MakerGear Forum

http://www.3ders.org/articles/20151210- ... aging.html

Neat article with a really cool product produced with M2's. Congrats to the Redds!

I'm beginning to see the M2 in the media more often and in professional presentation. Love my printer.

In the third and sixth pictures, you can see that one of the M2s is a seriously modded machine with a novel dual E3Dv6 extruder setup, apparently configured (must require firmware mods, too) to print two prints simultaneously. Apparently I'm not the first person to put a second rail carriage on the M2. The other machine looks like a standard single v4. If only people like that would spend more time on the forum sharing their mods!

My question is, what is up with that rats nest coil of filament?

Oh, I see, they're making their own filament.

jsc wrote:Oh, I see, they're making their own filament.

These people are hard-core!

Tim wrote:These people are hard-core!

Can one of you folks clue me in on the cost vs. profit for a DIY jar that requires 1.5 hours of machine time?

My back of the envelope says their machine depreciation, operator burden, materials, and suchlike adds up to maybe $5/hour/machine, so that jar costs $7.50 and should sell for $15-ish without contents.

But they're selling 3D printed pots for $4 and big jars for $9, with ointment.

What am I missing?

Don't think they do math so good.

They'll figure it out eventually.

I think Tim meant to indicate that they are hard-core 3D printing people, not necessarily business savants.

jsc wrote:I think Tim meant to indicate that they are hard-core 3D printing people, not necessarily business savants.

I think that much is obvious.

Of course, they may have in mind to run small batches on the printers and then employ someone in Shenzhen with an injection molding setup to handle higher volumes when their business takes off. . . they didn't necessarily reveal their entire business plan to the reviewer.

They lose a little on every sale but make it up in the volume.

Injection molding costs money to set up even in China and the big expense of course (duh) is the mold for the jar and another for the lid. But the design does not lend itself to injection molding anyway.