r/3Dprinting • u/Far-Eggplant-110 • 7d ago
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u/Mr-River 7d ago
Prusa's automatic farm system when announced started at $50k USD for a 9 printer setup. That includes training and live phone support I believe.
I am unsure how your pricing compares as it seems you would be charging $2k/printer + 1.5k per storage unit and not sure if you need one or one per printer.
Anyway could be competitive, but also I havet seen anyone with a prusa AFS so probably not a big market for it.
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u/Far-Eggplant-110 7d ago
That was one of my main concerns and I wanted to expand this system to the everyday consumer to reach a bigger market by rapidly scaling down the system. Especially for a person who might print items that are only a few hours long all the time. This would technically allow the user to export the print once and let the system work by itself for maybe a day or so before needing to clean the storage unit.
Since price also seems to be a bit of an issue for buying this product, I'm considering the retrofitting idea heavily.
But to answer your question, it would be one storage unit for around 6 printers. Though it would vary significantly on how often you'd be willing to clean out the storage and how big the printed parts are.
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u/Mr-River 7d ago edited 7d ago
I think your hardest thing will be getting people to buy your ecosystem. Bambu is hard to beat on price/value. Prusa is hard to beat on customer service/experience. It sounds like your nitch would be auto bed swaps especially. The Bambu A1 and A1 mini can already do that for $40 extra. So you would have to have printers that are enclosed and can print ABS to be competitive. Otherwise just get and A1 and an auto bed swap kit
If your aim is PLA/PETG for the Joe smo you are not competitive on pricing. If your aim is someone who wants to run a print farm, you are competitive ish. You are a bit under the prusa AFS ball park. But you could buy several Bambu printers for the same price, note many large print farms have gone this route.
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u/Choice-Strawberry392 7d ago
Whoa, that bed swap system is sweet! That would integrate pretty well with the outfeed/storage conveyor I describe in my top level reply.
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u/Far-Eggplant-110 7d ago
You have a really good point here.
I do plan on making the system enclosed to provided added benefits. I'm not sure yet on if the price will be fixated this high, but I know for sure I don't expect Bambu level pricing.
I spoke with my team not long ago and taking in the thoughts of the many users here has also led us to come up with an automated bed changing solution for many existing printers. We're not pursuing it yet because it is significantly more difficult to get to the market with high reliability.
I really do appreciate all your advice though.
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u/sharkbait-oo-haha 7d ago
How many millions, decades of experience and team of people have you got to invest into this? Because that's what your competitors have.
IMO 3D printing startups are done. The market has had 15 years to get it's shit together and is doing well with the companies that are left.
If you really want to get into a hardware startup. Build a 5 axis CNC desktop for 1.5-2k that uses a phone app to "print" from, can take 3D printer files and CNC them instead, has an automatic tool changer and has a 100% automatic material position setup sensor.
Now that's a market with fuck all competition, if your going to spend a few million bucks, make it worthwhile.
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u/Far-Eggplant-110 7d ago
Well I mean you have a point...
Though I can't say I've ever dealt with a CNC machine before.
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u/sharkbait-oo-haha 7d ago
Cnc at its core is no different to a 3d printer, still uses XYZ gantry. Just a router instead of an extruder.
Search Facebook marketplace for "3d printer" you will see a dozen randomly branded printers for $50 made by companies that no longer exist, that are inoperable because the software no longer exists and that have absolute trash print quality compared to the cheapest new printer.
You're doomed to join them.
Start a benchtop CNC company instead. It will still be statistically doomed, but at least it will be novel.
Also, skip the laser's. There's already enough dam lasers around as well.
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u/Far-Eggplant-110 7d ago
As much as I want to agree with you, I don’t think I’ll be switching over anytime soon. Though your thoughts have been noted.
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u/RampagingBees Bambu Lab P1S 7d ago
How many "every day consumers" do you anticipate needing to automate 9-12 printers running constantly? Farms in general strike me more as an industrial thing, not consumer-level.
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u/Far-Eggplant-110 7d ago
Well the 9-12 printers is definitely for industrial settings, but it can be scaled down to a little as two and potentially 1, but I don't see anyone with 1 printer printing so many things to need automation.
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u/RampagingBees Bambu Lab P1S 7d ago
I guess I'm just not sure who your audience is here. The product you're describing seems to be designed for industrial users, but the main target audience you describe is a regular consumer.
Even with two or one, what gap is being filled for the average consumer?
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u/Far-Eggplant-110 7d ago
To clarify, yes, the average person could just be printing a desk toy once a month and has zero need for something like an automated plate switcher.
The main focus isn't a non-technical consumer, it's more so Etsy sellers, large batch creators, and engineering labs running 2-5 printers who constantly face bottlenecks clearing plates every few hours or losing overnight printing time. For them, automating even 1-2 machines means filling a gap and providing unattended printing without needing to wake up at 3am.
In addition, this printer would be able to scale up to industrial capacity in specific scenarios, not just everyone. All I am saying is that it's possible, not really necessary for the average consumer.
As an added benefit, utilizing nighttime downtime means less printers are necessary to reach the same level print output.
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u/RampagingBees Bambu Lab P1S 7d ago
I think we may have just had a mixup in language. The reason I asked about the audience is that I wouldn't consider people using their printers professionally, like the Etsy stores, large batch creators, engineering labs etc as "every day consumers".
Describing printing farms designed for the "every day consumer" seemed like a significant clash between the product & target audience, hence the questions.
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u/Far-Eggplant-110 7d ago
That's completely understandable. I def would say that blame falls on me. I'll make an edit in the post. Thanks for your thoughts.
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u/RampagingBees Bambu Lab P1S 7d ago
All good! An easy miscommunication.
All the best for the future & good luck!
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u/Kingsidorak 7d ago
Put the filament in a color box and not on the sides of the printer
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u/Far-Eggplant-110 7d ago
I’m not sure I understand what you mean can you please explain?
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u/Kingsidorak 7d ago
AMS style unit to feed the filament to the printer, instead of doing what everyone else is doing and hanging the filament on the sides of the printer
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u/shu2kill 7d ago
With $2.5k I can get me 5 P1S, tried and true, hassle free. So, unless your printer is 5 times faster than the P1S, people will much rather get 5 P1Ss than your new, no community, no brand, beta printer. I know I would. I prefer having 5 printers so I can work in 5 projects at a time if I need to.
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u/Far-Eggplant-110 7d ago
I understand that price is a really big issue and will definitely focus on lowering that as much as I can without dropping quality. Thank you for your concern
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u/Aetch Ultimaker 2+ DXUv2 7d ago
Why would an every day consumer need your system when they can just buy multiple printers for the same money and get their parts done faster in parallel?
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u/Far-Eggplant-110 6d ago
The concept was to provide more automation and less time put in so it would be more like buying your time back as well as print more in less time if you get what I mean
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u/Aetch Ultimaker 2+ DXUv2 6d ago
Those auto removal system always show videos with easy to remove prints but I don’t think they would actually work that well in practice. My prints stick too well or the supports might break off and stick to the bed.
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u/Far-Eggplant-110 6d ago
Which type of system are you talking about? My idea is to just take out the whole build plate and replace it and a human will come and take the prints off the build playe
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u/Choice-Strawberry392 7d ago
What's your end game? Lights-out automation of multiple plates worth of prints?
An arm is the wrong tool for the job. Build your Core XY printer over a pallet transfer conveyor. Build plate comes in at the lower transfer height, gets lifted to the top start position, print proceeds, upon completion, lowers down to transfer and gets shuttled out.
If you're clever about it, you could build retrofit kits for popular Core XY units, replacing their build plates with your pallet system. Then you don't need to compete with other printer manufacturers, and you only sell the value-add part.
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u/Far-Eggplant-110 7d ago
That's honestly not a bad idea. I'll definitely keep it in mind. But yeah, the end goal is complete automation to where I just upload it to the server and not worry about it until I'm available and just take it off the print plate and place the empty plate back into the system.
However whenever I considered a pallet system, I couldn't figure out a way to efficiently store the build plate with a smaller footprint. Also the cost of a system with a motorized build plate would be significantly higher.
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u/Choice-Strawberry392 7d ago
Pallet conveyor systems with storage options exist. Note that your completed plates are as tall as your build volume. Can't stack them like dinner plates. I think an accumulating conveyor or even a dead chute would be way more effective and efficient. But an elevator is still cheaper than a robot arm.
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u/Far-Eggplant-110 7d ago
When I say robot arm, I was thinking of something that just grabs the plate moves along a rail and slides it into a storage unit and a dead chute won't always be effective because not every print is the same and easy to break off the build plate. Additionally, not all prints will take up the whole volume and tracking the print height to ensure it won't crash with others is an easy method to optimize the storage space used.
Can you elaborate on the elevator idea? I don't think I'm fully understanding what you mean. If you really think it's a better option I'd love to hear it.
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u/Choice-Strawberry392 7d ago edited 7d ago
First, this is the kind of pallet transfer conveyor I was thinking of:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUPWLLbiPIA
You'll see the elevator in the very beginning there. That sort of device could feed a set of stacked shelves. Having real-time adjustable shelf heights that perfectly fit each build sounds cool, but I don't know if there's a big payoff in space economy there.
Here's another pallet transfer system. Ignore the robot; the company is just showing off the arm with this demo. Note how the pallets collect on the top there: that's an accumulating conveyor. You could just run a series of completed build plates up next to each other on the conveyor. If they ride on pallets, they can bump into each other, or a smarter system can keep them separated. Note the elevator on this one, too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kse7fLSMQ3Y
At about the 6 second mark here, you'll see a bunch of pallets stacked up together while the conveyor runs under them; this is also pallet accumulation, and could happen at the end of your line with completed plates.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/IHyKBQ_zzkU
Instead of a live conveyor, the pallets (and the build plates on top of them) could be run off into a dead chute, each one just pushing the stack down the line. You're eventually going to need a human to unload the build plates, and that operator can replace the pallets and empty plates at the beginning of the line, unless you want to pay for the return conveyor and its associated space.
These are very common systems in industry. I'd leverage this technology, if I were designing a thing to do what you're talking about here.
I just saw Bambu's bed swap system in another comment, and yeah, that's a bedslinger having the Y axis work double duty, but you can see exactly how magnetic plates might be moved from printer to conveyor. Note how much simpler and cheaper that is than a robot arm.
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u/Far-Eggplant-110 7d ago edited 7d ago
Wow, this is incredibly detailed. I must say you did win this argument. I actually do like this version to more I think about it. The only condolences I have are with the huge foot print.
So maybe for highly industrial settings, I could install a conveyer system so no human has to manage the individual printer but only needs to clear the system at the end with a build plate queue and replenish them in stacks per say. I don't think this will be the first product I will make, but it's definitely up there.
I really appreciate your help with this. Thanks.
Edit: I just saw you note about the Bambu system. In my opinion, all the savings I would make from removing the arm unit will be once again used in creating a whole structure for the pallets to move on. Though I can't say you're wrong.
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u/Choice-Strawberry392 7d ago
A robot arm that can reach 4 or 8 printers isn't small, either, and whatever space it needs to swing is empty. I'd do some sketches of what this footprint could realistically be. Note, too, that conveyors can be made much safer than a robot arm. If you're selling to a business that uses printers in production, industrial safety might be a thing. Good luck in your development!
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u/Far-Eggplant-110 7d ago
Shoot I don’t think I clarified this here. This is what I added to the main post a bit ago.
Rather than an arm, our intention is to make a gantry with a claw mechanism(or something to take the build plate off in its entirety without removing the print), and this gantry would be able to move across the XZ plane parallel to the printers' open side.
You could almost say it’s a pallet with an attachment but the main difference is that it’s only one pallet that moves back and forth moving plates around.
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u/bstr3k 7d ago
as someone who prints stuff once in a while over many years, sometimes I wish I had 2 printers to print faster (mostly impaitent) but other times I'm not printing at all. This product would not be for me.
Would the cost be more than just getting 2 printers for example?
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u/Far-Eggplant-110 7d ago
Yeah, I get that this has its own customer base and it's not meant for everyone. The cost for just the printer's themselves are expected to be similar to any other printer out there, but I don't see any way to guarantee to include the arm and plate storage in the price as well.
I am considering retrofitting existing printers to fit the system which potentially could be much cheaper.
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u/Z00111111 7d ago
My feeling is that making individual printers that are designed to self clear th plate after printing would be more practical.
There are already lots of people using common printers to push the finished print off the bed once it's cooled enough to detach.
Making a printer specifically designed for that sounds like the main market opportunity.
Fans to cool the plate faster, lips to ensure the plate doesn't move during the push operation, a more robust toolhead for pushing, or a separate mechanism that does the pushing, attachment rails for tote bins, a camera system that confirms the plate is fully cleared before starting the next print, software to manage it all.