Off topic Discussion on E3D (Page 1 of 2)

And then sell them to nice guys like us for a discount.  It could be your new R&D department

Short answer:
As I've explained previously, time.

Long answer:

Option 1: I do it all.

Lets say there are 10 printers we want to cover. This isn't actually that many:

SD2/3/4
SD Press
SD Workbench
Printrbot Metal
Printbot Simple
Printrbot Plus
Prusa i3
Mendel90
Lulzbot TAZ4
Rostock MAX v2

There are still a LOT of printers left out, but we'll roll with it for the sake of argument. The only printer I am familiar with is the first one. For a printer I'm unfamiliar with, I'd expect 3 full days of time spent: designing/reverse engineering, printing/mounting/firmware updates, testing/documentation.

So that's 240 hours of work. Now I also do consulting work, so I'd have to give that up for a while. My consulting work starts at $50/hour, so that would be a minimum of $12k of consulting income lost, plus depreciation value of the printers (~$10k if given away, $5k if sold). If the printers are given away or sold, additional shipping expenses are incurred, and who is at fault if the printer is damaged in shipment?

Option 2:

Give away free parts/store credit.

This takes much less than 3 days, since the end user is already very familiar with the printer at hand - and how to speak to/document for its users. If a new hotend came out, I could probably design and document a mount for it in a day for my SD3. Clearly this model works, as MacGyverX has already ended up with a free hotend as a result. Lets say everyone gets a free hotend as a result of their work. This costs me less than $80/ea, times 10.

So to recap:
Option 1 costs $17,000 - $22,000.
Option 2 costs $800.

Which one is better?

lol, why should Tim invest more into products he distributes than Sam does in the printers he manufactures? geez cut him some slack guys ;^P

maybe if those other printer manufactures want the best new features on their printer mods they can send him a free test model with specs etc. but SD didnt so...

Option #2 because you have far less investment and end up with the files so you can tweak them as needed. Your development time and investment is significantly reduced and the hardest part of the design work(typically) is done. Smart business sense in this world uses the open source market to share information and designs to improve the community overall. The only problem with #2 is not getting the end result in a timely manner. If you ship out the hot end and never receive the mount design, you lose.

Haha, have you read the news lately man? SSYS is down 30% as a result of Makerbot losses:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgra … -guidance/

I saw. They missed their earnings by a small percentage. I would expect them to crush it in 2015. They are still trying to figure out how to sell 3D printers to the consumers who are still trying to figure out how to use one.

This is their audience: http://3dprint.com/40461/3d-printing-survey/

We have a long ways to go before things hit mainstream...

Ability to sell the mounts. Documentation and directions are standardized. People want this stuff to be as easy as possible and they will pay for the convenience.

If you really believe that, put some money on it. January '16 100 calls are $1.60. That'd be a 20% jump from where they were a week ago.

I would pay for a full package upgrade. Everything I need included.

Recouping the expenses can be done. I can see the benefits of both sides but I would always want more control over how things are designed and released.

Its a mutual benefit but yes E3D has the most to gain.

Don't get me wrong. Elmoret runs Filastruder amazingly. I just think E3D hot ends could be better sold if they (E3D or Filstruder) did some more work to make the process of upgrading easier.

The biggest issue with buying printers and then designing mounts for them is the risk involved if those mounts do not sell. If he only sells a few printerbot simple mounts, he will not recover his expense. If he "hires" a consultant by providing them a Hot end to design a mount for their own machine, he is out around $80 (retail). The hot end manufacturers design the hot ends to be reasonably generic so they will basically fit a number of machines. They have the same issue. Which printers do their customers own? Also, there are still a huge number of people building their own 3D printer so those mounts are a crap shoot as well. Filastruder can still be in control of the process and keep the investment low by hiring consultants to do the design work. If there are issues after the design is done, changing the design to work properly is usually a minor tweak. Risk Vs. reward is critical in how a small business can function. Buying a large number of printers to design a part that will retail for around $10 is a huge investment. Just to break even on one mount, a business would have to sell around 300 mounts. Even if the printers were sold after the design were done. Of course, most businesses would probably keep the printers so they could run quality tests on a regular basis.

In my case, I was grateful that Filastruder sold the mount for the Solidoodle because I did not purchase my E3D V6 while my printer was functioning. My old hot end failed and my printer was down. I had two choices, replace the standard hot end with one from Solidoodle (Which was not in stock and they could provide no time frame as to when it would be back in stock) or upgrade to a new hot end. One of the reasons I purchased the E3D was because he also sold all the mounting hardware needed.

I agree that he would have increased sales if he stocked more mounts, but the second option he listed is far more beneficial to him and his growing consulting team in the long run.

I'm on with option 2 for cost containment; plus leveraging the expertise in the community to develop the various mounting options can also result in more creative and varied solutions instead of one person designing a few dozen variations.