i want to print for money

[burro breath]

so i have a rostock max and its calibrated to within an inch of its life. i have heard of a website where you sign up and you can 3d print things for people and they pay you via paypal and then you mail the print to them. what is the website? has anyone had any luck making some side money?

[IMBoring25]

I think you're talking about http://www.3dhubs.com. I haven't tried it yet.

[bot]

I've made over $4k on 3dhubs since November with only my Rostock Max v2.

[BenTheRighteous]

holy cow bot, what's the secret? I've made like $200 since December or so.

Which hub is yours? I'd like to see it please!

[jesse]

i've done some printing jobs on makexyz.com.

http://www.makexyz.com/printer/jesse

[bot]

I think my secret is luck. Also, location, location, location. And luck.

https://www.3dhubs.com/vancouver/hubs/nathan

[BenTheRighteous]

Yeah I found your hub earlier and poked around a bit. Your hub certainly has a very professional polish and I'm sure that's a significant factor, but also rates in your area seem to be about twice what they are in mine! I wonder if that's a function of supply and demand? Or rather, supply and lack of demand...

Anyway, rock on for being successful, I mean that sincerely and I'm only a little bit jealous!

[Eaglezsoar]

Congratulations to all who have made a small income from printing.
In my case it's not wanting to print for money but I am looking for money to print.

[Jimustanguitar]

I've done a few jobs as well.

https://www.3dhubs.com/chicago/hubs/jim-0

Unfortunately for my 3D hubs profile, the bigger jobs have been word of mouth and for a friend's company.



You've really got to make your profile stand out because there are thousands of hubs posted.

[BenTheRighteous]

i've done some printing jobs on makexyz.com.

http://www.makexyz.com/printer/jesse

I have a makexyz profile too but I haven't heard a peep from their neck of the woods. I've practically forgotten about it. I also remember not liking their pricing structure - you can only charge per cm3 and you have to pick from a dropdown, so your options are limited.

As far as your entry specifically, do you think you're charging a fair price on it? To me, $0.25/cm3 is an extremely good deal for the client, unless there's other charges in the mix too that I didn't see.

[geneb]

Ben, I use MakeXYZ and I charge whatever KisSlicer tells me to.

g.

[BenTheRighteous]

So do you have a disclaimer on your profile then that says "initial price is an estimate only" or something?

Here are the pricing options, I think they added more since the last time I looked, but it's still not very powerful. Just a straight $/cm3 number. I'd prefer to charge a setup+time+material formula, but neither makexyz nor 3d Hubs support that.

[Holy1]

Congratulations to all who have made a small income from printing.
In my case it's not wanting to print for money but I am looking for money to print.

I'm with Eaglezsoar. I want to print money. mmm... Canadian bills are all plastic now. interesting...

[BenTheRighteous]

LOL that's not the way I read the comment the first time, but now looking at it again, I see what you're getting at! Count me in!

[geneb]

People contact me with an STL model and ask for an estimate. I've never been "told" by the website what I'd be charging. I'd laugh my ass off.

The only thing I REALLY dislike about the site is that they go out of their way to make it difficult for my customers to reach me outside of MakeXYZ. They fuzz email addresses, block phone numbers, etc. A customer can "call" me, but only via their site and it records the call. Kind of a dick move IMO.

g.

[BenTheRighteous]

I've never been "told" by the website what I'd be charging.

Ok...
I found your listing and uploaded a random part. The site was quite happy to suggest a price and ask for payment information, and it wasn't obvious to me that it would be just an estimate and that you'd come back with the real price later.

That's basically what I'm talking about. I'd love it if it were clear to the customer that "every model is different, we think Ben might charge X, he'll get back to you soon" but that's not the case. They just show a price and then in the customer's mind, that's what they're going to pay. Anything else would be a (probably unpleasant) surprise.

[geneb]

Well that's interesting. I've never had a job submitted that came "pre-sold" like that. If I ever did, I'd reject the job and give the customer a real estimate based on what it would cost to print it.

I tend to do some hand-holding with the few customers I get - it helps make sure that they get what they've paid for and what they expect.

g.

[KAS]

Just received my first job from 3DHubs. Almost seems kind of weird as I don't have anything really setup on my profile to entice or show off my prints. But if he want to toss money at me, I'll gladly catch it.

[bot]

I think sometimes the build volume of the Rostock is the main attraction. Many other printers simply couldn't fit some of these prints on their platform.

[Krinje]

Do you guys have any advice for communicating expectations to the customer? I've been thinking about trying 3DHubs but I'm a little scared that customer expectations may not be realistic and I may provide them with a perfectly-acceptable-unacceptable-to-them part. I've done things for friends and coworkers but its much easier to show them what it can do. I've never been on the business end (pun intended) of this sort of thing before.

I have a machining background, and those expectations are black and white most of the time, printing seems... fuzzy.

[BenTheRighteous]

I just approach every situation like the customer is going to try and get their money back from 3d hubs after I deliver the part. (For clarity, no customer has tried to do that to me, yet)

In other words, provide a huge paper trail before things go south. Examine their model thoroughly and if you see anything that might be troublesome, point it out before accepting the order.
Steep overhang? Point it out.
Support material in a difficult-to-reach location? Point it out.
Holes that look like they need to mate with something? 3d printers make them undersized, point that out.

If they go ahead with the order, and you start printing, and things don't go well, take pictures and post them. Explain what's happening. Was the failure your fault (because your settings/calibration was off) or theirs (because their model is challenging)? What are you going to adjust so it doesn't happen again? Are you still on track for an on-time delivery?

You might even print a throwaway parts first just for sake of demonstration. If the model has something that might be challenging starting on layer 937 or whatever, cut off the first 930 layers and start the print from there, so you get a handle on a potential problem early and with less wasted material.

In my experience, the customer is often willing to buy the failed parts as well, because they want to experiment with glue, paint, sanding, or whatever. But that option's not on the table if they don't know the failures exist.

When the print's done and ready for delivery, take pictures of it from every angle in good lighting as final evidence and upload them. Just in case there's a dispute (and again, I've never had one), you want to provide as much reason for 3d hubs to be on your side as possible.

If nothing else, you'll guarantee a 5-star rating on communication every single time, and that's something, I guess.

[bot]

I've had the opposite experience. Customers expect crap and are generally excited at the results. Ben's post is right on the money!

[BenTheRighteous]

On that note, many of my customers have had their own 3d printers. But they have work they hire someone else for because their printer A.) is broken right now, B.) is too busy printing other stuff, or C.) doesn't print in the material they want.

Not all of them, but many.

[Krinje]

Thanks for the excellent response, it makes me feel a bit more confident and I think that is probably 80% of my issue.

[KAS]

That print I just finished was for the ECE section of University of Kentucky. It was paid for by a grant, and they seemed pleased with the results.

The object wraps 1/2 half around the upper bicep. It has 16 square cutouts that house 16ea Firgelli's PQ12 Linear Actuators with FSR's at the end of each actuator. After that it was way above my head.

http://store.firgelli.com/category_s/1825.htm
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upoD97pHQz4[/youtube]