making money from 3d printing?

[LambdaFF]

Have you thought about printing miniatures for architects, replicas for museums and/or highly personalized decoration stuff for small local businesses ?

[aWsomeABE]

Have you thought about printing miniatures for architects, replicas for museums and/or highly personalized decoration stuff for small local businesses ?

Do you really think FDM printers are capable right now of making prints that are high enough quality to sell to others? I personally think it has a ways to go before architects, museums, and local businesses will be outsourcing to FDM printers.

[cipher0]

Let me rephrase then: use thinner layers.

I don't know why I even need to respond to this. Am I missing something obvious which makes your suggestion actually helpful? Because I'll be glad to be proven wrong.
Because when I say there are ugly lines, which make FDM 3d printers not good for producing things like figures, miniatures, phone cases or anything plastic really that *has to* look good, I'm talking about things printed with layers of as low as 50 microns. Can your printers go below that? Mind showing me some close-up pictures of their prints?

[Davo]

cipher0, I'm not trying to argue with you; I am trying to offer a helpful suggestion. If my suggestion is not helpful, I will stop posting on your thread. If you would like, I will remove my comments from your thread.

Here you see 25 micron layers (white) next to 300 micron layers (green). That's the smallest layer thickness we've announced to date. The edge facing the camera in the top image is a compound curve, more easily seen in the green part.

The jaggedness on the end has been corrected. I'll get a newer print at 25 this week and post it here.





Please note that printing at 25 microns takes a very long time.

[cipher0]

I'm not trying to argue with you either, I just don't see how someone representing Hyrel3D would think a suggestion like using even the thinnest layer height possible would help print phone cases and everything else mentioned above at good enough quality for selling. I know you replied suggesting to use thinner layers if I don't want ugly lines, but you're next suggestion (which is the same suggestion) quotes me saying people won't buy something looking so "unfinished".

And yes I know a layer height like that would cause a very long print. Which btw is another reason your suggestion to use thinner layers isn't a good one in my opinion, but since it's not that big of a deal if you're printing a mold I decided not to mention it.

As for your photos, thanks for posting them. I didn't know Hyrel could go lower than 50 microns. Looking at the image of the 25 print, I don't see lines, which is very good. But then again I see other impurities on the surface (not talking about the part which you say has been fixed). I'm sure others will agree they see them as well and they wouldn't buy a figurine, phone case, etc looking like that.
Maybe it's just the image compression, filament quality or something else though. So please post better pictures when you can. Right now you haven't convinced me that the print can be "high enough quality to sell to others" as someone else said above, just proven that lines can be eliminated for the naked eye at lower layer height prints.

Actually, if Hyrel or similar company sells some printed samples so people can see and feel the print quality themselves I'd buy that.

[Davo]

Thanks, I'm working on printed samples to send out to people now. I'll shoot one to you when they're done.

[Feign]

As an alternate to Davo's suggestion. If you don't like the lines, do some postprocessing. A careful acetone vapor bath or even just sanding and painting a piece after it's printed can absolutely make it consumer grade.

I think you've gotten yourself into the mindset that if you can't sell something directly out of your printer, then it's not worth the time. If you're asking for an affordable desktop 3D printer that makes money all by itself, then you'll be dissapointed. If you look at it as a tool among multiple tools in a craft, then yes it can be a very powerful tool for making you money.

[squadus]

^ Right..

We're still a few years away from "mass manufacturing from our desktops" but the technology is all there. You can always send off the model to shapeways, sculpteo, etc or even overseas to China, Thailand, etc to be mass fabricated. There is always a way..

[cipher0]

Thanks, I'm working on printed samples to send out to people now. I'll shoot one to you when they're done.

Okay, thanks.

As an alternate to Davo's suggestion. If you don't like the lines, do some postprocessing. A careful acetone vapor bath or even just sanding and painting a piece after it's printed can absolutely make it consumer grade.

I've talked about acetone "vapor baths", dipping in liquid acetone as well as sandpapering and why they aren't really great in this thread already.

^ Right..

We're still a few years away from "mass manufacturing from our desktops" but the technology is all there.

Who said mass manufacturing? My arguments apply even to unique phone cases, miniature sculptures, etc.

You can always send off the model to shapeways, sculpteo, etc or even overseas to China, Thailand, etc to be mass fabricated. There is always a way..

I don't need a 3d printer and 3d printing myself to make money like that though, which this thread is about.

[MeoWorks]

I think you've gotten yourself into the mindset that if you can't sell something directly out of your printer, then it's not worth the time. If you're asking for an affordable desktop 3D printer that makes money all by itself, then you'll be dissapointed. If you look at it as a tool among multiple tools in a craft, then yes it can be a very powerful tool for making you money.

Well said. Even with VERY expensive pro printers, printed "stuff" will still need to have a little bit of post processing to get a good, clean prototype product. 3D printing is not simply print and sell, probably never will be, you should consider all printed parts to be non sell-able prototypes.

EDIT: Let me rephrase that. Even the prints coming out of the very best printers right now will still need to reworked in some way or form. Earlier in the thread you mentioned that it seems in order to make money from 3D printing, you'll need knowledge from other fields as well. This is very true, nothing is easy in life LOL.

Here's a list of knowledge I've accumulated in my years just sculpting from clay to present day digital sculpting.

-Tools
-Medium of all sorts
-Casting Methods
-Plastics/silicones
-Physics
-Mathematics
-Computer tech and building
-Computer software and troubleshooting
-Electric work
-Electronics
-Hazardous material handling and disposal
-and probably a ton of other things.

In the end one does not simply buy a 3D printer and expect to make major bucks without some sort of other effort. It honestly seems like that's what you're looking for, printing out a perfect piece that will sell right away without any work to it. It won't happen. Sorry. You're into 3D, you should know that gravity does not exist in a 3D environment, if you sculpt a dynamic human sculpt, be prepared to reprint that sculpt at least twice or three times before you get your master copy perfectly the way you want it, with the correct balance etc. Then you have to post process it.

OR you can simply take your first print and cast it to a workable material such as wax and make your adjustments there and then use that wax master to make resin copies. It takes work, but hey, nothing is easy.

I'm just rambling now but it just seems like you expect these printers to be mini factories that'll do all the work for you. It's just a tool