How does making your own product on a home 3D printer compare to the cost per unit of having something like Shapeways or similar do it? Out of curiosity, I took my design for a Dremel gig that is about 4 - 5 hours of total printing time (biggest part is 3 hours, and several 1/2 hour pieces), and a single unit cost from an online quote was roughly $35. Plus there is a good selection of materials, including metal options (much more expensive though), but biggest advantage would be consistency of builds (I still find 3D printing at home to be finicky at best).
The material costs for 3D printing are really small. A 1kg spool of PLA is in the order of 20-30 USD, and most 3D prints have only a small amount of infill, so they're surprisingly light for their volume.
For example, I designed a set of sprockets to drive my blinds, and the total weight of the sprockets to drive 3 sets of blinds is less than 15 grams of plastic. This goose-shaped figurine is about 35g of plastic: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3906053
The labor costs aren't, however. I've helped maintain various maker spaces. Most 3D printers were nightmares that were constantly breaking down. The most reliable we've found have been the Prusas, and even they require regular work. We have 4 at the moment, and at any given time at least 1 is usually down for some reason or other.
For my application, it's much cheaper and I have the added flexibility of being able to adjust my design and rapdily prototype should the other components need to change due to unavailability -- I have already had to do this.
For something that costs me $0.17 at home, Etsy people want to charge upwards of $4 plus shipping and Shapeways or the like are $20+.
I’m very intrigued, as I have a couple ideas for things I could manufacture with my 3D printer + some custom electronics too, but have never invested the time into. Could you by any chance please share what you’re making? Or just a rough idea if you want to protect your niche? Thanks
I sell the only "generic" version of an item that is both costly in money and time to obtain.
Imagine you had a bunch of arcade machines with a proprietary button to turn each on. You can buy the button, but the manufacturer requires their service people physically install and bind it your arcade. Most operators want multiple buttons cause they always break, but they also don't want to deal with downtime during replacement.
I sell the button for 1/3 of the cost with modifications allowing anyone to install it.
Thanks for explaining! That indeed sounds like quite a niche. Can I trouble you to ask how you discovered this niche? Is it very difficult to interface to these propriety systems?
