Im making the filament vendors money does that count?
Your Thingiverse only has two over year old designs? How serious are you?
Yea, I am net positive with my 3d printing, that includes buying another printer. You have to remember that the raw material the 3d printers use is relatively cheap. I can print off something that costs me less than $1 per part, not including labor, electricity, etc, and still charge multiple times what it cost me to make. #d printing is basically a money making machine if you find the right niche and are decent at design.
How did you get started with selling 3d prints? Where are you selling your things?
So what I sell is kind of a replacement part for a machine that usually wealthy people own. Sorry I know that's super vague. But anyways I redesigned as one part to make it custom and now I sell those custom parts. The website I use to sell them very specific to people who own these so if I had any advice I'd say get into a niche market.
I print FDM. I've paid for the printers and make a little money each month. Not enough to live on but enough to finance the hobby.
My mom hooked me up with a teacher who wanted a watercolor insert for altoid tins. The lady was enthusiastic and would pay me every year to make them for all her classes. The design she pointed me to was a BSD license but I remade it anyway. I'd make like 100 prints at $5 each. Made like $500 X 4 years.
I haven't heard from her for two years. I don't know if she still teaching or found another printer.
I make some photographay related devices and give them away on printables/thingverse. For the most popular designs I mention that they are for sale on etsy. I know there are a lot of people interested in the things but without a 3d printer. I'm also not shy on mentioning my designs on social media if they are a solution to that person's photographic problem. On etsy I don't mention thingiverse/printables except for one disability related item. The etsy sales are about $120 a month.
I make a small amount of money selling my original designs as prints on etsy. It's not a lot, but thats how i want it so that it's manageable with my single printer. My goal is to get the etsy gig just big enough to 100% pay for this hobby.
3DPrinting
3DPrinting is a place where makers of all skill levels and walks of life can learn about and discuss 3D printing and development of 3D printed parts and devices.
The r/functionalprint community is now located at: !functionalprint@kbin.social or !functionalprint@fedia.io
There are CAD communities available at: !cad@lemmy.world or !freecad@lemmy.ml
Rules
-
No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia. Code of Conduct.
-
Be respectful, especially when disagreeing. Everyone should feel welcome here.
-
No porn (NSFW prints are acceptable but must be marked NSFW)
-
No Ads / Spamming / Guerrilla Marketing
-
Do not create links to reddit
-
If you see an issue please flag it
-
No guns
-
No injury gore posts
If you need an easy way to host pictures, https://catbox.moe may be an option. Be ethical about what you post and donate if you are able or use this a lot. It is just an individual hosting content, not a company. The image embedding syntax for Lemmy is ![](URL)
Moderation policy: Light, mostly invisible