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Whatever it is, raise your prices
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Mar 21, 2023 18:02
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Bodanarko posted:Whatever it is, raise your prices hahahah i've had this before, i'm literally like 2 cents below the biggest Esty shop selling the same stuff, so I don't want to price myself out. FDM terrain is very cutthroat with prices.
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Mar 21, 2023 18:09
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queeb posted:hahahah i've had this before, i'm literally like 2 cents below the biggest Esty shop selling the same stuff, so I don't want to price myself out. FDM terrain is very cutthroat with prices. ohhhh now I remember the whole conversation that was had about this lol
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Mar 21, 2023 18:13
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queeb posted:im getting crushed in etsy stuff, ive averaged $400-600 a day the last week in sales, so im just piling on the printers. going to convert my garage into a workshop in a month or two, so if this works nice ill fill it with p1p's haha. Dang, nice work!
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Mar 21, 2023 18:31
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queeb posted:hahahah i've had this before, i'm literally like 2 cents below the biggest Esty shop selling the same stuff, so I don't want to price myself out. FDM terrain is very cutthroat with prices. Are you making any money after time/materials/fees? When I looked at the printed terrain stuff it seemed so very cheap to buy that there couldn't be that much profit margin in it unless you're selling a TON
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Mar 21, 2023 18:52
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yeah i raised all my prices and stuff, still selling like mad, and im at a happy place selling tons of stuff. I've just been watching my biggest competitors, undercutting them by like 1-2 cents, but also my SEO game on etsy is apparently on point beacuse i show up higher than them on search results for the same thing, so that helps.DoubleT2172 posted:Are you making any money after time/materials/fees? When I looked at the printed terrain stuff it seemed so very cheap to buy that there couldn't be that much profit margin in it unless you're selling a TON yeah bigtime, some of the printable scenery stuff I have sells for 2-300 bucks and actual print cost is maybe 30-40 at most. I also sell dungeon tiles painted and magnetic that my cost is like 40 bucks and sell for 300+ i paid 2500 bucks for the licence but that let me add like 400+ buildings to my store. Etsy is totally a numbers game, the more listings you have up the more traffic it generates. I dont even do any ads on etsy or anything and get like 2-300 visits per day. edit: I've made $3200 in the last 7 days and my cost on that is maybe 600 bucks, probably less since i've had some sweet deals on filament and resin pop up. queeb fucked around with this message at 19:03 on Mar 21, 2023 |
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Mar 21, 2023 18:54
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The economics is fascinating but what kinda print farm are you running now?
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Mar 21, 2023 20:34
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prusa mini, 2x ender 3 neo, ender 3 pro, neptune 3 pro, CR-10, actually potentially have a prusa MK3S from a friend that they dont use coming, and now the bambulab p1p. also 3x anycubic mono x and 1 elegoo mars v1, my little baby resin printer. going forwards im trying to solidify down to 1 or two printer types just for logistical reasons, so that'll be the ender 3 neo and the p1p if i like it when it comes. honestly i think being diverse on etsy is doing it, people come in and buy like 3 minis and then spend 400 bucks on buildings or dungeon tiles lol, my average order value is 103 bucks currently. or the reverse, they buy a cool building and then pick up a bunch of minis for it. the plan is to save up 10-15 grand, clear out my garage, heat it, insulate it and move into a nice setup in there. currently i have resin printers in a heated enclosure in the garage, and the fdm printers in my unfinished basement. my wife wasnt on board until the sales took off, now shes gung ho for a remodel lol./ queeb fucked around with this message at 21:57 on Mar 21, 2023 |
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Mar 21, 2023 21:53
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queeb posted:prusa mini, 2x ender 3 neo, ender 3 pro, neptune 3 pro, CR-10, actually potentially have a prusa MK3S from a friend that they dont use coming, and now the bambulab p1p. also 3x anycubic mono x and 1 elegoo mars v1, my little baby resin printer. Yeah geez that sounds like an absolute logistical nightmare, slicing files for *all* of those printer types how do you keep that poo poo organized?
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Mar 21, 2023 21:56
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BadMedic posted:Yeah geez that sounds like an absolute logistical nightmare, slicing files for *all* of those printer types terribly, it sucks. they were all just one offs on sales or pickups from friends. didnt expect to be in this situation at all so its been whatever i can grab cheap to keep up haha. now that i have consistent sales coming in i'm going to organize a bit.
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Mar 21, 2023 21:57
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queeb posted:hahahah i've had this before, i'm literally like 2 cents below the biggest Esty shop selling the same stuff, so I don't want to price myself out. FDM terrain is very cutthroat with prices. Yeah I think we talked about this, raise your prices and position yourself as a premium seller. At a point, especially on Etsy, people will pay for it. There are a lot of fly by night operations on there so you either need to compete on their level of garbage, or show that you can justify the cost
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Mar 21, 2023 22:16
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queeb posted:terribly, it sucks. they were all just one offs on sales or pickups from friends. didnt expect to be in this situation at all so its been whatever i can grab cheap to keep up haha. now that i have consistent sales coming in i'm going to organize a bit. If I were looking at building a farm like that I think I'd look at fysetc prusa clones and put real superpinda + satin sheets on them. What's your experience been like with having to repair the enders?
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Mar 21, 2023 22:20
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I just had this same conversation with the wife on cost vs what things like this sell for. I was very very hesitant to start down the Etsy path with how oversaturated it is, but I have had good returns on things I laser engraver and add my qr code to the back of, and get more business that way. But I do have a bulk pack of magnets and a bunch of grey filament to churn out terrain in...... ..... Which I'll never get seen in the 10k results for magnetic terrain
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Mar 21, 2023 23:06
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Folks with filament driers, is there a point of no return for filament? I have a roll of PLA that's just been sitting for 2 years for example, and it brittle as hell. I have a filament drier but I just got it recently and haven't used it yet. Is it even worth me trying to dry this PLA to see if it bounces back?
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Mar 22, 2023 00:20
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armorer posted:Folks with filament driers, is there a point of no return for filament? I have a roll of PLA that's just been sitting for 2 years for example, and it brittle as hell. I have a filament drier but I just got it recently and haven't used it yet. Is it even worth me trying to dry this PLA to see if it bounces back? It should be totally fine. I’ve heard of filament being irrecoverable for other reasons (manufacturing defects, contamination, etc) but you should be able to drive water out fine.
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Mar 22, 2023 00:31
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Brittle PLA has never been recoverable for me.
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Mar 22, 2023 01:27
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There are points of no return for PLA but the only way to be sure it's irrecoverable is to pop it in the dryer
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Mar 22, 2023 01:34
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Well, it's in there. I'll report back later tonight or tomorrow morning.
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Mar 22, 2023 01:40
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Drying filament properly will pretty much always restore printability (layer quality, lack of steam and bubbles, etc). It will not, in my experience, make filament that is brittle on the spool become more supple again. If the problem is that the filament keeps snapping on the spool during the print, I don't think drying it will help. Worth a try though I guess. Supposedly dried filament also has reduced mechanical properties compared to filament that was never allowed to absorb moisture in the first place, but I haven't found that to be an issue with nylon, and I don't use PLA for structural parts so if it does get weaker I've never noticed.
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Mar 22, 2023 01:42
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Thanks for the insight Queeb! I’ve never considered monetizing this hobby (I’m busy enough as it is) but it’s fascinating to hear about other folks’ experiences. Keep us updated, if you don’t mind!
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Mar 22, 2023 03:35
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its definitely not a hobby any more unfortunately lol, 100% eats up my free time after my day job. I think its worth it so far, the dream is to quit the day job and go full-time printing stuff, and currently I AM making more than my day job on Esty but I need a year or two of data before making any decisions. I basically work, east supper, play with my kids, put them to bed, wife goes to bed, i paint and ship orders until like 1am, and repeat.
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Mar 22, 2023 03:54
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armorer posted:Folks with filament driers, is there a point of no return for filament? I have a roll of PLA that's just been sitting for 2 years for example, and it brittle as hell. I have a filament drier but I just got it recently and haven't used it yet. Is it even worth me trying to dry this PLA to see if it bounces back? 6 hours in the filament drier at 50C made it notably less brittle, although it still not as pliable as a new roll. I'm going to leave it overnight and see if it improves any more.
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Mar 22, 2023 05:55
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Jesus my p1p comes today, that's less than 24h from buying to my front door
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Mar 22, 2023 06:18
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I've dabbled in selling prints online but I have no mind for the marketing angle, of which figuring out things like how etsy "works" and how best to position myself is part of. It's all much harder than it needs to be when I do it, so I have a huge amount of respect for people who can do that stuff. I've known a few guys whose minds work in the right ways for that, enough to know I'm not one of them 
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Mar 22, 2023 06:37
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queeb posted:yeah i raised all my prices and stuff, still selling like mad, and im at a happy place selling tons of stuff. I've just been watching my biggest competitors, undercutting them by like 1-2 cents, but also my SEO game on etsy is apparently on point beacuse i show up higher than them on search results for the same thing, so that helps.
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Mar 22, 2023 14:19
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Drying further overnight maybe made a little bit more improvement in the brittleness, but it's hard to tell for sure. I'm printing off a new roll now but I'll try this newly dried one soon to see how it prints. It was unusable before this because of how brittle it was, so if I can use it now I'll call that a win. The filament has gone from snapping if you bent it even a tiny bit to now requiring that you bend it back and forth in the same place repeatedly several times, and even then you need to twist it a little once it's weakened to really get it to come apart. So all in all it's a pretty dramatic improvement. A new question: I'm printing something with a number of relatively thin walls, and seeing a ton of unnecessary travel where the print head just zips around the contour but doesn't extrude anything. Looking online, it seems like this is an issue with Cura (which is what I've used for ages). Has anyone else seen a marked improvement in this by switching to a different slicer? If so, which slicer are you using that eliminates it? I'll probably stick with Cura in general, but if I can slice this model somewhere else and cut out a bunch of the print time, that would be nice.
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Mar 22, 2023 14:42
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queeb posted:Jesus my p1p comes today, that's less than 24h from buying to my front door Once you get it join the discord, it's mostly ok. Feel free to ask any questions about it, I'm on discord as the same name here. Unbox it, throw the bambu filament on it and print the benchy off the SD card and marvel at the ludicrus speed and then never use that speed again lol
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Mar 22, 2023 14:51
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armorer posted:
You can probably eliminate that behavior by increasing the number of perimeters by one, or maybe with a checkbox having to do with wall filling. Or if you designed the part yourself, edit the wall thickness to be an exact multiple of the extrusion width. Prusaslicer is better than Cura.
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Mar 22, 2023 15:55
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armorer posted:I'm printing something with a number of relatively thin walls, and seeing a ton of unnecessary travel where the print head just zips around the contour but doesn't extrude anything. Looking online, it seems like this is an issue with Cura (which is what I've used for ages). Has anyone else seen a marked improvement in this by switching to a different slicer? If so, which slicer are you using that eliminates it? I'll probably stick with Cura in general, but if I can slice this model somewhere else and cut out a bunch of the print time, that would be nice. I'm not sure if I'm understanding the problem correctly, but try changing the 'Combing Mode' under Travel settings? The setting tries to make the head stay within the area it's currently printing, and the travel moves might be getting weird from that.
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Mar 22, 2023 15:58
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I've finally got my s8 frankensteined into something I'm happy with, and instead of continuing to gently caress with it, I'm turning my attention to my Maker Select. It was my first printer, and I've upgraded it to decently modern spec, but it doesn't really offer higher speeds or better prints than my s8, so its not worth it as a second printer. Its fully upgraded to a modern spec, with a hemera, bed leveling, a skr1.4 with 2209s and a 24v conversion, running on Klipper. Voron Legacy looks like the "best" option, but its compromised enough, and still requires enough sourcing, that it doesn't seem worth it compared to building a fresh V0, as I already have a large printer. I've seen the Reduplicator, but that seems like a lot of work to make a smaller prusa clone that won't offer anything over a well-tuned s8. The other option I've considered is to swap the hemera for the orbiter on my s8, brace the frame, and see if it will print fast enough to be worth keeping with no other modifications. This is for fun, so it doesn't have to be fully practical, but I'd like to end up with an enclosed, fast printer, with a non-fixed bed.
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Mar 22, 2023 16:32
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I recently switched to a .6 nozzle for use in wood PLA. But I'm not automatically seeing the speed bump a larger nozzle gives with more material being put down (according to the slicer) Following the Ellis guide i am comfortable with the line widths being a percentage (as taken from my nozzle settings) but my layer height is still hard coded to .2 I get that bigger layers = less layers = shorter time, but do I really want to increase layer height over .2? .2 layer * .6 nozzle * 100mm/s = 12m/s^3 which is beyond the limit of my hotend, but I do hardcode 10 m/s^3 in the slicer. (.4 nozzle at the same is safe at 8m/s^3) Regardless, I know i -could- go with a larger layer, but I never see anyone who advocated switching away from .2. Is my line with also not touched by this change as well ?
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Mar 22, 2023 16:34
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Sagebrush posted:You can probably eliminate that behavior by increasing the number of perimeters by one, or maybe with a checkbox having to do with wall filling. Or if you designed the part yourself, edit the wall thickness to be an exact multiple of the extrusion width. It's not my design so I can't change the wall thickness sadly. I will look at the options you mention though and see if anything jumps out at me. I'll also try slicing it via prusaslicer. BadMedic posted:I'm not sure if I'm understanding the problem correctly, but try changing the 'Combing Mode' under Travel settings? The setting tries to make the head stay within the area it's currently printing, and the travel moves might be getting weird from that. It's not this, but thanks for the input. The design is a lot of sweeping thin walls of varying thickness, and the print head is making a bunch of moves following the wall contour like it would be putting down another wall, but not putting down another wall. On most of those moves it will sweep around the shape back to where it started, or close to where it started, and then lay down another wall on the next pass. It's basically like the slicer said "hey go lay down a wall with essentially zero thickness" in order to make the result match the model thickness, but the extrusion rate is so low for that pass that it doesn't actually do anything. As Sagebrush points out, this could be avoided if the model wall thickness aligned with the print line thickness, but there's no way for me to do that with this model, as the design is from elsewhere and the walls are all wildly varying thicknesses anyway. armorer fucked around with this message at 16:40 on Mar 22, 2023 |
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Mar 22, 2023 16:36
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Roundboy posted:.2 layer * .6 nozzle * 100mm/s = 12m/s^3 which is beyond the limit of my hotend, but I do hardcode 10 m/s^3 in the slicer. (.4 nozzle at the same is safe at 8m/s^3) If your flow rate is your limiting factor, increasing layer height will do almost nothing for print times. As for the speed increase... Going from 8m/s^3 to 10 is only a 25% boost, which can get obscured by travel moves and stuff. Do you maybe have a fixed number of walls set? That may be eating up a lot of your speed increase. If you are at 3 walls on a 0.4, you can bump down to 2 walls on a 0.6. Finally, for layer height, if you change it I've heard that you want to be within 1/4 to 3/4 of your nozzle width. So that's 0.15 - 0.45 with a 0.6mm nozzle.
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Mar 22, 2023 17:03
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armorer posted:It's not this, but thanks for the input.
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Mar 22, 2023 18:53
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Acid Reflux posted:I think it really is this, what you're describing is exactly how Combing works if it's not set to Off. When it's disabled, the nozzle will make straight moves from the end of one line to the beginning of the next one. Any other mode will try to keep the head inside the already-printed area and basically follow the model's contours to varying degrees. Sometimes this makes it do a complete perimeter run, because no matter how often we complain about it, Cura's dev team still apparently hasn't grokked the concept of "the shortest distance between two points". I mean I can turn that off and see what it does, but it does this even on the first layer before it has printed anything. It does this to some extent on basically every layer, and if you google "Cura unnecessary travel" you'll find a ton of people discussing it, mostly pointing towards the wall thickness issues.
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Mar 22, 2023 18:57
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armorer posted:On most of those moves it will sweep around the shape back to where it started, or close to where it started, and then lay down another wall on the next pass. It's basically like the slicer said "hey go lay down a wall with essentially zero thickness" thicknesses anyway. If it's just flat out not printing really thin walls sometimes, that's a problem basically every slicer has had for a long time. Are you on the latest update of cura? I assume so, but their new Arachne engine should help with that. But assuming you have Arachne, the main problem is nozzles only print lines reliably down to half their size, so if the wall is smaller than 0.2 you are going to have problems on a 0.4 nozzle. I'm not sure how to solve it? Assuming that the slicer is detecting the wall, setting "Slicing Tolerance" in Experimental to "Inclusive" might help, but it might cause problems with tolerances/small details. Switching to a smaller nozzle may also help? A 0.2mm nozzle can do 0.1mm lines reliably, so you get double the resolution at much higher print times. Fakeedit: Looking over cura's settings, playing with "Minimum Feature Size" and "Minimum Thin Wall Line Width" may help? Bringing feature size lower, and thin wall line width higher may fix it? in the end it could just be a weird bug tho
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Mar 22, 2023 20:03
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armorer posted:I mean I can turn that off and see what it does, but it does this even on the first layer before it has printed anything. It does this to some extent on basically every layer, and if you google "Cura unnecessary travel" you'll find a ton of people discussing it, mostly pointing towards the wall thickness issues. And of course I could be wrong! Honestly had not seen any talk about it before, and that does seem a lot more like what you're experiencing.
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Mar 22, 2023 21:15
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The resulting print is perfectly usable. I'm not taking calipers to it to check if all the various walls are exactly as thick as they were in the design, I just wanted to speed up the print time. I'm on the latest Cura, and have never seen a print do this before so I thought it was weird. It's just doing a TON of travel all over the model where it doesn't end up putting down any material, and then it eventually ends up laying down some walls again. None of the walls are too thin to print by themselves, they're all at least 2 line thicknesses, but I think I'm seeing a situation where some walls might be like, 4.025 line thicknesses and it's still running a "wall" pass for that 0.025-line-thickness but just not extruding anything, instead of just skipping it entirely. Anyway it's not a big deal really, it was just weird enough that I thought someone might have seen this behavior before.
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Mar 22, 2023 21:20
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I feel like an idiot, does anyone have any advice for how to start troubleshooting this issue? Zig-zag Y-axis/bed offsets that stick around for multiple layers before snapping back. They aren't consistent across the z height / on multiple prints as far as I've seen. A bunch of layers just offset by like a fraction of a mm.(The goose was aligned with the bed's +/-, and the artifacts vanish towards the sides of the model.) The bed itself seems to move smoothly when I move it, the belt is fairly tight. And juuuuust to check if it might be like, bed acceleration being wonk, I'm running a new, slower print now.   CR-6 SE, klipperized. I recently upgraded my extruder (to a generic metal dual gear) and upgraded the cooling on my hotend with a 6burner/moron-like (https://www.printables.com/model/382429-cr-6-semax-6burner-v2-versatile). At that point it still worked fine, then that extruder ate it's own rear end, and I swapped it with a microswiss dual gear extruder. That had some issues that I've more or less sorted out, though I'm still tuning it in. However, the primary issue right now is those slight layer skews back and forth in the +/- Y direction. Since I haven't really had any issues of this kind before I'm kinda unsure how to try to debug/fix it. Print settings for that  :0.2 mm, 3 perimeters, 5% infill, 60-80mm/s perimeters. 0.4 nozzle + normal extrusion width. eSun PLA+ cold white, sliced on prusaslicer 2.6 a4. 220C. It's the general safe settings that used to work fine for me, though it used to be at 80-100mm/s before. For reference, here's how I'm used to it being. A bit of noise, not much in the way of artifacts.  (Once I fix this issue I'll probably de-klipperify it, and see if I can sell it, since I'll be grabbing a P1P next month probably once they're in stock.)
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Mar 22, 2023 22:04
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SubNat posted:The bed itself seems to move smoothly when I move it, the belt is fairly tight.
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Mar 23, 2023 01:17
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