Need help with printing outsourcing

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theboz1419
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Need help with printing outsourcing

Post by theboz1419 » Wed Oct 19, 2016 6:37 pm

I have been contacted by a company to print with a carbon fiber PLA filament. This is my first possible job, and I am not sure what to ask when setting a price for each part that is printed. They said each part is about 500g and 7.5 inches long. Any help would be much appreciated.
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3dPrintingMD
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Re: Need help with printing outsourcing

Post by 3dPrintingMD » Wed Oct 19, 2016 6:50 pm

Just figure out the cost of the material first, you could do that based on your slicer to determine how much filament would be used.

Then you have to figure out how much time it will take to print.

You basically don't want to lose money trying to make money :D
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ednisley
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Re: Need help with printing outsourcing

Post by ednisley » Wed Oct 19, 2016 6:54 pm

theboz1419 wrote:when setting a price for each part
Some of the folks around here can help identify your costs & suggest a markup, but I strongly recommend using Shapeways as a pricing guide; upload the model to get their numbers. Although they don't offer carbon-fiber PLA, if you're not charging significantly more than they do for, say, their "metallic plastic", you're probably not charging enough for your customized services.

If you're not comfortable charging that much, then you gotta start by fixing that ... [grin]

theboz1419
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Re: Need help with printing outsourcing

Post by theboz1419 » Wed Oct 19, 2016 7:10 pm

Thanks for the quick replies. Yeah, definitely don't want to loose money, my wife would kill me, as she already thinks it's a money drain.
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insta
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Re: Need help with printing outsourcing

Post by insta » Wed Oct 19, 2016 8:41 pm

I'm set up to print CF nylon. I'd be happy to pay a commission on jobs :)
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theboz1419
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Location: Puyallup, WA

Re: Need help with printing outsourcing

Post by theboz1419 » Thu Oct 20, 2016 12:18 pm

Well, I just sent my first quote to offer my 3d printing services. I tried my best to give them a reasonable quote but I also considered wear and tear and whatnot. Each set consist of 6 parts and if I were able to print it all at once it would take 26 hours build and they wanted me to quote 100 sets, yikes, that alot of machine time. I guess I may be getting myself another printer in the near future. Maybe 2 more would be nice, I think the wife would agree. ;)

Atleast, now she won't complain about my Ikea upgrade I did while she was visiting her family in Malaysia
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