Is Anyone Making Money 3D Printing

I ordered some 3D prints from Shapeways for a prototype I made for a customer and was really happy with how they turned out. I opted for the "professional plastic" option which are nylon parts. I think they were printed with HPs Multi Jet Fusion printer. I looked at a couple different printing vendors including Xometry which got me thinking... Can one get enough work as a 3rd party from a place like Xometry to make the payment on a mid to high end 3D printer? I'm not so much interested in lower end machines or should I be? I have a cheapo hobby grade FDM printer which is very useful time to time and has its place but I don't see making any money with it. So I'm brainstorming about getting a $100k + machine like HPs Multi Jet or even metal 3D printer.

I know sometimes you can lease machines but have no idea what the terms are usually like. What is the exit plan usually like for leases if things don't work out? Say I sat down and decided on a cut your losses business exit plan such that if I did not generate enough revenue to make the lease payment after 6 months could I default on the lease without loosing my shirt?

A little more about my situation. I quit my good paying day job as an engineer a few years ago to go full time self employed home doing design work and machine work. I have an ok CNC knee mill conversion, crappy manual lathe, good welders and a fair amount of misc tools and equipment for a home shop garage. The first year I lost plenty of money and the last two years I have made a profit that is below the poverty level. Good thing is my wife's salary is plenty to keep us going and I have gained enough traction and learned enough that I feel I am at the brink of starting to make real money again. I really like what I'm doing and where the business is headed but I have outgrown my 3 car garage. We decide to buy 4 acres so I can build a dedicated home shop (34x54x16) along with a house. I just set the last truss on the shop yesterday. I hope to get a real VMC in the near future and a better lathe. A high end 3D printer would be a nice to have and would be used time to time for customer prototypes. I'm sure I could drum up a small amount of business for it on my own but I doubt it would be enough to justify the payment on such a machine. This brings me to my question. Is getting enough business from something like Xometry even something to consider? Shapeways says something on their website about being a partner too. Not sure what the arrangement looks like.

DronFee1 said:

That sounds very interesting and even captivating, but I don't know. Making money with a three dimensional printer sounds a little weird to me, actually. Anyway, it's your way to do whatever the hell you want with your life. If your goal is to experiment a little than yeah, I can understand your attraction to this king of things. But if you are really trying to make fake money than better be careful. Hope you know that this is illegal. Even if you are trying to play that dirty game, better do it with the professionals. I’ll just put that link here and you further decide what to do about it. Visit site. Shhh.

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I can suggest something for you to print where the sun don't shine. How has this blatant spammer and scammer not been banned yet.

IMO, big profits are just around the corner and always will be. Too much competition in the 3D market because it's a "thing".

A guy in England is making 3d printed lathe way wipers and some rubber bellows for shift levers in the apron of English lathes. Sold on ebay but there is a small constant market.
I bet one guy could make a living selling way wipers for just south bend lathes. Would a 3d printed shifter plate showing shift positions on a lathe make sense. Is it good enough for reproduction knobs for cars and machine tools.
I do not think there is any time wasted setting up jigs for a one off run. This assumes you have the digital files to make the parts.
For soft stuff like this 3d is good enough now. For metal gears and levers?
Some legacy makes no longer supply parts but will send a factory drawing so you can get the part made some where some how. If these could be made into digital files cheaply?
Bill D

I think the real money may be in 3d printing an injection mold then somehow metal plating it so it does not melt. Injection molding of simple parts in a simple mold is cheap and fast. Making the mold costs a lot of time and money.

I've got a decent $3000 filament printer. Every time I've thought about what I could print (or turn my 16 year old son onto printing and selling to make pocket money) I look on Ebay and see that some people are selling things so cheap that its really not worth the time and hassle for me. Example: Hobby lathe change or transposing gears for $20 shipped. Subtract shipping and fees and it's not worth the headache.

A new machine does not pay for itself sitting idle, and if the OP is a one person operation there is a cap to how much work he can push through.

Based on the speed that the technology is changing I would not invest in a high end commercial machine unless I knew it had a very high utilization because the technology will advance quickly and the machine may depreciate quickly without much use. There is a jump off point that you need to calculate.


I'll add that I used to be deep in this arena, attending the global trade shows and user conferences.

The areas that have the best and biggest payouts are:

1) Machine things that can not be made any other way (like conformal cooling, etc).

2) When the material cost is high - the exotic aerospace materials - and you can save material. The common stainless, maraging, aluminum, etc materials are really crippled because the powder costs way more than bar stock - so if you are printing something that can be made with standard CNC most cases the additive will make a more expensive part.

3) When additive allows you to combine several parts into one (related to point 1 above) reducing broader costs from documentation to assembly. (Some estimates have it costing ~$15K to make and maintain a drawing in a database for its life)

4) Some special circumstances will get you a part faster (or allow you to keep IP inside). Mostly for metal where you can make a quick and dirty mold cavity without all the EDM electrodes.


** There are already some SLA/DLP resins from BASF for injection mold inserts, and also a company that uses magnetically oriented resins (FORTIFY) to make stronger cavities.

I finally have some relevant experience to offer since my story is not very different, and not much farther along except that my wife is raising our three kids and I have to support everyone so “focus” came quick.
My advise, stay away from 3d printing. I don’t know who is making real money with it, it’s super cheap based on machine cost. And you won’t get the utilization needed. I have a back story of buying a 60k printer used for 25k. Just before 3d printing became all the rage and my printer was eclipsed in the blink of an eye. Another company bought the manufacturer and all the consumable went unobtainable. I only regret a few things and that’s pretty high on the list. Then you have the finding work problem.
Go ahead and take another year to get really comfortable doing what you do and make some money.
Advise, follow the work. Your customers, find out what their pain points are and set about solving them. Ask what you can do for them or what they have a hard time doing.
Last (unsolicited) comment, stay away from anything that requires cutting edge technology. Niche is good, but find a niche around perfecting a process rather than a niche based on having a plug-n-play new technology will be where you see the biggest return. New technology niches take deep pockets. Sorry if this comes off preachy, not meant to.

I can’t believe I didn’t look at the OP date.

[QUOTE=I'm sure I could drum up a small amount of business for it on my own but I doubt it would be enough to justify the payment on such a machine.

You have answered your own question. Making money in business is not about doing the work, that must be a given. Making good money is about drumming up a lot of work..

Goldenfab -

I don't mean to come off as a wise guy - but first figure out what business you are in. What are you trying to accomplish? Then what are the tools/skills needed to accomplish that - the printer might or might not fit. The world is littered with failed businesses that never did figure out what they were really trying to accomplish.

As a retired engineer from a major company who was also a partner in a family business I've been on both sides of things. Best of luck to you - it's guys and gals like you who make things move.

Dale

vmipacman said:

I can’t believe I didn’t look at the OP date.

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Yep. One of these days the programmers of this software will add code so that a person with less than 50 posts can't post to a thread were the last post is over 60 days old. That would stop a whole bunch of old threads from coming back due to spammers.

Steve

vmipacman said:

I can’t believe I didn’t look at the OP date.

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I don't think OP was a spam attempt, it was yesterdays plastic guy. But nothing wrong IMO of bringing up a 2 year old post. Look how much has changed from this time last year...?

I think it would be interesting and helpful tot he forum if Goldenfab would respond to this thread and let us know how he is doing?

I was expecting how to 3d print forged coins in metal that looks real enough to sell the counterfits. If the coin is from a country no longer around. is it even illegal? Say a roman empire coin. Did the confederate states have coins or only paper money.
Bill D

Joe Miranda said:

I think it would be interesting and helpful tot he forum if Goldenfab would respond to this thread and let us know how he is doing?

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He has posted his life story in another thread and updated recently. Just click on his name in post #1 and click on view forum posts and then click on his recent post.

Yes, I could just do a link. But this trick is a useful skill, so I will teach it. For instance, it is a good way to see if someone who posted some time ago is still active on PM. The answer in this case was yes.

Larry

Bill D said:

I was expecting how to 3d print forged coins in metal that looks real enough to sell the counterfits. If the coin is from a country no longer around. is it even illegal? Say a roman empire coin. Did the confederate states have coins or only paper money.
Bill D

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Yes, I have investment cast ancient Roman coins in silver and made tie tacs of them. One fell on a Tokyo subway car or platform somewhere in 1976. That should have caused some puzzlement if it was found. And yes, there was a Confederate 50 cent piece, quite rare. Decades ago, Dixie Gun Works made reproductions of them in some copper nickel alloy. Look for the DG or DGW mark. Newer copies are marked "copy."

Larry

vmipacman said:

I can’t believe I didn’t look at the OP date.

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Mike1974 said:

I don't think OP was a spam attempt, it was yesterdays plastic guy. But nothing wrong IMO of bringing up a 2 year old post. Look how much has changed from this time last year...?

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I'm still around. I just lost track of this thread until now when for some reason I just seen the notification about the last reply that was two years old. No updates really to share other than I finished building my shop and am almost done with my house. I did everything myself and its been like groundhog day for the last few years, I just want to be done and start machining things again.

I know some people don't like digging up old threads but it doesn't bother me. Like someone mentioned a lot has changed from last year and if anyone has anything to add I would be interested. I have not got into printing but I was just thinking the other day about it.

Looking for The "YES," making parts/making money...

IMO, 3D printing is just another tool in the drawer. To make money doing it, you have to look past the tool and look at the job. Can you do something with that job that no one else can do? If there are already cheaper jobs being done, can you do the same for cheaper, or can you do a better job that's worth (and desirable) for an added cost? What would you do if the other guys up their game and start doing the same thing as you? Any small-business start-up has to have a solid understanding of their market before the business even starts. If you want to make hobby lathe parts for example, you need to know what it's like to buy and use those parts, and bonus points if you have worked somewhere doing it already.

In my experience, if it looks like easy money, there's something that you don't see, or it's not going to last. Successful business of any kind involves narrow margins, lots of work, and EXPECTED failures. Being innovative, like using 3D printers, is imperative, but it's not the complete answer.

I would like to have 3d printing as a tool in my drawer. I have some customers that would use my services if I offered 3d printing but it's no where near the volume to justify a machine. More specifically my question is, has anyone found something like xometry or elsewhere without cold calling people trying to drum up printing jobs that brings in enough printing business to at least break even in the payments on a machine.