inserts, then a Gridfinity variant. That workflow is why "Save as a new copy" now forks the whole build conversation.

The problem solver. A garage has a vent; a duct needed to reach it. So: Garage Vent to 6-Inch Adapter. Over the next week it was followed by a wall vent adapter, an inline fan duct adapter and a 90-degree scoop.

And one of you is building in German. Printy speaks it fine. The toothbrush holder came out great.

The pattern that works best: context, measurements, and what you want to happen. Here's a real one:

More on this in how to describe a part so it prints right.

The gallery filled up with parts so you could fix broken things. A 1/2" PEX adjustable dripper tee. Cue joint protectors threaded 5/16×14. A motorcycle numberplate spray deflector. A 30mm print-in-place hinged box that comes off the plate already assembled. A flexi butterfly for the fun of it.

The fortnight since has been the busiest this project has had:

• OBJ and 3MF downloads for signed-in accounts: they keep parts separate and named, which STL can't do.
• Your account page: display name, usage, and badges. There's one waiting for everyone who joined during the crazy week.
• Republish updates in place: same link, no duplicate listings. Save as a new copy forks the whole build conversation instead.
• Password reset exists now (sorry it didn't sooner), the logged-in navigation got rebuilt, and your phone's keyboard stops zooming the page.

And the secret project. I'm prototyping STL upload: drop in a mesh and get back editable geometry you can keep refining with Printy. It works on my bench, it's janky, and it's not ready. Keep your eyes peeled.

Honesty time. The first 24 hours on the Hacker News front page cost more than triple my previous month's entire bill, in inference alone. My card auto-topped-up four times while I slept, and things have settled at about five times the old level.

I'm doing this because I want to build something people love. A big part of that is a free tier that's genuinely useful: anyone should be able to describe a part and print it without reaching for a wallet. Working out how to keep that true while the bills grow is my current puzzle.

There's now a tip button in the header for anyone who wants to keep the lights on. Beyond that, I'm sketching what community support could look like. Maybe a supporter tier with some genuinely new features, low cost, never gating what's free today.

What would a supporter tier need to have for you to want it? Leave feedback on-site, or reply to any email from me.