Do you find that you've successfully monetized 3D printing to justify the costs for the functionality?
As of right now I don't pocket any money I've made from 3D printing but I do use the profits to re-invest in new products and tools. So for instance the business bought Taito F3 hardware and an F3 multi so that I could develop parts for that, and the business will be fully paying for this new printer.
At the end of last year I essentially sold my printer, and all of the other tools I'd been using to run the business, to the business.
So while I haven't personally received any pay the business owns the current printer, this new printer, a Cameo 3 cutter (for making stickers), a soldering station, lots of smaller tools, as well as a CPS3, CPS2, F3, and STV multi setups as well as a Dreamcast, GDEMU, Rhea, and USB GDROM among other things.
I try to be fair about this and keep my own personal finances separate, so for instance I paid for the MVS multi out of pocket since there isn't really any development application there.
I will say that probably 80% of my sales are GDEMU and Rhea trays. Despite most of my development and investment going into arcade stuff there just aren't nearly as many arcade collectors as there are retro console collectors. The profit margin on the Arcade stuff is lower too. The STV multi housing is my most expensive product, and my best selling arcade product, but it has the lowest profit margin of anything I sell because the material cost is so high and being such a large item the print yield is total shit, I hate printing them because it ties up the printer for a whole day and there's a good chance the part will warp or have another blemish that will make it fail my "QA" standards.
I'm hoping that this new printer with an enclosure will dramatically improve my yields since I'll be able to control ambient temps. Currently whenever the seasons change I start getting junk prints and need to reconfigure my temperature profiles. My current glass bed is a custom built setup and as a result the temperature isn't totally uniform so I have some hot and cold spots too, the new printer is setup with glass from the factory so hopefully it will be better suited to even temperature across the bed. Also due to it's massive size I'll be able to make larger products too. I've already got 2 new products designed that I can't print right now because they wont fit on my current printer, but they'll be easily printed by the new one.
so the TLDR is this: I don't pocket any money from the business but I have no qualms with spending the business's money on things that will increase the product line up or improve throughput/yield, both of which this new printer will help accomplish.
Selling stuff is just so tedious to me and boring to me that I don't know if I could stand it.
I feel the same way which is why before I sold a single item I setup my web-site and automated as much as I possibly could. So basically I just start some new prints a few times a day and every night I check the site for orders and box them up. I use paypal to generate all of my shipping labels and print on label sized sticker paper. So 99% of "the work" is unloading the printer and loading parts into boxes. without that I'd be spending 99% of my time emailing and PMing people back and forth which is honestly a waste of time for both me and buyers and I probably would have stopped offering stuff for sale after a few months if that were the case. With the site people can browse it at their leisure and order on their own terms. and it keeps track of everything for me and dramatically streamlines my process.
If you are interested in trying to make some money with your printer let me know. At this point I could probably make more money writing a book on what I've learned about making money with 3D printing than I could selling 3D prints
