been printing for a while now, but am just starting to get interested in vacuum forming. The initial materials are cheap and easy, can use a home vacuum hardware bought parts and an oven.

I have been brainstorming on different ways I can combine 3d printing and the vacuum forming. Need input on this new idea:

using leftover PLA to make a PLA sheet for vacuum forming.

the plastic sheets for vacuum forming aren't very cheap compared to the same amount of plastic you'd use in filament form. I have a tone of old parts, bad parts etc. sitting in a drawer. I'm thinking of trying to make a sheet of PLA from them, maybe on a cookie sheet in the oven. I think that can be achieved, not sure how well such a sheet would be used for vacuum forming afterwards though.

I'm assuming, looking at the tools you listed, you'll need heat resistant molds. you can print out your shape and then make a plaster mold of it to use with the vacuum forming.

Is that the general idea?

yeah, that's been one of my dilemas, was how to use 3d printing for patterns without oo many steps, and knowing that the heat thing would be a problem, obviously.

My idea above is in a diferent direction of thought however, using scrap PLA to make my own PLA sheets for vacuum forming over patterns