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Guys,

Ive been printing on 3d hubs for a very short time. In fact I’ve only got one paid print under my belt and it was a very fiddly print. Very small parts and it took a fair bit of hand holding and tweaking to get them printed.

They used very little filament in fact just a couple of meters I total but took me most of the day to get done and then cleaned up. As you can understand the price of the filament per 1cm cubed plus the set up and hand holding didn’t pay for my time.

Add to that the client wanted them the same day.

These parts were exceptionally small and fine detailed which is something id like to specialise in but if that job is anything to go by its not going to be worth my time. Ive got a printer that has taken me some time to get the accuracy and reliability for very small prints sorted out. Its a scratch built and tweaked Prusa I2.

I’m also offering Nylon printing which is a bit fiddlier than ABS as it needs drying before use and there’s a lot of clean up of the parts afterwards.

So it looks like rather than a little time setting up, setting the printer going and coming back later after doing something else isnt going to be the work flow I had hoped.

How do you make prints like this pay.

Gordon

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Hi Gordon, first of all you can in increase the cost per cm^3 for nylon compared to ABS, because you have to dry it. Also you can charge extra services for support structure, cleaning the print, printing small objects with high detail etc. That would be the easiest and fastest method to make custom prices that don’t only scale with volume. -Marius

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Having only done one transaction. I havnt explored all of the options yet.

I take it its easy to add these charges to the bill but how can you advertise them on your hub page?

Theres very little scope to add more information to the hub page as the text box is fairly limited.

One niggle ive got with the hub page is im using what started as a basic prusa i2 design for my smaller fine printing. But its been modified and tweaked to get very fine tolerances. Im soon to try 0.2mm nozzles.

But a punter looking at my hub just sees what they believe to be an old model printer not the carefully scratch built and modified machine that can produce better prints than most mid level commercialy buIlt printers.

Im about to build another printer from scratch based on the p3steel but with a welded stiffened frame. Again it will be built by me and carefully modified to print beyond its normal kit built spec and will outperform a number of commercial machines. But ill only be able to list it as some kind of i3 or p3steel.

Gordon

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Print samples and upload pictures of them to show the customers your print quality, also you could display all that you want to say in a picture (like a screenshot from a power point presentation) and upload that picture. Some other people already wished for a “news box” on the hubs, something where you can do similar stuff to tweeting, like “will be on holiday for the next week”, “new material arrived, check it out” “got another printer for high quantity orders/better quality” or something like that, however I can’t tell you, how far 3dHubs is in the development of those updates, maybe @gabriela3d can give us a heads up ?

Marius

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Is there a way to see these options to add extra charges without generating an order?

Gordon

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I don’t think so, however I have a running order at the moment so I can list you all options:

-3d modeling

-extra material

-support material

-support removal

-finishing

-micellaneous

-shipment

I hope this helps you,

Marius

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Thanks Marius,

Thats a great help.

I expect with experience you get to know what you need to charge extra for and how much extra to charge.
My past experience at charging out my services has been limited to when I was a young motorcycle mechanic and years later when i was charged out to clients as a web developer/programmer for a multinational. Two very different ends of the scale. £30 - £500 p/h for onsite.

Do you work all this out at the initial review of the files you get to print.

For things that take time do you work it out by an hourly rate or a flat charge per item.

Thanks again

Gordon

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I’ve done my pricing with some cleanup included, for specialities like CAD designing or polishing of metal prints i charge it by heart, I don’t have an exact pricelist and since I mostly do 3d printing for fun and not for a living I’m fine with not getting exactly ??$/h. I love printing so it’s like the customers finance my hobby, what I actually print is not as important as the printing itself (at least for me). However I would love to make a living based on 3d printing one day.

By the way it’s often better to get some dollars less then a canceled order :wink:

-Marius

PS: I often offer my customers a skype conversation to quickly clear some details of the order, also I get to know, what the customers want and expect from a hub.

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Yes, Im not expecting to earn my fortune doing this but it would be nice to get a bit of pin money to finance some of my projects like the printers. My next build is going to get a bit of cash sunk into it.

But at the same time i dont want to undercharge and undercut others that may be treating it more seriously.

And as Ive spent so much time learning the technology and how to get the best out of the printers it would be good to get the pricing right.

Good idea on the skype contact. You can show them test prints and discuss the details.

Ill have to tidy up my office.

Ive been looking at cost effective ways of photographing prints in fine detail to show them off to customers.
Ive just bought a cheap macro lens for my HTC one M8 phone and its surprisingly good at showing very fine detail.

Gordon

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Hey @GordonEndersby, indeed, Marius is spot on as always :slight_smile: The best way to show potential customers what you can provide as a Hub is by showing off various prints and adding them to your Hub profile. Consider this your shop window and try to make the best of it! So for example, when you try out a new material, make sure to share the print on your Hub page, add in a relevant description, post about it on your social media channels and, why not, do a Talk post about it. We’ll share it as well, on our end.

As for the rest, we are working on so many features at the moment and we do value your feedback! So if you have any specific requests that you’d like implemented, make sure to them here: http://3dhubs.uservoice.com/forums/212175-3d-hubs-forum. The more people support them, the higher they go on our priority list. We’ll make sure to keep you guys updated with all good things coming your way :wink: Hope this helps.

Happy printing, guys :slight_smile: