Finishing the last part of my largest 3D Hubs order by far: it’s a Pipboy 3000 from Fallout 4. I’m not even a video game person and am in love with this print!! Right at about 60 hours at 200 microns and between 20 to 35% infill depending on the part. Printed the 108% version.
What are you charging (if I may ask) for something like that. I recently had a 40 hour print that I felt I was undercharging for.
This order was on a discount so I can’t really say the definite price. Mid $100’s. My current prices are here:https://www.3dhubs.com/atlanta/hubs/lets-print
What are you charging for your 40 hours? It’s a volume game which is what makes it hard. I’m switching to a delta for my orders just to drop the print times.
I love 3DHubs. Sometimes I need stuff done on an SLA and I only have of FDM machines, so I’ve been using a guy in New York with a Form2. Last order… 3 decently large but hollow ball/ grip shaped objects each about 3 inches size. 18 hour print estimate. Oh and I threw in a few gears and pulleys cuz why not - a separate 3 hour print. All at 25 microns. And I paid under 85 bucks for everything. Like Griffin said its a volume game. Frankly, I wouldn’t work for so little (especially since FDM can fail and requires lots of support material) but I’m really happy others do.
I’m still in school so it’s just a job in passing. I start my orders when I get home and just sit and study. At first I worked for almost nothing a print but have been slowly increasing my price. Right now it’s doing well enough to make it an easy job where I just have to ship a couple times a week.
@raykholo I have been wanting to make a SLA printer to expand my print possibilities. Do you think he made any money on those?
Someone should do some calculations to see what it would take to earn a modest living, say $60k on 3D hubs… 50mm print speed, how many bots? How much volume? And say, a 5 year payout for your machine investment. Maybe a 10% failure for prints. What other calculations are needed? Maybe 20 hours of production time a day, 5 days a week. That’s a fun puzzle. I wonder if anyone exists with enough printers to do it. It will have to assume an unlimited demand of course.
@Brook_Drumm I’ve thought about that but never to that degree. I’ll run some numbers and (hopefully) report back in the morning with a rough answer. Have any idea of what you would want to average each KG of filament? And Infill/shell settings?
I pay $14.99 a kilo for my filament and still run at about 65 watts of power an hour so I could calculate those in as well. Although I assume most people have heated beds.
@Griffin_Paquette On the 3 “grips” the total volume was 72 cm^3. I calculate roughly $11 material cost based on $149/ liter Formlabs Standard Resin. So 8x multiplier on material cost. Now if someone were to use the 25% student discount on 3DHubs, that would drop to 6x. Keep in mind: labor (setup and texting me over the course of 15 minutes to confirm part orientation on the platform and support placements - because I am that detail oriented), splitting shipping cost of the resin and the $60 “bed” which has to be replaced every 2 liters of resin, electricity and studio rent, and amortization of a $3500 machine + any repair expenses. So I’ll leave the conclusions up to you…
@Griffin_Paquette you are slightly more expensive than I am and like you this is a hobby. I have 5 operational and 5 in process printers, plus 5 more in queue. So to answer @Brook_Drumm 's question, if this were to be viable, we are assuming $5000 in orders a month and on the assumption I am printing 100 hours a week and consuming, say 4 reels a week , I am going to ballpark 5 printers basically running all day every day IF the orders are consistent. This is very very rough. I’d love to see your numbers @Griffin_Paquette and would love to know if anyone here thinks that sort of thing is scalable. In the end, I don’t think it’s really doable unless you are doing specialized projects that include more intense labor than just running a print. But then I’m the guy working on a GSA Schedule 36 (3D printing government BPA). Speaking of which, maybe we should form a collective, I will front us on the Schedule 36 and we will then go bid on government projects. What say?
It would be very hard to make a living this way. It’s great for supplemental income however.
Long story short I had about 25 brand new printers and runned them for a couple of months. I had about an average of 5k of revenue. Now discount the material cost ( 7 to 10 1kg at wholesale, maybe less today ) plus other expenses. This was not via 3Dhubs. The point is, do a lot of marketing in a place where design services are needed and customers will pay for it.
The only way my 3d hubs orders were worth it was when I could charge design time. I drew some parts from a sketch for someone local and printed multiples of each part. Without the design services, I probably wouldn’t have done it. I charged more money for 3 hours of design than 40+ hours of printing.
I’m fascinated by the people making extra income this way, but running a business myself, I am well aware of hidden costs and the cost of labor.
It would be cool to see a formal business plan put together with real data and numbers. Either it is possible to make a living doing this or it is not.
Which is it?
If there are people out there dreaming about doing this or justifying their purchase of a printer, wouldnt it be helpful to either save them the trouble or guide them on the path?
It does strike me as surprising that haven’t seen any serious study of this. But maybe I’m looking in the wrong places
-Brook
Not sure what happened in Winnipeg, but the market seems to have dried up.
I was slowly building up order volume (was getting a small order 1 / week). I was (still am) best rated hub in the city. Made enough to pay for all my PLA (including what I’ve used personally) and my (modified) Simple. So nothing to complain about.
However, I’ve not had a single order in the past 3 months. Considering pulling down my hub and just going back to personal printing.
In 2 years I’ve grossed ~$1200.
@Alex_Wiebe I know the feeling. I went two months with no orders. I have 5/5 in everything and am the cheapest option in my area. Sometimes I get flushed with orders and sometimes its really slow. I miss getting to print for myself, which is why I am making a delta just for orders. I want my big machine to be for personal use and large parts only.
The only folks making money are the 3D Hubs folks…
@Nathan_Walkner I bet they’re still making a decent amount. There are so many printers on there and a 12.5% cut is pretty steep. Their website changes a little from time to time but otherwise I haven’t seen much change…
Using the order number and date, I’ve tracked 3DHubs daily volume of about 6,000 enquiries and orders / day. (Was just under 4,000/day at the start of 2015, April 2016 avg 6,250/day - my last order was May 1st. I had an enquiry July 11, and the daily rate from May 1 -> July 11 had dropped to 5,300)
Using my personal experience to get a floor: 64% of enquiries/orders ended up as paid orders. I averaged just under $20 / order. 3DHubs takes 12.5%.
6000 * 0.64 * 20 * 0.125 = $9,600 (CDN) / day.
Or about $3.5M annual gross income.
The only number above that I would confidently project onto 3DHubs is the 6000 enquiry/order per day rate.
I think 3D hubs’ problem is that aside from very specialized printing processes , their FDM will most likely die to nothing. If these machines get to every household in the next couple years I don’t know that there will be a need.