Well after about two years I've finally finished putting together my 3d printer. I got a Makerfarm Prusa i3 from a massdrop thing a while back and after assembling it I got delayed on wiring it up and it sat around for a while. A couple weeks ago I decided to finish it up and I got it running so I've been playing around with it and dialing it in. It's pretty fun but rather fiddly and I'm still tweaking it to get it to print just right but it's pretty close already.
For modeling I found onshape.com and I've been pretty impressed with it as an alternative to SketchUp. Since I'm rolling with a Chromebook now it fits perfectly in my process.
I also dedicated one of my rpis to run octoprint which makes for a nice remote interface for the printer. I'm going to be hooking up a webcam tonight so I can monitor my prints from upstairs and do time lapse stuff.
I also found a thing on a "Cherry" 3d printer designed by some 16 yo that uses cheap stepper and stuff to make a really inexpensive hobby printer that I think I'm going to try and build now too. Something I can bring to our maker days at work and stuff.