#3D Printing Business

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dusky pilot
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Hey, I’m getting a Bambu Lab A1 soon and I’m planning to start a small 3D printing business called Made3D.

I’m new to 3D printing and I don’t really know how to model yet, so I’m trying to figure out what simple stuff I should print first that people would actually buy.

I’m looking for product ideas that are cheap to print, beginner friendly, small enough to sell or ship, useful, customizable, and not related to food or drinks.

I’m also wondering how I should get my models. Should I learn basic modeling in something like Tinkercad, customize simple designs, or use models with commercial use licenses?

Any advice on what beginner products sell, where to get safe models, and how to start without much modeling experience would help a lot.

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any help is appreciated (:

timid tiger
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my guy. you... need to do so much more before thinking about business.

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for now, i recommend just approaching this as a hobby. what you're asking is stuff that almost no one would ever share, because they'd use it themselves

dusky pilot
left siren
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You'll also need to know:

  • what your target market is?
  • What problems are you solving for your customer?
  • How will you provide good customer service when items break or need to process returns?
  • How does your version of the printed model perform out in the wild?
  • What safety standards do you need to consider and comply with in your country?

A printer is a tool, but it is by no means perfect, are you prepared to troubleshoot technical issues, and\ or disassemble it fully?

And last by not least, 3d printing as a business can be mentally draining, the work is constant. The noise is constant. The emission from these printers, since you will need multiple need consideration for fumes and emissions, maybe extraction.
I would not 3d model and also have a full time print farm. Both take just as long to do and both are about as challenging as each other.

There are at least 3 displines here:

  • slicer settings
  • machine operation
  • 3d artist
  • 3d design
  • engineering
    Then on top of it with a buisness
  • marketing.
  • saftey and compliance.
  • logistsics and delivery.
  • admin.

I would also consider how to reduce waste and your footprint on the environment, how to cost for failures + check out #commercial-printing for others who do this. It's not as simple as advertised.

Also consider that in the pla market, you will have competition. A looooot of competition.
So absolutely as quagzlor said, please please do yourself a favour, and try it as a hobby, and with friends and family first. bulbasmile

dusky pilot
left siren
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Oh ok interesting, so stuff like deck boxes, trophies and ball holders.

Some of it might end up in cars, which for summer, means heat...so look for at least petg to test in the cards. (Should be good in most countries). Technical stuff and testing for "how hot before it bends under load" can help you work this out.
I can warp my pla prints by leaving them out in the sun in summer. (Hot country though, 30 - 45 degree days)

Also for sure, get a filament dryer that can do more than one spool. Or a food dehydrator. And something to store filament in (maybe) (After the initial, "ok, i've tried it and i like this phase")

I also usually say after you like printing, try a 500g spool of tpu. It opens other doors.

Don't be afraid try just modifying an existing design to add something. Even say if you're using another off the shelf product. Eg. I can see ball stands or trophies that have solar power rgb light placed in them. Wanna go further? Add WLED implementation. Now it's wirelessly controllable.

Also ask yourself "do i need to print this? Can this be achieved better a different way or in a different material"

A legal thing, i'm not a lawyer, but sometimes even if the design says "for commercial use" it's a good idea to still reverse image search it and double check ip. The designer might just be using an existing design without changes.
I'm not sure where fair use or fan art comes into play, and also it varies by country.

I would be very tempted (especially cos you have youtube) to shout out to your following and ask them to comment on what issues they commonly have that they haven't found solution for yet. (In your space, basketball). Not specifically 3D printable...

I bring up waste a lot, cos it's a good idea to be conscious of it where possible. Even more so if mass production.b(enviromental reasons)
Currently, recycling 3dp waste is a challenge. You can check your area and see if any where commercial takes it.

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The diy ones are also challenging, because to print quickly, accurately and without clogs you also need accurate and consistent filament diameter.
Pellet extruders might be slightly better?

dusky pilot
# left siren Oh ok interesting, so stuff like deck boxes, trophies and ball holders. Some of...

For storage I’m using vacuum sealed holder, and I will purchase a dryer later on. I already have a prototype in the making, I’m starting to learn tinkercad. I’m getting good at it, I’m gonna use blender later on. But I have a printable prototype took around an hour to make. I’m happy to upgrade the design, one thing I need help with is measurements. I’m not good at that…

dusky pilot
left siren
# dusky pilot For storage I’m using vacuum sealed holder, and I will purchase a dryer later on...

Mm calipers or a ruler at the design desk. And just print physical representations of thicknesses. It is so easy to get disconnected from the numbers.

Also dimensionally accuracy will be something you'll need to tune your printer for.
Ideally you do shrinkage to get the filament to the right size, then x\y comp to add a "tolerence" or gap. *I'm unsure how well this work with complicated mechanical designs.
bulbasmile

left siren
# dusky pilot And for the waste part I’m trying to not use multicolor for that reason.

Fair enough. bulbasmile
I'm looking to make an open source multicolour (so ecrf or pi pico(?) or turtlebox), with the hope of using something called "tip forming" so the waste is much more minimal because it doesn't need to purge. The downside being that it can be fiddly + time consuming to tune, so a lot of printers use cuttiners (like the bambu and qidi and crossbow cutter)

Tuning your cooling for better overhang and bridging will all help decrease waste.

You can improve it by flushing into infill or calibrating purging volumes though.
*For other printers using orca, you can sortive achieve similar to the bambu, but it's uh all manual changing, so becomes for special stuff like incompatible interfacing or just doing an eye a different colour on a character.

Oh uh, i say all this stuff but it's optional and you'll probably go through it during your hobby testing anyway.
The most fundamental part is the first layer + supervision of the printer.

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Icm not sure if you can tune tip forming into a bambu, but leaving it there for you to investigate.

dusky pilot
left siren
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and they also sometimes use different terminology which can make tuning confusing. e.g. advance k factor is more commonly known as pressure advance / linear advance.

usually, you tune if your having an issue....
the auto tuning the bambu does for stuff like flow / extrusion multiplier can be up to 10% out...so manual tuning (using the calibrate button at the top of the slicer) can be helpful if your having an issue.
the main issue really is when you have issues on a bambu with z offset (to do with first layer). it's really challenging to adjust vs a different brand of printer.

these guides are good for general hard info, and also check out lost in tech and teaching tech on youtube for more indepth stuff.
but it's focussed towards cura slicer, so you'll need to adpat your method a bit to fit your slicer.

desert wedgeBOT
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Calibration
Calibration and tuning can help with all aspects of print quality.
Extruder calibration should be done only once, and then again if you change any hardware on your extruder setup (new tube, gear drive, different motor, etc).
Flow calculation should be done for every filament, even different colours from the same brand.

A number of calibration and tuning guides exist online:

?calibration requested by: wolfesbluebox
dusky pilot
desert wedgeBOT
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sleek lily
dusky pilot
sleek lily
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np if need more just dm me

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at the moment im in a partner ship with a friend so we dobble the grams of a spool so 2 spools 1kg each = 2000 grams then we print half the work load each then split the proffit so for a thing im printing now we make 100 gtar picks for 50 cents each so there is 50 bucks total proffit then we split it to were i do 50 and my friend dose 50 the we would get 25 buck each so that is enof for a other 1kg spool each with 5 buck to spare

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so each batch of that order we get a new spool and 5 bucks each

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i have done the maths for a good turn back margin

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took 10 weeks to figure it all out tho and did some in my business class in school