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Hypothetical scenario for market research:

If your FLGS were to have a 3D Printer installed for public use (fees and such depending on materials, all that logistic nonsense), and with the obvious Don't-Print-Copyrights signage, would this be something that you would possibly make use of?

And if so, what would you want to use it for? Terrain, bases, etc.

That could be something quite cool

Depending on the resolution and size of the print volume and method of printing I might try printing out figures, vehicles and terrain.

Terrain and bases mostly.

It would depend greatly on the quality of the prints, and the fees they were charging.... but... yeah i could see using this for bases, terrain, and other stuff like that.

Kind of a cool idea.

I find the 'build-a-bear' 3D printer model much more viable and obtainable than home 3D printing the same way we went to the public library and Kinos for copies of papers.

For us to get access to the higher quality printings, it will take a expensive equipment which will be seen at a retailer before home.

You would never see a return of investment. The segment of the wargaming populqtion (or even the population as a whole) that has the knowledge and skills needed to furnish design files for printing is a tiny fraction of the whole, and the machines needed for the high resolution prints needed to do anything other than the simplest designs costs many tenz of thousa ds of dollars.

FLG's could have a supply of files for people to print off pre-designed items. There are a number of designers who put out their stuff for free.

Appreciate the input.

Not particularly looking into the tens of thousands of dollars, high-grade, high-speed low-drag machines, but I've seen plenty of decent machines for just a couple grand now.

For the blueprints, per se, I know there's lots of shapes and files out on the internet, and being a graphic designer myself, I'm not too terribly worried about people not being able to create what they want. Just charge a bit extra for the design phase.

It'd be essentially like printing a commissioned piece. My only concern is whether there's enough interest in the idea to warrant the cost of the printer in the first place.

I think you would have to market it right... have a PC with a catalogue (and perhaps a printed version) listing all the types of items like bits sites/3rd party casters use, their cost, printing time, etc next to them so people see what kind of stuff you have "off the shelf", then details for costing custom file printing, custom designing etc... all that just to let people know what is available. Perhaps have contests and events based around 3D printed parts, terrain etc, have "featured" parts that you have printed off a few sets off and sell in blister packs with the store logo on etc..

Be careful with getting a 3D printer. You are already seeing shops popping up that offer 3D Printing services. In the USA, the UPS shipping stores have started getting printers in their shops and are offering 3D printing services. There are also places being called "Makerspaces" which are essentially fabrication shops open to the public for a fee. A lot of them have 3D printers, 3D scanners, and other simple machines. A local one opened up near me and charges ~$200 US a month for using it. That covers material for the 3D printers.

Also, if you haven't worked with a 3D printer before, they are not a simple plug and play. A lot of the printers out there have buggy user interfaces and are for the most part beta versions of a product being sold to the public. There is also a lot of calibrating and maintenance of the machines that needs to be done even before you can start printing.

You would need to make a deal with a website like Shape ways for something, so you can print off the files they offer.

Terrain and vehicles certainly, may be models as well if the quality was good enough.

I'd probably buy a lot of tokens and markers as well as scenery pieces and bases.

The first 2 would probably be more easily achieved with an MDF lazer cutter though.

3d printing is still painfully expensive in terms of time, materials and maintenance cost on the machine.

Print size on high resolution printers in affordable price brackets is also fairly small - bear this in mind when dealing with larger designs, they'll need to be made into multi-part designs.

Fine for one-off jobs, not good where you need to produce in quantity (like bases).

If you want to make use of the (assuming a decent enough and therefore expensive) printer, it's a better idea to double up for mouldmaking and resin casting too - that way you can print masters and also offer bulk production.

 TheEyeOfNight wrote:
Not particularly looking into the tens of thousands of dollars, high-grade, high-speed low-drag machines, but I've seen plenty of decent machines for just a couple grand now.

Those cheap printers have nowhere near enough resolution for miniature games. They're interesting toys, but your chances of making any profit off a machine that can't print decent miniatures are pretty much nonexistent.

Better response to this than I expected, outstanding.

Seems like most people I talk to like the idea, but having suggestions or a catalogue for ideas is a must. With simple design programs, online searches, and some help from your friendly designer/manager, we shouldn't be running dry for concepts.

I've seen a couple of the Makerspaces, and I liked them, which is essentially where this idea comes from. But I'm looking to charge for individual pieces, not have a monthly subscription that defies a lot of wargamer's budgets.

Also, valid point about the higher-end printers. With enough interest, the more expensive printers could be a worthwhile investment, but that would involve a lot more confidence on my end that I could actually make money off of it in the end.

Once again, this is all just a bit of preliminary market research, but the feedback is really helpful, so thank you all.

 TheEyeOfNight wrote:
Seems like most people I talk to like the idea

Are you showing them an example object you've printed on the printer you're hoping to get? Most people don't really understand how 3d printing works and are probably imagining something a lot nicer than the crude approximations you can print on a cheap printer. Show them what they'd really be buying and I bet interest declines quite a bit.

 Peregrine wrote:

 TheEyeOfNight wrote:
Seems like most people I talk to like the idea

Are you showing them an example object you've printed on the printer you're hoping to get? Most people don't really understand how 3d printing works and are probably imagining something a lot nicer than the crude approximations you can print on a cheap printer. Show them what they'd really be buying and I bet interest declines quite a bit.

Three of them own lower-end 3D printers, and most of the others have seen the kind of things they can do. They get it, we're not here to print ForgeWorld quality material, it's just another resource for the gaming community.

To be honest, I don't think we're there yet with this technology.
You'll need the printer, the files, the medium, and someone on hand who knows what they're doing.
I can't see it being in any way profitable, the costs of making stuff and keeping it running are going to be in excess of the amount people are going to pay.
Bases, for example.
Highly detailed resin bases are $0.90 each, for example.
I don't think you'll match either the price or the quality.

I'd have to agree with you, marv, this is all very forward planning

Base's, simpleterrain pieces and even simpleparts for vechial conversions (armour plates, stoage, ect,ect) willprobalybe a good start, as well custom tokens for popular games,i would stear clear of figures, unless you know its an origianal design.
But also depends on the demand,if your custemers want highly detailed bits for those flash one-off conversions/character models, or more simple designs for rank and file troops/armour (any game)

I see 3D printers as exactly like home sewing machines. Yes, if you have a pro grade machine and a user with pro grade skills to use and maintain it, you can produce clothes you can actually wear out of the house, customized to your taste, and very inexpensively.

Or customers can do what you, OP, are proposing, which is the equivalent of a haute couture custom clothier, i.e. way outside the price-range and utility for most people in their day-to-day lives.

Another parallel: I took classes a couple years ago, and they crowed how they were saving me money by having thousands of pages of articles instead of one textbook. Wrong. It cost a metric crapton of money to print things out (and yes, it needed to be printed because I needed to take notes, etc), and the quality was horrid. I would much MUCH rather pay the "extortionate" price for a textbook. If I'd had a textbook I would have that knowledge all in one place, easily on my shelf, because I take class notes in my text. Instead, I have no references at all because the stuff printed off my home printer smudged, ripped out of the binder, fell apart, etc.

For most people, normal day-to-day stuff is much better served by a mass produced model, i.e. centralized production for relatively inexpensive cost in money and time. I don't see 3D printers as replacing factory manufacturing any more than home printers replace all printed material or home sewing machines replace mass produced clothiers. The idea is cute, but unrealisitc. Manufacturing is not as easy as one's imagination would suggest.

I would belong in the bracket of people that want to print their own designs. That is worth paying a bit more for compared to mass produced stuff. However - I would not use any of the current machines on offer (other than professional machines that have the 16 micron resolution) to print stuff as the quality is not good enough. The idea is sound though and I take it you are doing some planning for the future. I would welcome such a thing when the better quality is available.

Herzlos wrote:
I'd probably buy a lot of tokens and markers as well as scenery pieces and bases.

The first 2 would probably be more easily achieved with an MDF lazer cutter though.

Their is a better idea actually. Get a MDF lazer cutter!

Make a deal with some of the more premier MDF terrain manufactures. Pay them royalties for access to their design catalogue to make and sell their designs on demand in your FLGS's back room. I love alot of the MDF terrain that they offer, but shipping thows heavy MDF sheets can be a pain in the wallet. Being able to walk into my FLGS and buy this stuff is much better!

Expand into 3D printing once you have a successful business model, and your ready to take the risk of investment.

It's an interesting idea, but remember the printers being used in places like Makerspaces are usually the extruded type and don't have the resolution needed for miniatures (at least the ones I've seen in those places).

A few other things you have to contend with are:

1) You'll have to print more than 1 model at a time in order to make it cost effective. So a customer will have to buy multiple models or multiple customers have their printed at the same time. Not really a problem until you hit #2 and #3.

2) Oops. I bumped into the machine while it was printing. Great, you just ruined the whole batch of your models and possible another customers. One bump and the machine will lose it's "place" and the prints will be useless. Ever seen how some people treat printers or copiers when they don't start right away? Now you have to clean out the resin vat and start over and re-calibrate the machine.

3) Damn. Someone walked by the machine and the vibrations made the prints "foggy". This is a very common problem among high-resolution printers. On a regular basis we'd have to send parts back to be reprinted because the detail on the model was "out of focus" or the model shifted in the vat and a leg got printed facing in the wrong direction.

4) Why isn't the resin curing? It's leaking resin through the layers. Yup, time to reprint the part. Maybe the temperature in the room is too low for the resin to cure properly, even with the UV light.

5) Damn, this part just broke into pieces when I picked it up. While the detail of the models on high-resolution machines is great, the resin itself is very brittle and break easily along the build lines. That's why most companies make RTV molds and cast the parts in resin, then the resin castings are cleaned up and used as masters. You can "post-cure" the RP parts, usually at temperatures of around 200° F for an hour or more, then at a reduced temperature for another hour or more. Customers probably won't want to wait around for that.

6) Crap. I was cleaning the build lines off the model and ruined some of the detail. The resin used on RP parts is much softer than resins like the Smooth-On 300 series. You can cut into it with your fingernail it's so soft. That shiny new model you just had printed in extremely fragile and easily marred.

7) Why can't I paint this thing? The paint keeps flaking of. Depending on the resin, it might not like paint much. I only know of a few resins used by high-resolution 3D printers that does. Also, sure you can superglue parts together, but remember the build lines and how fragile the model is along those lines. The glued area might be fine, but a few mm down is where it will break. Especially if you drop it.

3D printing sounds great, and it has a lot of potential, but in most industries they still take the 3D printed part, clean it up and make a mold out of it and cast a master in another, stronger material for use in production.

3D printing still has a long way to go, not to mention all the legal issues that will arise. How do you know the file your customer wants to print isn't copyrighted somehow? Even if it is a self-made file how do you know it's still legal to print it? For instance a copy of a Terminator marine that was self-made, but has the Imperial Eagle symbol on it. Are you legally allowed to charge a fee so a customer can print it? I know FedEx/Kinko's won't print copyrighted materials.

EDIT: You might think about making RTV molds and resin castings of your RP parts as well. That's a whole other ball if problems since most RP resins don't play well with most RTV's. I've gotten the most consistent results with the Smooth-On Platinum cure Mold Star, Dragon Skin and Rebound rubbers, but even them it doesn't always work.

Sometimes, for reasons too complicated to go into detail here, the RTV doesn't want to cure properly so you'll wind up with an RP part covered in uncured resin. Even putting the RTV mold in an oven to post cure won't work all the time. It's a crap-shoot. The mold cold be fine, or you could have just wasted time, money and materials and have to start over after cleaning the RTV off the RP part, and you could easily break the part when doing so. Time to get a new part printed.

EDIT #2: Keep in mind these issues above are ones that the larger miniature companies like GW, PP and several others I know of have to contend with as well. 3D printing is still in it's infancy and has a lot of issues companies that don't do their own production won't have to deal with. But the companies (most likely in China) producing them does.

So you're thinking of doing something similar to what this company is doing now?
https://gibbon.co/jrsedivy/3d-printing/my3dtwin-makes-you-fabbaloo-blog-fabbaloo-daily-ne

The above link indicates to me we're not too far off from a system that may meet wargamer needs in a few years. Neat idea though expensive and time consuming. Note the pre-painted models.

Once again, good input all around.

I think the single biggest observation here is to have samples available to view, because it seems no two people have the same idea on the system capabilities or its products.

Guess we'll have to find out.

I could see myself printing all sorts of tokens, markers and so on. Custom objectives for armies, wound markers for games that need them, etc.

I'd do terrain and bases officially....perhaps fill some gaps in the modeling and do some female Imperial Guardswomen!

 TheEyeOfNight wrote:
Hypothetical scenario for market research:

If your FLGS were to have a 3D Printer installed for public use (fees and such depending on materials, all that logistic nonsense), and with the obvious Don't-Print-Copyrights signage, would this be something that you would possibly make use of?

And if so, what would you want to use it for? Terrain, bases, etc.

Heads, weapons, bits, battlefield terraign, wheels, wall sections.....


basicly, anything that you'd want to make. I say do it, charge a base fee, and charge on the designs, as you go ahead and copywrite the stuff and maybe keep cranking them out in small batches to fund the machine.

Then add a second, then a third...

5.00, and 10.00 bucks really adds up. Charge that in Euros and call it a day. 5-10, should be pretty good.