MK3 + Cheap ABS + 8h print experience  

Re: MK3 + Cheap ABS + 8h print experience

Clearly. That's why despite my math is apparently missing 75% of the costs... I can buy the filament I say is worth ~28$ for ~31$.

I'm getting tired of people telling me I'm an idiot.
https://madmakerfilament.com/

But do me a favor, and tell this guy he's an idiot too. I'm sure he would appreciate it.

Nice to see someone picking up the torch from ProtoParadigm. I always liked their product, but they were definitely having stock and other issues for a while before they folded. I hope this time around it works.

Running a small business can be, unfortunately, a grind. If you're going to pay yourself a decent salary, that's a lot of fixed cost to spread out over not a lot of volume. If you're paying yourself poverty-level wages of $20K/year, you need to sell over 10kg/day every single day including weekends just to keep the markup under $5/kg. That's not counting other fixed costs like equipment, rent, insurance, etc.

It's tough for a small manufacturer to come anywhere close to what Microcenter charges. Even if the raw material is free.

Re: MK3 + Cheap ABS + 8h print experience

Nice to see someone picking up the torch from ProtoParadigm. I always liked their product, but they were definitely having stock and other issues for a while before they folded. I hope this time around it works.

Running a small business can be, unfortunately, a grind. If you're going to pay yourself a decent salary, that's a lot of fixed cost to spread out over not a lot of volume. If you're paying yourself poverty-level wages of $20K/year, you need to sell over 10kg/day every single day including weekends just to keep the markup under $5/kg. That's not counting other fixed costs like equipment, rent, insurance, etc.

It's tough for a small manufacturer to come anywhere close to what Microcenter charges. Even if the raw material is free.

This is actually my point, and everyone missed it.

It's harder/more expensive for the "small" guy to do it, than the big guys.

The big companies buy the resin for LESS, the get HUGE shipping discounts, and their extruders are MUCH more "efficent" for the $$$.

10kg of filament a day, is about 30 minutes of work, given I used to work in a shipping dept.

making 10kg of filament on a filabot, is about 2 hours.

That's 25$/hour of your time. Your annual "money" might be poverty wages, but if you are only working 18 hours a week, for ~400$/week pay... I would not complain!

The thing is growth would be required. And the more premium filaments can easily generate 10$/kg profit.

My main point is.

All "normal" PLA+ filament. (there's no excuse today, for it to be expensive. The resin is cheap and mass produced now) should cost under 25$/kg/delivered. No questions asked.

Filaments like HTPLA+, and other less common filaments I can see being worth up to 35$/kg.

ABS should never cost more than 25$, PETG should never cost more than 30$. (unless it's got something special going on that makes it unique, such as strength, temp etc)

The thing that just gets so under my skin, is the cost of filament in Europe.

1.7kg of Das Filament, PLA, delivered to your door in europe, is 37 euros. (44.74USD)

Das Filament is hailed as some of the best filament in the world.

With a bit of fuzzy math-logics, If you lived in Germany, you can get 2kg of Das Filament for ~50USD. (that's 25$/kg)

Maker Geeks is 24.55/kg of PLA filament, however I've never seen this claimed as "Some of the best filament in the world".

Also, Maker Geeks spools their filament like CRAP. It looks CHEAP. It looks the same as my 11$/kg cheap-chinese trash.

Let my images speak the words.

Which of those filaments would you rather pay 40$ for?

They both cost 40$.

HINT: The one that looks better is 50% shipping in the price.