This week’s selection is “3D Printing For Money” by Richard Licastro.
3D printing is often done to make money, as it has been adopted by many in industry: every print is, theoretically, a profitable item for sale or use in a larger project. However, there are also many 3D printers not making any money at all.
Desktop 3D printers purchased for hobby or DIY use are frequently inactive, but they could be put to more profitable use. It may be possible to produce parts that someone is willing to purchase, if you’re able to find them and agree on a price.
In some cases the amount of money produced using small jobs could be sufficient to pay for the 3D printer and materials used, even with a small profit.
But how, exactly, does one do this? Where do you find customers? What equipment should be used? How do you price a part so that it is actually profitable?
These any many other questions are answered in this very informative book by Licastro. He explains what this is about at the beginning of the text:
“This book focuses on how to make money, loads of money, with 3D printers. This book isn’t intended for the newbie that just got his first 3D printer yesterday. I won’t be talking about slicers, how a printer works, and how to design for 3D printing correctly. There are tons of resources on how to do these basics. This book is for a more experienced audience that wants to understand how to make cash with 3D printers.”
Evidently the author has significant experience in accomplishing this, and has bottled up his technique into a book with all the details.
While 3D printer operators are no doubt highly experienced at running the machine, there are a number of other skills required to successfully connect the dots on a 3D printing business.
Licastro covers many relevant aspects of setting up a small 3D printing business, including:
- Where to find customers and deciding which market to address
- How to determine the level of quality required to declare a part “complete”
- Identifying sales channels to sell products
- Advertising
- Deciding on equipment types to service the target market
- What to do when machines break
- Part shipping techniques
- Calculating costs and determining part pricing
- Scaling up a printer farm
- How to deal with customers, good or bad
- Growing the business with additional markets
These are all the steps one must consider to launch a profitable side gig using a 3D printer to produce parts for customers in your area. If successful however, it might just become more than a side gig.
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Via Amazon
