I was thinking about this question today as someone used our work printer for some personal stuff.
As for me, I am printing little things that I would say make it worth it. I’ve printed lens adapters for my camera for example. That’s worth a good 14 to 30 bucks per print. My most favorite photo was with an adapted lens that came from a projector. I also printed IEMs and those things are worth it. Listening to music is second to none on those things. Plus I printed the same shell but for ear protection and again the fit is perfect and sure there’s post processing to get smooth surfaces but in the end it looks like a professional made it. So I think 3d printers are worth it.
The Ender probably wasn’t. It was a lot of effort, and mostly not the interesting kind, and fairly little reward. Although when it worked, it was really good. In the end. Sometimes. And it’s way too big.
The Kingroon, very much yes. It’s cheap, kind of trashy, but compact. Just prints stuff. Parts detach great. Works just about every time. Quiet out of the box. Just kind of annoying to preheat at the start and end of the session to load and unload filament. Very annoying touchscreen. But those are minor things and I’m not tempted to fix it or upgrade anything. I have actual projects to do. Too many actual projects to do.
Oh, and why? Custom parts that are impossible to buy and a lot of work or impossible to machine or fabricate otherwise. Saves a trip to the local library or hackerspace or wherever things could be printed.
I am also in the ender boat.
95% of my problems went away when I took the thing completely apart (like, further apart than what it comes in the box), and rebuilt it from scratch, making sure every bolt was tight, every moving part was free,corners perfectly cornered, etc.
I think it had just enough factory misalignment and loseness in a few key areas that compounded to cause me tons of headaches.
That, plus a few cheap upgrades (steel bed and better bed springs) really erased almost all the mechanical issues.