Micro 3d Printer on kickstarter raised over 1 million in 1 day

Lie to them. Nothing else will work. 3D printers are so slow they are very hard to make money with if you're offering a service. You can't charge someone 15 hours of labor for something simple. People just won't pay it. Now, if you are inventing things, then that's another story, they are very helpful in prototyping your own products. I went to a show and someone was selling 3D printed items. Most of the items were open source items from a library that I've used before. My print time was 3 hours for the item. They were selling them for $10 each. Not sure how to make money like that.

I saw one kickstarter campaign for a larger one and the guy said he was printing the frame and it was taking something like 16 hours to print one frame. He could have had it made out of aluminum in a machine shop for a fraction of his cost. The problem is, people with 3D printers think that time is free. It's the old "Well, I wasn't doing anything anyway" comments.

Just my experience with them so far. Great for prototyping, cruddy for trying to make something to sell as a service.

 

last I remember, these things move at about one vertical inch per hour on an 18" cubed printer. not very fast at all.

good luck finding ways to make this a sign shop item anytime soon.
if you REALLY want to offer your clients 3D printed products, there are plenty of outsources available with options for metal as well as plastic.

 

Totally agree with this assessment....

 

3D Printers are cute. They seem to have grabbed the imagination of the hipster crowd who never used a real tool before. It's like they don't know what a 4/5 Axis CNC Mill or Vertical Machining Center is.

However, it does get people thinking and inventing. I like that. But they are too slow, and there's better 3D printing technology out there. The extruded filament method yields cruddy looking parts. However, that being said there is a kickstarter campaign that I think is way cool... it's fume box that uses acetone. You stick your rough 3D printed part in there and it fume polishes the part to become shiny. That's what is lacking to me with 3D printed parts. Polish, fit and finish.

However, I've been a fan of 3D metal printing. Like Laser Sintering. Awesome! And the liquid plastic printing that uses a projector and flash cures the layers. I actually backed the Solidator. Fast 3D parts with that method. And very accurate.

 

I just got a makerbot a few months back.
While you can use it to make money I think it is easierir to make money with your printer or vinyl cutter. The main drawback is production along with the items just not being 100% up to production quality. While they look very good they still are made by micro layers which gives micro texture.

They are great for making things that don't exist, prototype, bring a product to market. For this use these are an amazing tool for home or professional designers.
What will be important if you plan to do this is a good 3d program like solidworks or something. Then you can design, print out parts, re-design etc, all in house and when you are ready you can send your 3d files out for tooling and begin production.

Tooling is expensive, this printer can eliminate test tooling by bypassing it and just printing out the product directly.

While it is a great powerful cost saving tool for an engineer, it is also a very fun product for someone who is into that stuff. Just keep in mind you need a good 3d program otherwise you are stuck printing things other people have designed and in the end I think the real fun come from designing your ideas and or things you need. Check out thingaverse to see what people have made.

 

How about this one?
[video=youtube;NFF0QQIQDXE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFF0QQIQDXE#t=11[/video]

Looks like fun to mess with.

wayne k
guam usa

 

You could always bioprint employees and have a whole shop full of signmakers.

 

Weird place to put this but....

3D Studio Max is $3,675.00
Sketchup Pro is $599.00

The learning curve...

90% here are vinyl shops and have no need for either.

Of the shops I worked with that do CNC, they use whatever
they need to get it into their CNC software

If I had to do rendering, what type of project? If it
was a quickie 3D sketch I might do it in Illustrator...
the more they are willing to pay, the better the software.

Personally I like making real models.

When I was doing 3D renderings for exhibits, I used 3D Studio Max
but's that's because they could afford it. We did exhibits for auto shows.

 

we use auto cad , mud box, and 3dsmax for modeling. i have my eyes on a few 3d printers that will be my next addition to the shop. I'm looking at printing components for our signs and then making molds so we can cast repeat parts.

 

I just saw a post of the work you do, I'm a big fan of themed graphics, Dillon Works being my favorite.

I just came across another place near me in an article in a local paper... http://storylandstudios.com/
I've had the pleasure of working with these guys on some things too, he's pretty close to me too... http://www.jrcofab.com

I wonder if they are using this technology yet, I can see lot of uses for this for mold making and for
quick dimensional renderings for proportion study.

 

checked them both out... they are awesome. That's where we are headed.

 

Thanks for the post, I am part of a team bringing a different 3D printer to market right now.
We have not decided on whether to try kickstarter or not still... Everything seems to be working itself out at the moment!