American 3D Printing - Bricks and Mortar Retail Store

It seems like so much of this industry is web-based, there is very little real-life face to face interaction, except at hacker spaces and maker faires. I decided that there is a HUGE niche that is being unaddressed so far, which is a retail store where you can walk in, talk with real people face to face and see the printers build, with your own eyes first hand.

We opened for business in October 2013 in Evergreen Colorado, which is a community of about 40,000 people, about 20 miles west of Denver.

We currently have Makerbot Replicators 2s, and Type A Machines Series 1s, and have Z-Morphs on order. Since Lulzbot is only a couple hour's drive we plan on visiting them soon to see if their printers would be a good addition to the store.

We reckon that scanning and copying ought to go together like bacon and eggs, so we have Makerbot Digitizers and 3D Systems Sense scanners.

When researching the industry prior to opening, everyone said that I needed Solidworks, so I purchased a copy, then took their classes to learn how to use it. Since I am already a highly experienced design engineer, learning it was basically figuring out the commands and syntax to make it do what I needed. There is obviously a learning curve to making things that can be printed as well. In addition to Solidworks we also use Meshmixer, Scupltris, Cubify Sculpt, Blender, Sketchup, and 123D Design. While the Makerbots have their own slicing software built into Makerware, on the Type As we use KISSlicer, Slic3r and Skeinforge, and run the printers with Pronterface.

In addition to 3D printing, 3D scanning, and 3D design, we stock and sell what we use. We are an authorized retailer for Makerbot, 3D Systems, Type A Machines and Solidoodle, and we stock and sell filament from Makerbot, Type A Machines, Filament Central and Taulman. Going home with it today beats having to wait for the big brown truck :cool:

If you are in the Denver area, please come visit!

Since that original post, we now have the Z-Morphs in stock and working out on the floor, and we have Lulzbot TAZ 3s, in stock and out on the floor building away. We got the Lulzbots because of their HUGE build volume, every time we'd turn around we'd have customers coming in with great big parts they'd need built. Both the Z-Morphs and Lulzbots have heated glass beds, and the Z-Morphs are enclosed as well.

Right now our Type A Machines Series 1 is on sale, at $1,395, down from the $1,695 regular price, and out Lulzbot TAZ 3s are on sale for $1,995. Both of these are limited time sale prices. One other thing about those Type A Machines, is that they are out of stock at the factory in San Francisco and they are quoting a 10-12 week lead time. We have them in stock! Of course we have Replicator 2s in stock too, but who doesn't?

Last week we were updating our inventory list in our POS system and realized that we're up to over 62 SKUs of filament, in both 1.75mm and 3mm. Besides the usual PLA and ABS, we have Taulman nylon 618, 645 and their new Bridge nylon, we have Taulman T-Glase PET in all 5 colors, we have HIPS, Laywoo-D3 and Laybrick, in stock for immediate delivery, or for your build. We have every color of makerbot PLA that we can get through their distributor, 24 different colors and counting, including glow in the dark and flexible.

We have Makerbot Digitizers in stock, and Sense scanners that are scheduled to be delivered by 4/15/14. Whenever they end up going into production, we've been preauthorized to sell Fuel 3D scanners too.

We've been doing tons of design work, especially making new parts for broken items or replacements for parts that are no longer available.

And we have a 100% satisfaction guarantee. If you're not absolutely delighted with the build, you don't pay for it, simple as that.

Announcement: We now have Ninjaflex filament and the special Flexistruder for our Lulzbot TAZ, and have been building with this stuff for a couple weeks now. Ninjaflex is an incredibly strong, rubberlike TPU (thermoplastic urethane). The picture below is a replacement seal we designed and built for a customer's shower diverter cartridge. Including our design time, it only cost the customer about $15, saving him the cost of a new shower diverter and a plumber's house call.