I went from a sidewinder x1 to a 300 2.4 and I love it. The built was a lot of work but it was extremely rewarding. Once you get it full set up it’s consistent just load and print, but if you are not confident in your ability to tinker don’t do it. I set up a custom webcam mount, a custom nozzle wiper modled after bambos, a nevermore filter and frame thermal expansion then invested a ton of time in start up scrips and now it’s no work to print anything but it was a lot to get there. If you go this route skip the drag chains and go umbilical, that’s my one regret.

Edit: also consider going 350, you lose a lot of z with mods etc, I would also have gone 350 instead sorry.

My company is absolutely taking advantage of the H1Bs. They just did a huge round of “move to head quarters and take a pay cut or leave with severance”. Anecdotal, but it seemed to mostly target H1Bs. Every single one I know said they basically have to or return home because they don’t know if the government will even function to processes new sponsorships if they found one.

I can’t compare it to the cad examples but meshmixer is definitely easier to use for small stl edits than blender, especially for things like cutting and keying parts. If you are just trying to make a pin smaller or hole larger, editing the xyz of specific points in blender may be easier depending on shape. Good luck!

I was in a simiar boat, but once I started learning it really took off and I couldn’t find enough things to model/fix! I started with meshmixer, it’s pretty simplified but still somewhat powerful and I think Windows only. Once I found stuff I couldn’t do with it I switched to blender and now I’m much faster with it. I found there are some things each implements better so if having an issue I’ll switch and try something else. I highly recommend picking one and watching youtube videos specific to what you want to change in a model

Edit: you may be able to get by on some of the connectors by lowering flow too, depends on how dialed in your printer is, everyone needs different tolerances

It drives me crazy that notes does not reorganize the list when you check things, but that’s probably because it’s just markdown. My wife also refuses to use it. Carnet is the google keep like alternative that I think would work for me, but the sharing isn’t working currently, whenever the note is updated the share is removed.