Looking to start 3D printing

[mfink963]

Can anyone point me in the right direction for a good starter 3D printer

[TommyDee]

Welcome to the forum mfink963.

[chandola]

We often recommend beginners to start with Tinkercad

[ikram]

start with Tinkercad it is good

[ellapurnellr]

What are some cool things to make with a 3D printer?

[alexcarey]

Tips to begin a 3D printing business

• Instruct yourself about 3D innovation.
• Settle on a market
• Plan your system.
• Pick your 3D printer.
• Research fibers.
• Settle on a brand and stage.
• Manageability.
• Productivity.

- - - - - - - - - -

Welcome to the forum mfink963.

Thanks for welocoming new member?

[TommyDee]

Hello and welcome Alex Carey

Hard for me to advise on a printing business. As a user using 3D-printing as a tool for engineering, I find hassle-free printing a must-have.

I have spent a few years on crafting a very reliable value-printer; a discontinued marvel for pennies on the dollar; a tool to better my skills in every way including a path into 3D-Printing itself. With a lot of help from good people on this forum and others, of course.

And don't worry, I lurk every day in order to clean out the riffraff.

What scale did you want to take this too? My printer of choice is a highly modified 3D Systems Cube 3. It is a bit of a dynasaur but reliable and simple... now. However, 3D Systems is a player with the big guys and they have 'solutions' for all your questions, as I am sure many others do too. They decided us squabbling little fish didn't matter anymore. We're printing sintered metals and ceramics now where technology is becoming more picky about process control and post processing capabilities.

Shapeways https://www.shapeways.com/ pretty much has the consumer market covered. Everything is a take from their business model for consumer level business interactions. Hubs is a sub to ProtoLabs, who's done all kinds of stuff in the past, represents another good business model; https://www.hubs.com/

As to a printer farm, wow! That's an employee doing the setup. Pro-sumer machines come from FormLabs, SLA type, with an eye on selling materials and making your printers almost maintenance-free. Someone still has to post-process parts, which is a little more involved with SLA; https://formlabs.com/

Alright, you got me, that is all I can offer. Good luck.

[Bob344]

I also plan to start a business in this area. I tried and succeeded in printing a few blocks for video cards. Now you can say I can produce external video cards for office computers to make them more advanced and you can play games on them. Also, more than once I have printed plastic parts for total stations. Many surveyors came to me for such help. I am already working on coming up with a name for my company. I select through company name generator. I want everything to be official and unadventurous. I think this is a promising business because there are a lot of things you can do on a printer.