if we start manufacturing filament. would we get customers?

we have most of the equipment to manufacture filament. we have been looking into this and we feel we can sell at a more reasonable price $6-$9 a lb.if we decide to move forward with this, would we have support from the reprap community? for orders of 5 lbs or more

we are on the east cost of the us.

for first orders we would be willing to send out 10ft samples for the shipping cost . or a 1 lb sample for $9 pluse shipping

Just to kick it off, i am on the east coast. im sure others here are as well and would be interested

we will be willing to ship world wide

Can you guarantee it will be perfectly round and have a tolerance of +/- 0.1mm or better (village plastic claims 0.003 inch = 0.0762mm)?

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if you could make it that much cheaper i would buy from you, but the issue is that you need to be able to make a good consistent product, i think that is where you will run into trouble if you did, i don't know what kinda hardware you have, but yes if you could make it for that much less i would be willing to bet you would sell allot of it for that much cheaper. if you could make a 5lb spool for 40, i would love that, it would save me allot at costumes.

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[mike-mack.blogspot.com]

we have worked for GM as well as a Furniture manufacturing company that supplied products for other manufacturers. we have manufactured as many as 288 diffrent items at the same time .so we are use to tight tolerances. we will test each batch before it is ran on to small spools and sent out to customers

if we where worried about quility we would not offer 10ft sampels . as long as you pay actual shipping...no handling charges

Well ya would be interested definetly once I get my reprap up and running pla as well as abs I would be interested in depending on what your charges will be (handling) shipping and so on. BTW you in the usa?
terramir

if you want to be kept up to date please send us an email and we will keep intouch

we are in north carolina usa

johnnyb Wrote:
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> would we have support from the reprap community? for
> orders of 5 lbs or more
>
> we are on the east cost of the us.

I expect you will get slightly better support for filament than for making metal parts on your kickstarter campaign, but the Filament needs to be really good, not just low cost.

You can get 1KG of 3mm filament from China for under $7, but it's not always that great. And if it's not perfectly round and with tight tolerance then it's not worth trying to use even if it's free.

If you could help bring down the cost of 1.75mm filament and also keep the quality that would be interesting for many people, both ABS and PLA.

I'm not sure International customers will help you, I am in the UK and we have plentiful supplies of (reasonable cost) PLA and ABS in the UK and in Europe, with low cost shipping and no import Tax/duty.

Can you offer anything different to the community?, you obviously want to help support us and this booming industry.

Then you have developers like Camiel that plan to bring working granulate extruders to everyone shortly, if that really happens, then your filament business may just dry up.

Rich.

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[richrap.blogspot.com]

richrap

we can produce a usable product .. the main reason for the kickstarter campaign is so we can gear up for manufacturing filament . as well, we can keep the casting end of things going.
we got burned really bad by the furniture manufacture supplier we made parts for ( for 4 yrs) they pushed us for as much product as we could pump out . and kept putting off paying us. then when we put our foot down and said we had to get paid. they then let us know they are moving everything overseas and I wasnt going to be paid.
luckly i had enough money put back to pay the workers. and my machines are now setting in the dark. we do not want to put all our eggs in one basket again. we want to sell to businesses as well as individuals. if the filament business dries up for 3d printing ... then we will make weedeater string , or fishing line. or fit a new tip on it and start making plastic injected parts.

I guessed you were diversifying and it looks like you have a good plan, so if you can make filament, parts, or anything else for us it would be really good, I just got the feeling you had been burnt from some of your other comments, and didn't want you pumping too much money into just this project, it's a very volatile market where everything changes all the time, new printer designs are made weekly and 3D parts change many times every day.

Good luck and I wish you all the success possible.

Cheers,

Rich.

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[richrap.blogspot.com]

one thing all the 3d printers have in common is that they all use the same filament. thats the one constant. and we can adapt if need be

In addition to quality I would want a good selection of colors, steady Inventory and 1kg spools. 5lbs lasts a long time and I may prefer more colors in smaller quantity.

Inventory is a big one. I need more PLA and in the US at the moment my choices are black grey and clear in 1kg or 5lbs of yellow. Nationwide filament shortages seem to be common.

1kg rolls we will have to consider once we are up and running . as far as colors go ...that wont be a problem as the mix ratio is 1% color to the base clear .
we will produce abs at first and gear up to start up another line for pla

Will you offer pre-wound on spools as well as bare rolls? Many suppliers used to sell slightly cheaper without a spool and I printed reusable spools to be able to take advantage of that. Now it seems like most suppliers have moved to selling on a spool only. I like my printed spool setup and don't want to waste disposable spools when I get new filament.

jsadusk we would rather sell them without spools , but we will have spools also

ok we decided to go with richrap advice and put this on kickstarter . please help us help you

[www.kickstarter.com]

Where in north Carolina are you located?

near winston-salem

I was just wondering. Are you doing this purely yourself or are you getting the company you work for to try it. I will find your kickstarter for this and support you. But I was just curious. If its a company it just may help get more companies interested in resource projects. If it turns a profit. And I am sure you will

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[mike-mack.blogspot.com]

my brother and i are the company......and our workers are willing to quit their jobs and come back to work for us. they are a great crew

Hi Johnny,

A couple thoughts...

First, as others have noted, quality is everything. If you cannot deliver good quality, than everything else is irrelevant. I know you have addressed this already, but the point cannot be stressed enough. My suggestion: Specify your tolerances and offer a money back guarantee for filament that is outside of that tolerance. This is an easily quantifiable standard, so it is easy for you to perform QC before the product ships, it is easy for the customer to check if they are having printing problems, and in the event of a return, it is easy for you to confirm the nature of the problem. You may want to attach a lot number tag to the end of each coil or to the spool so you can track any problems you run into with returns. Yes, this policy will cost you a bit more, but people will pay more for filament that they trust to be good quality. 3dprinterdstuff recently got a ton of bad publicity because they were selling filament that was way outside of usable tolerances and they would not stand behind what they sold.

Second, if you sell 1.75mm filament, you MUST sell it on spools. But if you really want to make happy customers, find a supplier of reusable spools (such as the "Build your own" spools from McMaster: ) and make your coils so they fit on those spools. Then you sell the spool once and just sell the coils in the future. The same thing is beneficial for 3mm filament, but in my experience 1.75 is completely unusable without a spool.

Please do offer both diameters. After experimenting with 1.75, I switched back to 3mm. I just do not see enough benefit to 1.75 to justify the slight cost and huge hassle increases. If you only offer 1.75mm, you will eliminate a huge chunk of your potential market.

Oh, and you might want to choose a different nickname... Ultimachine is JohnnyR... If you start selling as JohnnyB, I foresee a lot of confusion!

Hope this helps!
Mike

thanks for the input
a tolerance of ± 0.1mm can be held
and we will offer with and without spools. on kickstarter all filament sold will be spooled.
the key to making a great product is having great workers. my old workers are the best and are waiting for me to start a new business so they can all come back to work for us. with the exception of one, she is now living in az.

I am in. Good luck on Kickstarter, I hope you meet your goal and are able to supply us with quality products.

If you guys are able to produce the quality product that you say you are, i would definitely buy from you!

please go to our 2 kickstarter pages and help. you can pre order ABS between $6.81 - $10 a lb. we are not going to offer PLA at this time . i have never worked with PLA ,and i feel uncomfortible making promises im not sure i can keep. but belive me , if i can make a high quality filament with it , we will be selling it ASAP

[www.kickstarter.com]

[www.kickstarter.com]

I don't know about your end and PLA. I hope you start to offer it sooner. I much prefer working with it in my printer No nasty fumes.

I am curious how you will find it different to work with on your end

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[mike-mack.blogspot.com]