Printing Farm

3d printing is a printer that can print 3d objects. It uses filaments and resin to create and surprisingly sturdy object.

For example someone is trying to fix a old car that is so old no third party will make parts for it anymore, so they need to custom build one.

But humans can make mistakes, with human error involved, mechanical errors can occur while crafting a piece for a car. So it’s better to leave that responsibility to a machine.

I’m a big fan of owning a printer farm, as I like the idea of automation. Imagine a line of workers building customer parts and making money for you at the same time, without worrying about employees.

How To Get Started?

You will need a 3d printer, I’d say you have to start small, don’t go and start a entire farm on your own.

Granted they are arguably cheap for the things they do. It’s always better to start small.

You should then register an LLC for something like this, because if someone wants to build a custom part for their car and the piece fails, or even if its not your fault, you can still be liable in some ways.

Laws are complicated, it’s just good practice to get a LLC to protect your personal assets. Literally you can be sued for anything. If someone trips and falls in front of your house, they can sue you for that, that is why you get homeowner’s insurance, so insurance can get bigger scarier lawyers to protect you.

Market

Marketing is easy, 3d printing is OCD satisfaction. You it’s just video and some editing, sometimes when I am slacking on work I would catch myself looking at 3d printing videos.

Something about looking at a assembly line, automated by machine is enticing.

Youtube, Instagram, and TikTok are your best bet. People just go their to eternally feed on content.

Space And Consumption

3d printing doesn’t take that much space, it is about 10 inch cube. The bigger ordeal is the management of materials.

You will have to get really good with organizing, to manage large inventory of filaments, and repair parts for the printers if something requires maintenance.

I’ve seen it done, at a smaller scale using 2 3d printer, and it looked amazing. It use about a large desk space and it generates income automatically.

Cost of 3d Printing

There are software to keep track of it all. You can go on blog.prusa3d.com to get quoted for your work.

Some kind soul just decide to build a cost calculator so people can reasonably price the project.

I remember a youtuber wanted to build a custom golfing iron and he needed to build the handle for it, and he was quoted $6,000, for something that takes a week.

Fair to say that printing company don’t know what they’re doing, that is severely overpriced.

Even with pricing software it’s still expensive

printing any custom parts can be costly, and this is where the money is. Profit margins are massive, you’re charging by the hour, but you’re not hiring anyone to do the work.

No human can do this kind of work, it’s 3d printing, closest thing to that is using a 3d pen, and that has way too many flaws.

Automation

Imagine making making automatically, but if you were to ever scale and have a fleet of 3d printers, you will need software to make sure its all running.

Sure you can hire people to check the machine individually, but that’s counter-intuitive.

I know I am anti human with work, but it’s a way to prevent mistake.

When I used to go to Mcdonald’s I saw kiosk for taking orders. It was the best thing, my order was never botched, and I didn’t receive any stink eye from a miserable person with a dead-end job.

That all ended because people were protesting about machines taking their jobs, and then Mcdonalds have to remove the kiosks and I never went back.

Small overhead

Because machines are working, there are small mistakes, which requires little overhead.

Repairing will take majority of your time, you just have to be a little tech savvy.

As for orders, you can just get the STL file and enter it in your printer, and it automates.

I would do this

I like it purely for the automation. It may seem fun, but the business is quite competitive, I personally know 4 people that failed their 3d printing business.

Most likely due to competition, and drive to do anything creative. Realistically speaking, what are you going to make, you have to make some stuff to advertise, but some people just have burst of creativity and get the machine just to realize it was temporary.