r/3DprintEntrepreneurs

Hello!!

Im a cosplayer and I happen to own a 3D printer- I have a bit of project I wanted to work on for next years con season, however I'm extremely clueless on where 3D printer modeler go to take commissions? or if anyone has worked with someone who can make human scale items. This will SPECIFICALLY be a helmet that does have a sliding part to reveal a visor.

Preferably I'd like to find where people go for this kind of stuff, as I'd like to know reliable people to model this for me with the skills to at least make functional sliding parts, that I can print to scale! I hope I can get some advice on this!

Any good social media accounts you guys follow, youtube ,X etc about 3d print businesses/farms?

Hey everyone,

I’m looking to buy a high-end desktop or prosumer FDM printer to manufacture non-metal, functional parts for US government contracts.

Because of strict federal supply chain and cybersecurity regulations (NDAA/ITAR compliance), the printer cannot be manufactured in China or run on software that connects to overseas servers. This unfortunately rules out consumer options like Bambu or Creality.

Here is what I am looking for:

Materials: Must be a workhorse for high-temp engineering filaments (Nylon, ASA, and potentially high-end composites). A fully enclosed, heated chamber is preferred.

Origin/Software: Needs to be built in the US, EU, or other compliant countries, with open-source or highly secure offline slicing software that won't fail a data security audit.

Budget: Looking in the $3-8k range, but willing to stretch if the reliability and compliance are there.

Workflow: Looking for consistency. I don’t mind a bit of initial tuning, but once it’s dialed in, it needs to repeatably produce identical, high-quality functional parts.

Right now, my shortlist includes things like the Prusa XL (Czech Republic) or a LulzBot TAZ Pro (US-built).

Has anyone here done contract production work under these kinds of security restrictions? Are there other professional, Western-made brands in this price bracket I should be looking at?

Thanks for the help!

Long story short i became legally blind and unable to do any kind of traditional work. i bought a creality KC1 and have been loving it so far. the wife has told me to look into how feasible it is to start selling things with it and making some money. we live in the Midwest about 90 minutes from any major city. there is a large flee market near me that im gonna go visit with the wife soon but i am sure its filled with like minded people as me so the traditional no effort toys and gadget stuff likely is not gonna work. any advice is greatly appreciated.

As the entire reason for this reddit community is mutual help, post what your biggest issue is below, and let's figure out solutions together!

(Curious what others are struggling with. Personally, it's by far the storefront and keeping in one niche)

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So i started my operations about 3 months ago now and I had some problems regarding packaging my products, any tips from experienced people helps :-

Packaging - I initially started making/selling my own designs but some customers started asking if I can do custom works or print models they provide. I started accepting these (have become almost half of my orders) but the problem is the wide range of custom orders Im getting from small to big, the same box sizes I use don't suffice and I don't think stocking 20 different box sizes would work.... Any tips for size varying Packaging options ?

Thanks in advance for any info 🫡

(Im a uni student doing this on the side, so this is my first time having/operating an actual business set up 😅)

I’m looking for advice from people who sell functional STL files commercially in niche markets.

I run a small 3D printing business and have had around 2500 sales within a year with very little marketing, so i know they sell... Most of my designs are functional products. Many of them have taking a very long time to design, prototype and test properly.

I’ve started considering licensing some of my designs instead of spending most of my time printing orders, but I’m struggling to understand how people actually approach this.

My biggest concern is that if I release STL files publicly, even under “personal use only”, people may ignore the license and start selling cheaper versions themselves.

I’m also not very interested in subscription models or Patreon style systems, since my catalog is relatively small and highly niche. Because of that, I also don’t really want to sell commercial licenses for next to nothing, when buyers could potentially earn a lot from the products.

So I guess my biggest questions are:

• Where do people actually find serious buyers for commercial licenses?
• And how do i price my files?

As the headline states, I'm curious about what the best method for a 7 tool - tool changer is for Klipper?

Is KTC my only option? I've seen additional works as well...

I'm quite experienced with Klipper, but 100% noob to tool changers.

I've got the mechanical parts working, but now need to configure Klipper....

any assistance appreciated.

If you are in the mode of constantly prototyping before starting your store. Stop it, And Launch!

Your product will not be perfect. And it probably won't sell. And what you customers think will not be what you think.

The only way to a successful product is through all of that. But the product has to exist. 80% good is infinitely better than not existing.

Launch your product today. The worst that can happen, people won't buy it. But then you have the feedback. Sitting in a hole and "preparing" is just an excuse to not engage with the actual customer.

"But I want the customers to have a good result." Show them what it is and present it honestly and the grown adults can make their own decision. Stop making the decision for them.

Go launch you product. Right now.

hi there.

i am german, but let me write in english to target more people.

i am located in the south of germany near the border of Switzerland.

here is what this is about:

3D Printing market is huge and will explode within the next few year to even much much more.

Millions of users create millions of 3D drawings. Most of them in hard work over many many hours.

NONE of them can monetize their work.

why?
because if you give your STL file someone to download, even for money, it will most likely end up for free download on the net.

millions of users could share precious drawings

millions of users could save a lot of time by paying for an existing file instead of making a new drawing by themselves.

millions of users use the same equippment for which they want to have a sparepart printed:
a battery case cover for the broken remote control for example. whatever.

WHAT IF we could make a a platform like makerworld or use that platform to offer STL files

in a secure way, in a fileformat, that allows the owner of the drawing to upload it, get his file coded and linked to his paymentmethod and everytime a user wants to download and print it, this user can pay taht 1 USD, 4 USD, whatever and will get the code to print this file ONE TIME.

the file can not be opened without the code,

the code will only work 1 time and only for that user who paid

copy codes dont work

codes work only 1 time

i have the technology for the coding.

what i dont have is people who join us and develop a new fileformat.

let us call it for example .PSTL

i am looking for people who come on board, become partner and develop this project from day one.

our target is a new fileformat that can be read with a USB box (later embedded within the printer with a special USB port) and can read everything like a normal USB port but also the new format PSTL

more details via email!

please contact me if you are skilled and interested in joining us.

Lately we've been doing a lot of work for cafes and other small quirky businesses. Custom merch and decor. It seems like a good fit for everybody but every time it has been them approaching us. So the idea would be to connect with some salesperson to drive more of this sort of work, by approaching businesses directly.

The current staff doesn't have these skills and is also busy doing their current job.

Hi everyone, im a 22 year old student from india.. financial situation at home is bad, so im thinking of starting a custom 3d mini figures business.. users can upload their pic which is then coverted into 3d model using ai and it is printer in white colour using a 3d printer then i will paint it and dispatch it.

im very new to this and i don't have any person to clarify me so pls consider replying..

1)how much amount of filament it would take to 3d print a 8inch standing mini statue of a person

2)which brand 3d printer offers value for my money (as i mentioned i don't have much investment)

3)would there be any extra costs i need to consider apart from printer cost and filament cost

Spent the last few days putting math behind one specific thing: the gap between what a pricing calculator says a 3D printing order earns and what it actually nets after every cost line is paid.

The example I worked through: 50-unit PETG run at $12 each, $600 revenue. Standard small-batch FDM, single color, light supports. Filament, electricity, machine slot, prep time. Calculator says $489 profit, 81% margin. Looks great on paper.

Then you start filling in the lines no pricing tool asks about:

Failed prints, even at a clean 4% rate on PETG. The filament loss is small ($5). The slot cost is bigger when the failure pushes a paying print into a rush evening you did not budget. Call the line $10 conservatively.

Post-processing. Support removal, sanding, bed cleaning, packaging, labels, thank-you note. 10 minutes per finished part for clean PETG. 50 parts = 8.3 hours. At $25 per hour effective labor cost, that is $208.

So the real number on a 50-unit order is closer to $271. 45% margin, not 81%. Still positive. But $218 lower than the calculator told you on the way in.

Where I want to crowd-source: those two lines (failed prints and post-processing) are the ones I have been able to put numbers on because they hit my own shop. There are almost certainly more lines I am not catching.

So, asking shop owners directly: what cost lines does YOUR pricing calculator skip? Below is what I have on my own list. Tear it apart, add yours, correct the numbers.

The lines no public calculator I have used (Slant3D's, Printago's, the spreadsheet templates floating around) actually computes:

1. Failed prints. Filament + slot cost + downstream rush cost. Nobody computes the rush downstream.

2. Post-processing labor. Per-finished-part minutes, not per-print minutes. Different number.

3. Customer back-and-forth time. Tolerance discussions, color swap requests, packaging change requests. Usually unbilled.

4. Bed cleaning + machine reset between unrelated jobs. 5-10 min per job for a clean swap.

5. Spool waste. The 200-240g you can never trust at the end of a roll because you cannot reliably weigh it on a job-by-job basis.

6. Filament drying time on hygroscopic materials. The dryer is running, that is electricity + opportunity cost on the spool out of rotation.

7. Shipping prep. Box + label + foam + wrapping + drive to the dropoff. 8-15 min per shipment.

8. Returns and reprints from QC misses. Industry-standard 1-2% of finished orders need a partial reprint. Cost = original part labor + materials + reprint + shipping + customer time.

9. Quote prep on jobs you do not win. The 30-90 minutes you spend on a custom quote that the customer ghosts on. If your win rate is 40%, every won job carries 1.5x of these.

What is on your list that is not on mine? What numbers are you using? I want to know if the per-finished-part labor figure ($25/hr at 10 min for clean PETG, more for ABS or detailed parts) lines up with what you see on your own time logs.

For context on why I care: I have been building Manuflo (manuflo.app), a print shop OS that computes cost-per-finished-part with all these lines from the gcode + your shop's failure rate + your post-processing minutes per material. The point of this thread is not to pitch the tool. The point is to get the missing-cost-line list as accurate as possible so the math the tool ships with reflects what real shops actually spend.

If the list above is incomplete, the math under any tool that uses it is also incomplete. So I would rather ask the shops than guess.