Upgrading your print farm may not be necessary, I talk about my experience with running my Ender 3 v2 print farm after 4 years, and where it machines stack u...
I found this interesting. It’s a different view point than “buy the latest and greatest”.
There are print request sites where people will put up a print model and filament requirements and you can agree to provide them by X date for Y dollars.
Sometimes people need one offs and dont want to buy a printer, so they pay $50 for $5 worth of plastic/electricity. Sometimes other folk need 100 of something and pay $5/each for something like a green rectangle. With solar panels or cheap electricity, as long as you are making a profit after buying plastic and have the process tuned in, you basically have machines making $1-3/hr just running 24hr/day.
I think it’s likely a very hard niche to break into and keep orders coming.
It also seems like a lot of people find a device or appliance where there are no replacement parts or very expensive ones and they sell printed ones at a nice markup.
It might be that those green squares fix a $300 thing for $20 when the manufacturer wants $80. Print them, toss them up on etsy/amazon and call it a day.
I know years ago I bought a replacment knob for a kitchenaid mixer that I got used. Was something like $10 for likely $0.25 of plastic, but it made sense to buy to solve my one issue instead of buying a whole 3D printer.
There are print request sites where people will put up a print model and filament requirements and you can agree to provide them by X date for Y dollars.
Sometimes people need one offs and dont want to buy a printer, so they pay $50 for $5 worth of plastic/electricity. Sometimes other folk need 100 of something and pay $5/each for something like a green rectangle. With solar panels or cheap electricity, as long as you are making a profit after buying plastic and have the process tuned in, you basically have machines making $1-3/hr just running 24hr/day.
Fascinating. A whole hidden world.
I think it’s likely a very hard niche to break into and keep orders coming.
It also seems like a lot of people find a device or appliance where there are no replacement parts or very expensive ones and they sell printed ones at a nice markup.
It might be that those green squares fix a $300 thing for $20 when the manufacturer wants $80. Print them, toss them up on etsy/amazon and call it a day.
I know years ago I bought a replacment knob for a kitchenaid mixer that I got used. Was something like $10 for likely $0.25 of plastic, but it made sense to buy to solve my one issue instead of buying a whole 3D printer.