Opportunities in 3D Printing

[cviji]

Heyy JP Here!

I’ve already shared on here some time ago that I already had a 3d printer. I just picked up a new one and this was way cheaper and way more sophisticated compared to my old printer.

I grabbed a ender 3 pro over on Amazon. I’m super impressed by this machine, its sub 250$ and it took less than 30 minutes for me to assemble and calibrate the levels and have it printing my parts perfectly.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07GYRQVYV/?tag=tff-amazonparser-20

3d printing is the future of small businesses. Even the bigger businesses need to take notice, I have a job in manufacturing and there are so many things ranging from small parts to 5S tools that can be created by 3d printers immediately on the spot.

I thought I’ll list a few things I can share with you that you’ll be able to do with 3d printing

Prototyping and Product Development. -
This one is probably the most obvious one, 3d printing costs are constantly decreasing every year and is a very cost effective alternative to outsourcing product development.

This is a opportunity where you can keep developing tens or hundreds of prototypes and testing different variations and improving the weak spots before launching within a hundred dollar budget as opposed to thousands of dollars.

You can make molds, functional models, or actual working products and have them tested on the market prior to bringing it to a mass manufacturer.


Customizing Products -
A product might already exist but you can always come up with a custom improvement and you’ll be able to customize.

The advantage of having a 3d printer makes it easy to customize attachments or adjustments to already existing product to improve upon it and to sell.

Promotional Goods -
As you all know here promotional goods can be powerful for a company’s marketing strategy. Most of the time when you try to drop in some promotional goods with a product it can be really expensive and it’ll add up costs quickly. 3d printing is getting to the point where it won’t have the same restrictions you face in those costs.

Print Farms -
They are what they sound like. If you invest in a number of printers you can print on demand for clients or for specific products. Then you can start offering commercial 3d printing services for others.


Those are only a few I could think off the top of my head and if you guys can think of more ideas to take advantage of the 3d printer feel free to share!

Can I ask if you don't mind - what are the options / grades regarding the material you use to print items in? Can this be varied and is it dependent on the printer you purchase?

 

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[mr4ffe]

Is there a marketplace where you can buy/sell 3D blueprints? if not, that'd surely be a great fastlane venture!

 

[jpanarra]

Yeah, theres a free one thats open source hosted by the people that made the Makerbot Replicator. It's called thingiverse.

Then there's this one Discover STL files for 3D printing ideas and high-quality 3D printer models. | MyMiniFactory where people make their own 3d designs, usually very high quality ones for a few bucks.

 

[mr4ffe]

Yeah, theres a free one thats open source hosted by the people that made the Makerbot Replicator. It's called thingiverse.

Then there's this one Discover STL files for 3D printing ideas and high-quality 3D printer models. | MyMiniFactory where people make their own 3d designs, usually very high quality ones for a few bucks.

Couldn't one sell 3D blueprints as NFT's, like a patented design?

 

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