[dangus]

No, it's not a pity, OP should drop this.

1. It was never a business for the reasons you brought up

2. The appeal seems to depend heavily on trademark infringement that would make it even less of a viable business long-term

3. I hate to be mean to OP but the print quality of these products look pretty darn low and undesirable. And yes, I do realize the Celtics photo was an example of a "before" result.

So much of the article talks about the printer breaking down and clogging all the time and it sounds like the author's got some really bad equipment or is otherwise doing something wrong here. 50 orders and 3000 hours of runtime doesn't usually get you busted motors and a major need to have spare parts on hand like the article describes.

[beambot]

Best source of "open" financial data I've seen from this sector is Whiteclouds: https://www.whiteclouds.com/

They did crowdfunding via Wefunder, so their financial docs performance is available online: https://wefunder.com/whiteclouds

They seem to have found some high-margin value-add niches in doing large signs, tradeshow displays, topographical maps, etc. Seems like there can be some nice SMB opportunities in the space if you can carve out some specialty services & attract repeat customers.

[jacquesm]

That's true, but that could be just his choice of printer. I've got a prusa that has done 100 km of filament (ok, it is the oldest one) and 50 bambus, the bambus are insanely reliable.

Agreed that stuff shouldn't be breaking over that kind of runtime. But the article leaves out a lot of detail that would have helped identifying what is going wrong with the printers, but that's not the main reason this did not work, the main reason is a lack of business sense.

[wespiser_2018]

Something like 98 to 99% of prints worked out. When I wrote the piece, the moments of failure shaped the process and my approach, and not representative of the average print.

For the most part, my X1C + AMS set up was just plug and play, and I tried to use the Celtics print as an example of pushing that system beyond what it could do, and how struggling through that lead to specific adaptations in the process.

My focus was really getting prints out the door to hit shipping windows, so delays were felt by the customer and the reputation of my partner. Just the overall production pressure, it's a different experience than most prints I do for fun, where a failure is an opportunity to learn, and there's time to try alternatives.

As for the 0.2mm clog, I'm nearly certain it was an issue with the specific roll of filament I was using, Overature Matte PLA in the "forrest" green color they have. Other colors in that print worked. Usually PLA clogs are cooling issues, but optimizing the print profile would have been a big slow down.

[wespiser_2018]

Author here:

All logos were supplied by the customers, and a lot of them were custom logos. The real value, IMO, was the name written in text, which is what I'm censoring out in each of the photos. There's still enough demand using alternative logos, since the "job to be done" is providing a trading card dealer with a way to show off their name/logo in pictures of their wares.

I wouldn't describe the situation as "the printer breaks down all the time". Stuff, like plates, or PFTE tube, or nozzles would wear out and break. It's not a regular occurrence, but it does happen, and it's enough of an issue when you are trying to hit a shipping window that you'll want to take steps to avoid it. From a story/narrative perspective, that's the stuff I tend to remember, not the other 99% of prints that turn out well.

The Bambu X1C is reliable, you just can't run it 24/7 and not run into issues. The most unreliable component is probably the AMS, something about that, plus matte PLA, was causing clogs where you had to take apart the AMS and fish out the broken filament. That happened to me maybe 3 times.

In those 50 orders, most of them were for 5-10 actual card stands, and throughput was enough of an issue that I bought a second printer.

As for the clogs, that's really specific to the 0.2mm nozzle, not the 0.4mm nozzle I used after the jam. Unjamming a 0.2mm is much more difficult, since the hole is so much smaller. I did try cold pulls, and several other techniques, but I do think the root cause was one roll of matte PLA filament. Sure, there was more stuff to try, but I didn't want to sink more than one night on the problem.

As for the quality of prints? I stand by the quality of prints as good examples of what can be done on consumer hardware. Consistent matte finish, even layer lines, bold, vivid logos that matched the input pics.I'm happy to design and print something people want, and my problem was never lack of demand.