Volume or mix

[davide445]

To start a new professional 3d printing service will be better (safer) to buy one big building size pro level FDM printer or differentiate among smaller lower level FDM and SLA one?

[LambdaFF]

What are your customers' expectations ?

[curious aardvark]

differentiate
Most people won't want large items made in one piece.

But they might want small items made with a wide variety of different materials.

I just keep coming back to the Hyrel system :-)

[Davo]

Really, before spending thousands on a printer, why not try out several different models at a makerspace?

You wouldn't open a bakery if you had no baking experience, would you?

You wouldn't open a custom bicycle shop if you had no bicycling experience, would you?

I don't understand why people with no 3d printing experience want to open a 3d printing business.

[davide445]

Really, before spending thousands on a printer, why not try out several different models at a makerspace?

You wouldn't open a bakery if you had no baking experience, would you?

You wouldn't open a custom bicycle shop if you had no bicycling experience, would you?

I don't understand why people with no 3d printing experience want to open a 3d printing business.

That's an ever upcoming reasoning, and of course we also did think about that.
In a small region and city such as our will be difficult to be credible without any single printer available, and also our learning curve will be much lower.
I will thrust a backer that act as broker if I need only to buy big orders of perfectly standardized goods such as bread.
I will not thrust and pay a value added to a broker of highly personalized services and technologies, knowing he didn't own the technology but act only as pass trough of my orders.
In a national market where there are only few really big service providers our industrial customers will know who is the professional service we will intermediate, and start ask directly to him.
Also will be difficult to attract real expert in 3D solid modelling and production without any technology in house.
Also being a new and ever evolving technology there is still space for newcomers, with good technical background and huge experience in professional services. Otherwise didn't find any reason for entrepreneurship. The question is how to manage risk.
Does make sense as reasoning?

[Davo]

That's an ever upcoming reasoning, and of course we also did think about that.
In a small region and city such as our will be difficult to be credible without any single printer available, and also our learning curve will be much lower.
I will thrust a backer that act as broker if I need only to buy big orders of perfectly standardized goods such as bread.
I will not thrust and pay a value added to a broker of highly personalized services and technologies, knowing he didn't own the technology but act only as pass trough of my orders.
In a national market where there are only few really big service providers our industrial customers will know who is the professional service we will intermediate, and start ask directly to him.
Also will be difficult to attract real expert in 3D solid modelling and production without any technology in house.
Also being a new and ever evolving technology there is still space for newcomers, with good technical background and huge experience in professional services. Otherwise didn't find any reason for entrepreneurship. The question is how to manage risk.
Does make sense as reasoning?

Yes, I better understand your situation now. You want a printer to get experience on, but with no experience, you don't know which printer or printers to get.

My advice remains the same: participate with a maker space or 3d printing hobby group in person, and get a feel for what features are important to you.

We like to sell Hyrels, but we prefer to sell to people who have already determined that their current printer no longer meets their needs (or no printer on the market does) - either they desire to use a wider variety of materials, or they desire more control, or they want more complex, multi-material prints.

There are some great, reliable, inexpensive single material printers. The Affina/UP type seems to put out very nice prints for the money. I suggest you learn on something like this, and if you decide to get more expensive machines later, this one will still be in your arsenal if needed.