Things I Have Learned From Running A 3d Print Farm
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- Опубликовано: 10 июл 2024
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Have you ever wanted to run your own 3d print farm or have a product idea that you want to be able to print and sell? In today's video we will go over my experience running a print farm and selling those items online. We will cover the things I did well and the things I did not do so well.
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After seeing this video in our analytics, I thought I'd check it out. This is an awesome video, and I bet Luke would concur with all your points! - Perry
Thank you very much for watching and the feedback 🙌. You rock 👍
Oh Hi Perry! I agree great video!
Would not exactly call 4 printers a print farm, more like a print garden.
That's fair. In my mind even if you are just running a few machines in sort of a production environment it falls under farm. I am fine with it being a garden :)
@@ModBotArmy If you have more than 2 its a farm. The management is equally chaotic when you get above 2. I have 8 and they are all one brand, and still a bitch to keep track of....Thanks for doing this video I thought I was losing my mind and doing things the hard way....
@@thecomiccircuit what kind of products do you sell these days?
Where do you sell them?
@@OutsiderDreams mostly cosplay props, and toys on ebay. Due to family events I stopped selling after the holiday season 2018-2019. I briefly printed face-shields in 2020 to local hospital with a group of folks. I am considering starting up again, if I can find a project....maybe, I use repetier server and host for the farm management, I purchased before octopie had their server up and running.
I want to start one but I only have a single machine. ;-;
We are running a 3D print farm and these are solid advices.
Same!!
technically he taught you then.
@@svanput So if I agree with you, then you taught me, interesting !
@@billnoname8093 lol!
Are you still in business and making a livable profit?
As a former business owner and founder, I can relate to the lessons about workspace. It can get overwhelming. I'm seeing the same issues as I evaluate larger printers, laser engravers, and CNC routers. Quality is everything. Thank you for producing excellent videos for the Maker community.
Thankyou so much for this video. As someone who is working on their first self produced/self designed item for a niche market- this help confirmed and clarify a lot of things for me. It was really reassuring to know that some of the things I've done thus far, were the 'right' things to do. I.e. probing the market for interest, preparing ahead of time, not over extending or committing too quickly/too early.
Long form=greatness . . . You're great and we all appreciate everything you're doing!
I been running my own print farm for about 5 plus months now and you covered everything I have learned within that time.
Awesome! I hope things are going well with the farm. Glad to hear that the things I experienced definitely still relate.
What do you print ?
@@StoneThaProfit what do you print, i have 2 3d printers but I don't know what print to sell
Are you making any profit or just trying to recoup losses with revenue. Starting a print farm would cost a fair amount and since so many are in it - parts are cheap so it is a race to bottom for pricing.
I have no interest in building a print farm and my first printer hasn't even arrived yet, but this video showed up in the list and I'm glad I watched it. Thanks for sharing your experiences and what worked for you. I believe in learning from other people's experiences and I appreciate you sharing them.
I plan on doing a small print farm in the future as a side job and watching this video has made clear what to do and what not to do. Thank you for your time on this vid it's opened my eyes on how I can structure a small print farm and how to use my time wisely.
SO MUCH KNOWLEDGE in this video! I literally took notes, lol. Thank you for sharing all of this with us! Greatly appreciated! :)
absolutely fantastic video and amazing content for those thinking about jumping into selling & 3D Printing!
Thanks brotha :)! Happy holidays to you and your family 😬👍
UNCLE JESSEY I LOVE YOUR VIDS I LOVE YOU
@@ModBotArmy I think you missed the emoji
What an amazing video, honestly... You covered everything. and you poured your heart, your success, your decisions, your failures... thank you for this. Success!
I just bought printers 10 and 11 last week. This is great advice, especially about when you DO need a color assortment and when you DON'T. I honestly wish I didn't have need for the nearly 40 dif colors I have, but my market kinda demands it.
I learned very quickly that having multiple "like" printers is a HUGE thing. I have 6 Ender 3 Pro, 4 Biqu B1, and a Chiron (for personal things).
The only thing I noticed you didn't touch on was MAINTENANCE DOWNTIME. Always have simple spare parts at the ready...nozzles, fans, tubing, belts, wheels, etc.
Didn't mention if he made any profit, your selling cheap stuff, lots of competition, are you designing things for clients (the only actual value in this business) or are you running a loss leader where you are trying to recoup costs of startup, supplies, shipping, etc.
Just started a 3D print based business like 2 months ago and it’s awesome to see other people talk about this type of fabrication/business model
This was very helpful. Thanks for sharing. Paying rent and living expenses from 4 3d printers is awesome!
More vids on this please! I'm a Comp Sci student thinking about printing stuff as my side hustle. Super interesting topic.
Thankyou so much for this advice, you may have actually saved entire businesses that haven't even started up yet
Print garden, love it. All this Info is perfect. Ty
Thank you for sharing, this was so informative and got me thinking about moving forward in regards to 3d print farming... thanks again!
This was raw and honest, and truly appreciated.
Very good job on this video. 3 years ago your information is more helpful and informative than other peoples "experiences" running a farm in 2024. Thanks for being honest and sharing your experience rather throwing ads all over the place like other content creators.
Absolutely awesome information for those wanting to get started! Thank you!
Hey you just earned a Sub, seen a few of your videos and thinking of doing my own farm, and then you tackled this herculean project at the same time, respect.
I am so glad you made this video, it is totally on point! 🙂
Thanks for sharing! In college a few friends and I built an online marketplace for 3d printing - unfortunately Make XYZ and 3dHubs kind of took out the market. We pivoted to a 3d printing "loot box" concept and ran that for a few years instead. Also, I can definitely relate to your experience and opinions of full time "office work" and running your own business. It's fun, but once you reach a certain scale having a separate "work" and "personal" life starts to sound like a better option.
Thank You for sharing your experience - very informative and helpful !
Great Video, I was debating on setting up a Print Farm but was concerned about some of the topics you touched on. Much appreciated :) Subed for this video
Enjoyed watching your video as i can pretty much relate to all that was mentioned. I started off 3D printing as a hobby with two machines and selling a couple items on eBay. Due to covid and being made unemployed i decided have a go at turning my hobby into a business. My business has been running from home over a year now and have 12 machines running most of the time. What i have learnt being a 1 man business is that 3D printing takes up a lot of my time. You have to balance work time and free time. Can be difficult and in my case i find myself working 7 days a week. At the moment im still happy being my own boss and working from home. Do miss a regular monthly wage though.
Do you print various parts, or a single part? Or do you do orders for people?
Nice video. And yes we only using per material 1 type of printer to keep things simple and organized. Key feature is you focus on parts you can mass produce and possible injection mold later on. Printer Farm is to get your part going once the market demands go up you are way better off to order via injection molding and sell from there with drop ship. It is always how you skin the cat. We sell our parts in currently 4 countries but the way we adding we will be selling globally and using there for also Amazon and Ebay as platforms since we can automate and run our books centralized as well.
I didn't exactly run a farm, but in the beginning of the pandemic my printer ran around the clock for a few days / weeks. I didn't get to distribute as many shields as I liked, but the experience was great. I learned a lot about my printer, how to tune things and optimize for printing speed. But on the other hand with the pandemic and home office, my bedroom became my workplace, and I can confirm, that's pretty stressful. I am getting my own flat soon so I'm definitely looking forward to that.
Great advise. I've retired and got into 3D Printing. I think I have a nitch on a couple of projects and thanks to watching you, it gives me a good starting point. I don't need to pay rent with this "Farm", just golf money!
Yeah, my 1st 3D printer just arrived today. I’ve worked professionally, as a designer in packaging, for years. But, I want to continue something that I’d enjoy, where I can produce, even when this corporate job disappears or I retire, if that’s even a reality. I just don’t want to sit around, like I think some of my coworkers are doing, thinking the job will last and cover them forever, when the evidence is quite the contrary.
I really liked it. I would love to see a video going in on the business side of it. Like what did and did not work on etsy or with promotions and how you did your pricing and how much you earn from selling one part.
Might be something that I can revisit. I originally was going to get into the finances side of things but it was not readily available on ebay at least. May need to dig a bit deeper. I am sure that info is archived if I pull an extended report.
I could relate to so much of what you shared. Great video man.
This was a very very useful video and stuffed full of amazing advice. Thank you!
Great video, would love to see more about pricing prints as that’s something I’ve been struggling with
everything you described has been my life for the last year and a half. Lol I had to stack 3 printers over top of each other and use my bed as a second desk to help stay organized
Really great presentation. It felt like asking a good friend who had done this for their experience and getting all the details, including the meta stuff like not wanting your bedroom to be a print farm. 😆
Thank you 😊 🙏
Very informative video, a ton of info for those getting into a print farm... wow!!! Thanks
Good info Dan, appreciate it ! keep up the great work Sir !
Great Video, Luke. Thanks for the info!
This helped me a lot man. Great video!
Thank you, great you're sharing this experiences with us, just awesome.
Absolutely, I learn from others and want to pass that on.
Thank you very much for sharing your experience. I think you are right in every point 👍👍👍
Great walkthrough video 👍
Thanks for sharing your experience with all of us 👍🙂
Of course :) Really hope there was some valuable info in there.
Wow alot of great points, thanks for the helpful advice, 👏
Thanks for sharing your hard-earned lessons!
Incredibly helpful. Thank you!
Thanks for sharing your insight , I’ve recently purchased 8 Prusa minis to add to my mk3s+ , so found this helpful in what’s a head
Loved the video! Great information! Very interesting and inspiring! Thank you for sharing!
Thank you :D
Thank you so much! Great information from real life experience!
Amazing recommendations in my 3 years operating a tiny Etsy shop everything here is great advice!!!!
Thanks for all the tips, just perfectfor the business i am starting.
Thank you for making this! I have been wanting to sell some of my designs for a wile now, but I was intimidated as all I own is an Ender 3 v2 and an Anycubic Mega S. Even though these printers are in my room as well, I think I'll give it a shot!
thank you for the genuine sharing! very interesting experience! :)
It's hilarious how similar your story is to mine. I'm lucky enough to have a garage to put the printers, all my printers are the same, and I only print in one color. If I had to have the printers in my room I would go insane, I already spend all my time in here as I'm a full time student.
What do you print ?
Great video!
Thanks for your insight.
Great video to illustrate the pros and cons of running a small home based business.
About 6-7 months into my print farm experience and this video is spot on, even down to the emotional side of it. I'm 24 going on 25 so this video was a little too close to home lol.
Hi Ewok, working on software for print farm operators, and would love to learn more about your operation pain points. Let me know if you are interesting in chatting.
I’m thinking of doing this. I’m broke and pretty much have little to no room for losing money. I have one ender 3 pro machine, but I’m back and forth on deciding if I should keep this as a hobby or begin. Really glad I saw you’re video though. Thank you
Great stuff. My wife knows all too well how the kitchen table / bench becomes the 'packing / shipping station'. Cheers, JAYTEE
Thanks! This is some good information. Also, I picked up a shirt! 😍
You rock! Thank you very much for the support :)
I was planning on making little roller coaster kits, with the premise of my room becoming a factory, but idk now...
Thank you for a honest 3d printing story . I have been (still in ) the exact same situation as you were .
Been running a small print farm for over a year now ,it all started in the exact same way as you did .
It was totally crazy for a half year , have full daytime job and runs these printers as a side note .
Then suddenly the orders were dropping and today i do still get orders but no way the same
as the crazy 6 month .It is actually good ,because it was difficult to do all these orders and
at the same time have a full daytime job .
I did the math and to live of this in Denmark i found out that it would be very difficult ,
high shipping rate , high priced electricity and we have a tax system that rips all-most
50% of your income ,so one would have to generate a crazy amount of income
to be living of this 3d printing stuff :-(
I can feel you. Here in Germany the shipping is okay - thanks to loan slavery, as a result of decades of failed politics - but electricity is ridiculous expensive - thanks to decades of failed politics - and the tax is even over 60%. This is manageable, but it breaks apart with all the paperwork, rules and EU policies. We have big benefits, but even bigger drawbacks of you want to do your own thing. It's a fit or miss.
I might build some projects in Switzerland, as they count on your personal independence and sanity. The tax being as low as ~17-25% does certainly help and the electricity in the regions I'm doing stuff is independent from fossil fuels - resulting in a quarter of energy cost compared to Germany while being carbon neutral and saving resources.
I wish you luck and fun with your business, even if it keeps being a side project. ;)
3d printing without being in the industrial side or printing printers (like pursa) is just a dumb business to be in to be honest. You are selling crappy pla/petg parts that take too long to print and have to sell them cheap and have no margin. You have shipping (it's expensive everywhere) costs, supplies for shipping, supplies for machines, machines, electricity, time. for the 2-6$ you would charge (no one needs to pay more for that as they can just go to one of the many competitors doing the same thing for cheaper than you) it would take a long time to make any sort of decent business out of it. If you go into the industrial side of things - then yes you can do a whole ton more and charge more but your upfront costs will also be more. People can buy a printer for cheap and make the same parts they could buy before the item you sell gets to their door.
Some really good all round advice, I am in a similar place and building some printers to try farming for myself, wish me luck :D
Would love to hear how you determined pricing and what your profit margins were like. Very interesting video keep it up!
The best way to determine pricing is to research if there's any competition. If there is uncercut them a few bucks until you get enough reviews. Then you can match or even raise your price.
If there is no competition do a survey to find out how much someone would pay. Or, like I did, try to sell something to someone at a price you make up and you can judge if it's too high, too low, or just right simply based on their facial expression or initial remark. "oh that's it?!" = too low "woah how much?!" -= too high
Great video on realities of your own business.
Wise advice. I'm running 11 printers.... I wish I would have seen this video before getting hooked! (Albeit - I have 10 Prusa iMK3S and on Fablicator dedicated to flexibles) Thanks for posting.
nice video. very real advice on practicality of small business.
Great info! 👍
I'm at 2 printers so far. and even then the maintenance can be a hassle. After 8 months of selling with them, you do start to get the hang of when there's signs it will need maintenance. I highly encourage anyone with printers to try and at least sell stuff made from them to at least pay for the printers themselves.
So the message I am getting from all these types of videos is that the producers are NOT charging enough for their talent/products, which is why they all decide to go on youtube and teach... Anyone thinking of doing this really needs to value their worth or dont bother starting.
This. I used to offer CAD services as well as printed products. Not very profitable. Problem with CAD is people keep asking you to make changes for the initial agreed price and in the end, you work for peanuts. Printing is quite profitable- if you make things that are easy to clean and don't take too much time and material.
or maybe there is not enough $$$ in youtube so they go to 3D printing....
@@west1343 There's definitely more money in creating a RUclips channel than selling 3D prints. Assuming of course you can create engaging content.
Wow, what am informative and enlightening video. Thanks a bunch!
I am glad you enjoyed it thanks for watching.
Thanks for sharing your feelings about this slice of life. I would have loved if you had been more specific on the items that you sold and the volume of sales at peak times.
Nobody will tell u the real thing, nobody will pin out what they actually print to earn profits... just bla bla and bla
very eye opening. keep it up
Very cool info thanks for sharing. I also have a small farm with 3 printers.
This was the best video I have ever watched
Thanks for the info. I'm stay home dad at the moment. Would like to find a way to make some extra money when I'm not running the kids all over town, I stumbled across this researching 3d printers. Plus as a former electrician I would like to focus on something else, because working in the FL heat sucks!
2:50 Same. That's what made me order my first printer last night
I run a print farm and the two things that you said that are so important is 1. Get good filament. I use Polymaker cant plug them enough. 2. Pick a machine and build your farm from all one machine. This helps in a few ways. Firstly you are pretty familiar with how they work and what can go wrong, and you only need to keep one kind of spare parts.
Great sharing video 👍 Top tips and Advice
Great Video, I started my own print farm and make videos on it too to help other people out, I'm up to 9 printers now!
Seems like a very very low margin business to operate and not worth the time to be honest (using hobbyist machines anyone can buy and print the same product before the item you print gets to their door.) Lots of expenditures, lots costs, maintenance, supplies etc etc.
@@corail53 so far I'm up to making $40,000 in the last 6 months, if you do it right it's worth it
Great video, and lots of good info !! Only thing missing was the secret sauce on what you exactly made and what the money was like :) ... I own 7 different printers and only print at the hobby level. But I have thought about doing more mass production. I just worry the 3D printing is just to damn slow... Thats why I know own 2 CNC X2 mini mills ... LOL I pretty much have my own maker space :)
Subscribed! Good advice. Thanks
I have been thinking about getting a 3D printer to sell stuff as a side hustle. Looks fun! I really don't know anything about it, I'm totally new to all this but interested in it. This video has been an eye opener. Thanks! I have no idea what to sell though...
I’m always interested in hearing about different experiences with print farms. I would LOVE to run one myself but I don’t have a product. That’s my big hang up, I guess I’m not that creative.
Well when you do have that big idea you will be ready!
Excellent video. I’m currently transitioning my eBay store over to completely 3D manufactured items. Already making more sales than ever and realizing I should have done this sooner.
Are you still in business and making profit or has the market got flooded with everyone else attempting this.
@@corail53 yes, I am still in business. I have not experienced an oversaturated market, but you will have to certainly find the right product to sell.. If you are trying to sell the same things, everyone else’s, you will still see profit, but you will be very limited.. At the time of my original post, I had just 2 printers, and now I am up to 7 printers.. I started an Etsy store as well this year, and I easily saw double the profits almost instantly. I would actually encourage to start on Etsy because their marketing has seemed to draw in more customers for me.. the next biggest thing, is when you do find the right product to sell, you will need to start a social media page for that product or line of products on Facebook or Instagram and market yourself to customers. That is important when you get started, because drawing sales quickly and organically, will boost you on the algorithm in Etsy and they will market you more. You have to remember that they are making a cut as well, so if you can do well for yourself, they will promote you, and earn more themselves.
Thnx for advice its so valuable to me...
Great job on this vid,and it just so happens I do functional parts in Tinkercad with my two X1's...:)
Great video. Thanks for the info. Im just starting out at 3D printing. I do have a bit of 3D design, so its very helpful.
I've been thinking about a print farm but still looking at research and info to start up.
One good thing is that I have a 2500sf shop which I can use! Just being used for classic car restoration right n is, so would have to make some cahnges to have a clean area.
We'll see in next couple months.
If you were in Central Florida, I'd have you visit and maybe work together if you wanted too. 😃
Thanks again for the info on this video.
I'm in the boat of I thought I wanted to make video games so I spent the last 2 years learning 3D modeling using Blender and now I'm wanting to take my modeling experience and start a 3D Printing Business. I love creating things so this is like a dream for me. I just need a 3D Printer.
Great video, thanks!
Lars is amazing. I taught myself watching his videos.
Yep for sure. The absolute beginner videos were how I got into Fusion 360 and that's what I recommend to anyone wanting to learn it.
Seriously love his content. I reference it often.
Thanks for this.
Thanks for this video
Valuabke info, thanks for sharing.
Would love to see what you were selling.
Thank you for the content 🥰
I’ve been struggling to grow my own 3d printing business and am looking to basically start over from scratch and use what I’ve learned not to do to make the 2nd business better. With my first one we offer hand painted models and just don’t charge nearly enough for it and it’s become a sore subject. I also got into a bad financial situation buying some fairly expensive printers that I assumed would be less maintenance than the hobby grade stuff, and instead they print like garbage 80% of the time and need constant babysitting and tweaking.
If they're branded printers, sell them. Join the E3 gang. You can charge more for your hand painted models, you have the reviews now so push prices up gradually until it reflects what you do. I'm looking now at 3d Printing as a business, it won't be my first business, and from what I see, resale prices of used machines can be 80% of the new cost, especially on the creality units which are cheap and cheerful.
Shhhh you have fat guy sizes 💜💙💚❤️ I need to get one for my birthday later this month , love this channel keep up the awesome work this really helps since I'm just getting into trying sell 3d prints
haha that is awesome! Thank you very much for the support this made me smile.
That was very informative. Im thinking about buying a 3D printer.
A year is not a long time to get a feel for a business. I think three plus years is a reasonable time frame. You are very lucky because I had to start buying my own health insurance at 18.