It sounds like you have a good plan in place and it would be nice to utilize your printer to get some return on it during those down times. It could be that you just have to wait for the local market to develop. Please don’t think I was accusing you of racing the price to the bottom, price exploration is always something people try out. I was merely reflecting on the downside if everyone does that without regard to the cost of doing the production work, and in a market that simply hasn’t developed enough revenue for everyone yet.
Call if you ever want to discuss more or get together. 404-964-6357
we had our printer listed last fall and got maybe 6 orders totaling about 250$ worth of sales. it was more trouble than it was worth to generate income. models were always incorrect dimension or not designed well for printing (thin walls/way to many overhangs) we turned off our service and use it for our own developmental use. takes a lot of 20$ prints at 2-4hrs print time to even bother. race to the bottom on price is never the way to go in any service based business- you will never win.
also i just dont think there were too many people needing prints, the ones we got were mostly people kicking the tires to see if they should buy a printer, or to test the prints our’s could produce.
I got an email suggesting this topic might be pertinent to me. I saw the suggestion from 3D Hubs to lower the startup cost and lower rates a few weeks ago and decided I want no part of that. It is enough trouble to get a new part set up and printed out well, I don’t think our rates are unreasonable at all! …especially for prototypers who need a proof of concept, fitment prototype, etc., this is WAY cheaper than calling on a machine shop. Perhaps many of the people who need those kind of prototypes have their own 3D printers? I’ve gotten a handful, but have not gotten a steady stream of jobs. I guess the demand just isn’t there.
That was kind of what I was thinking, It appears that demand is just not really there (yet?). For a business like mine that needs to create prototypes quickly to test concepts, the cost of a printer is almost nothing (less than the cost of a single prototype, in the case of the prototype that brought us to buy a printer in the first place). For a home user that is tinkering around with cad, finding 3Dhubs.com may not happen unless they are very actively looking.
I guess it is either going to take a while for the interest level in this service increases. To a business, a prototype in hand TODAY can be worth thousands and thousands of dollars regardless of the amount of plastic that goes into printing it. However, to a consumer looking to an iPhone case featuring their new catch phrase embossed on the cover 3D Printing is worth far less.
Is there anywhere on 3D hubs that you can see order volume by hub? How many orders/day is the Atlanta Hub processing? Perhaps that data is not available outside of the organization.
Not giving up, just ponderous of the business model and future of the 3Dhubs.com service.
As for the race to the bottom, we may not do it here but with soo many 3D Printer companies coming on the scene and driving printer prices down, we are by proxy on a race to the bottom as more potential customers may just buy a printer of their own and make it themselves as I did a few years ago.
Granted, there is a value to an operator that knows what they are doing and there is a reason I let someone else change my car’s oil and cut my homes yard. It is because I value their skill and my time more than the value of doing those things myself. Perhaps this is the place that the 3Dhubs.com service will find their arena once the wave breaks on people buying 3D Printers.
Coming from the manufacturing school at Georgia Tech, I can tell you the main issue with Atlanta based customers is the lack of demand resulting from a lack of understanding. Few people you meet will truly understand what 3D printing is and an even fewer percentage will understand how it can be used.
The trick is going to be converting those individuals who have an idea on paper to paying prototyping customers. There is this sort of “unknown” gap from, “hey! I have an idea but I don’t know what to do” to the “hey! I have an STL file for a prototype I’m working on, can you print it for me?”
We need to educate creators, innovators, and thinkers first about the technology and then we will expect exponential growth in the additive manufacturing industry.
To answer your question, it is not you. Atlanta is dead right now.
Just a quick update: I have seen my first order and several more to go with it. I have averaged about an order a week for the past 4 weeks. Not “keep the lights on” money, but then that was never my intention. This is mostly about helping others as i am not a part of a hacker space and also about helping folks with challenges to expand my skills.
