Future webshop, 1.75/3mm ratio?

Hello guys,

I am planning to open an ebayshop with hot end's etc.

Does anyone know or have any idea what the 1.75/3mm usage ratio is, in other words how much more popular is 1.75mm filament?

My plan is to buy hot end clones or hot end parts and correctly reassemble or assemble them myself, bad parts will be thrown away or fixed if possible.

I have experience with original j-head mkv, e3d v5, e3d v6 . With clones the following problems can occur:

- Often the clone's are wrongly assembled
- Out of a package of 6 heatbreak's, some are damaged, some need finishing.
- nozzle's holes are not precisely drilled.

In other words people are buying a clone, wait a month for it, and chances are they never get it to work or be able to use it like it should.

I will not sell anything as genuine, i will openly sell clone parts, aiming at European audience for fast delivery.

Every hot end :

- will be assembled correctly, using exclusively part's who meet blueprint requirement's, all others will go to the trash.
- will be seasoned with olive oil.
- will have thermal paste on the heatbreak.
- will have the Nozzle tightenend against the heatbreak


Please feel free to give your opinion on this.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/22/2016 01:54PM by Govahnator.

How do you expect to make enough money with this? Most people either go for a clone because it is cheap or for genuine parts because they work. I don't see many people spending more money to still end up with a clone. Considering the amount of time you will have to invest into disassembling/reassembling, fixing parts, determining if what works and what doesn't, and import/shipping costs and the cost of throwing out bad parts, you would need to raise the price of the hotends you sell significantly to make it worth your time and money.

No criticism, just some food for thought.

Agreed. IMO its a waste of time.
To stay on topic, I do believe 1.75" is the higher seller. Personally I have 3mm

I believe that 1.75 is much more popular and that 3 is slowly being phased out.

Also if my options were $20 for a clone, $30 for an improved clone that is guaranteed to work just as well as a genuine or $60 for a genuine I know which one I would pick without hesitation! I think its an awesome idea and I hope you post links to your store soon!

Hi guys,

Thanks for the reply's.


The thing is, i don't plan to get rich from this like many people in the business, and some overcharge because they want to live off it.


If i just get decent pay for my hours of work, i am happy.

I would offer per example an e3d v6 for around 26 euros + 9 euro shipping = 35 euro (europe and usa), With extra's compared to the original.
With my current supplier ,this would be a 210 procent profit marge (without discount) , let's estimate 3/10 hot ends i buy have a defect, i will replace the bad part for about 1 euro a piece and i can sell them again..

I would also offer replacement part's for people who already have a genuine hot end (i made hybrids before)

I know some people go mad about clone's. But if this gets somewhat succesfull, i might even get in the hot end r&d myself, i have a friend with a good cnc machine. ( even though i am not planning to)

So what do you guy's think, let us not think of it as a clone for a second, let us think of it as a hot end wich will be more reliable out of the box then the genuine deal.

Would you buy one of these for 35 euro/ 40 Usd/ 30 Gbp incl shipping? (Original is 50 euro unassembled, 65 euro assembled , without shipping)

Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 08/22/2016 10:33PM by Govahnator.

you gonna put the effort into polishing the heatbreaks?

will be seasoned with olive oil always considered the need to oil a bowden tube as an old wife's tale! year and half off using bowden setup oiling the ptfe tubing just aint in the manual. so lets not be making out oiling the tubes is some how a beneficial worth paying more for,,, just call it a rebuild service and be done with it!!.

for an assured clone to work folks only have to use ali $8-12 complete v6, extra heatbreaks with liner $3-4 so at the low end $12. you thinking 35 euro for a counterfeit!!! far better to resell reworked heatbreaks growing number of folks may appreciate a polished break service?. as for bad parts generally it's the heatbreak those aluminium blocks can take a beating still preform as expected so dont really expect there be to much waste. unless you opting to bulk buy the cast off clone of a clone... 99% issues with china made HE all comes back to the heatbreaks......

" will have thermal paste on the heatbreak." now am I curious would there be enough paste left between the threads to be of any benefit,

"1.75/3mm usage ratio is,in other words how much more popular is 1.75mm filament" 1.75 gotta be the most common these day., but really doesnt matter, cant the clones be fitted with either liner?

out of respect for sanja and the rest of the E3D team hope you drop the notion of using E£D in your advertising, think its pretty assured they would not want to be associated, so why not rebrand call it the PHANTOM!!

"Would you buy one of these for 35 euro/ 40 Usd/ 30 Gbp incl shipping? (Original is 50 euro unassembled, 65 euro assembled , without shipping)" personally if i saved 35 then I save the rest a week later to get a genuine... its possible to get a complete setup from spool to hotend for £38 and you selling just an hotend for £30.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/23/2016 05:29AM by jinx.

For €36 you can get 4 clones including shipping. I don't think that there will be a large market for something that is not difficult to do oneself.

Quote
jinx
you gonna put the effort into polishing the heatbreaks?

will be seasoned with olive oil always considered the need to oil a bowden tube as an old wife's tale! year and half off using bowden setup oiling the ptfe tubing just aint in the manual. so lets not be making out oiling the tubes is some how a beneficial worth paying more for,,, just call it a rebuild service and be done with it!!.

for an assured clone to work folks only have to use ali $8-12 complete v6, extra heatbreaks with liner $3-4 so at the low end $12. you thinking 35 euro for a counterfeit!!! far better to resell reworked heatbreaks growing number of folks may appreciate a polished break service?. as for bad parts generally it's the heatbreak those aluminium blocks can take a beating still preform as expected so dont really expect there be to much waste. unless you opting to bulk buy the cast off clone of a clone... 99% issues with china made HE all comes back to the heatbreaks......

" will have thermal paste on the heatbreak." now am I curious would there be enough paste left between the threads to be of any benefit,

"1.75/3mm usage ratio is,in other words how much more popular is 1.75mm filament" 1.75 gotta be the most common these day., but really doesnt matter, cant the clones be fitted with either liner?

out of respect for sanja and the rest of the E3D team hope you drop the notion of using E£D in your advertising, think its pretty assured they would not want to be associated, so why not rebrand call it the PHANTOM!!

"Would you buy one of these for 35 euro/ 40 Usd/ 30 Gbp incl shipping? (Original is 50 euro unassembled, 65 euro assembled , without shipping)" personally if i saved 35 then I save the rest a week later to get a genuine... its possible to get a complete setup from spool to hotend for £38 and you selling just an hotend for £30.

Thanks for you reply man,



I wasen't planning of using e3d's name.

Also i feel you about buying 3 clones more in china, but that's the point, there are people who are not very familiar with the china market and waiting time.

Check this, a bad clone, but it seems to be selling rather well in the UK [www.ebay.com]

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/23/2016 07:54AM by Govahnator.

One thing to note, E3D has changed the thermistor setup in their blocks for this cartridge style. This makes assembly much simpler and easier to maintain, meaning less chance of an E3D hotend from being poorly built. And with the E3D Lite6, with this new design only being 30USD with 4USD shipping (assuming you don't buy more than 100USD worth in an order), why would someone want a clone that would be a pain to replace the thermistor in the future?

From my experiences with the clones, I'd rather spend the extra for the E3D hotend and know its not going to be an issue. Just because someone said I've personally tested this clone to work, still won't get me to buy one.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/23/2016 09:36AM by PDBeal.

I dont think you have read what i posted PdBeal,

The clone i linked is a bad clone, was just showing it does sell.

The one's i am talking about cant be distinguished from the original, including fanduct. Like this

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/23/2016 09:42AM by Govahnator.

If you want to actually sell something that no one else is selling, how about modifying the hotend heatsinks by adding a thermal fuse that will kill power to the heater if there is a failure at the controller board? The thermal fuses top out at about 270C- much too close to actual extrusion temperatures, but if you mount the fuse on the heatsink, it can still work. You'll have to profile the heatsink for temperature rise while printing at different temperatures and choose an appropriate location and fuse to mount.

---

Ultra MegaMax Dominator 3D printer: [drmrehorst.blogspot.com]

Quote
the_digital_dentist
If you want to actually sell something that no one else is selling, how about modifying the hotend heatsinks by adding a thermal fuse that will kill power to the heater if there is a failure at the controller board? The thermal fuses top out at about 270C- much too close to actual extrusion temperatures, but if you mount the fuse on the heatsink, it can still work. You'll have to profile the heatsink for temperature rise while printing at different temperatures and choose an appropriate location and fuse to mount.

Hi DD,

That is a good idea! but my knowledge of electronics isn't that great (yet) , so for me this is a bridge to far.

I think the idea is sound but the economics might be challenging. I've bought plenty of clones, some work well especially the Big Tree Tech ones from Aliexpress, presuming you build them properly. However I've switched to genuine as I just don't want to have the trouble of the occasional jams. The fans supplied are usually useless and the bearings give up within days/weeks of using them, however the cast aluminium blocks are easier to work with than the machined blocks on genuine e3d, and they don't have to be that strong to work, so I don't see the machined block as a bonus, sure they're shiny when new but after 100 hours printing who can tell?

But the economics are tricky, Even if you work on a ratio of 30% duds discarded its difficult to make enough to cover your time including dealing with the inevitable returns from customers who expected a working hotend as they paid EUR 35 not EUR 11. Sure there are economies if you buy lots. But even if you're spending EUR 8 per clone, discarding 1 in 3, having to get them shipped, possibly paying customs/VAT or other tax then selling them for anything close to the cost of an E3D lite 6 you won't sell that many. I see clones as good for the beginner, they're cheap and they teach you how to (and how not to) assemble a hot end, so great for getting started but once you get serious about 3d printing you buy genuine as the time involved in getting the clone to work and fixing them when they jam etc.. is not worth the money saved.

If you could sell a reworked clone for EUR 20 you might get some takers, but if you're UK based there's the low value of the pound eating into your profits too.

On topic I'd say 65% 1.75mm and 35% 3mm. But 1.75mm is gaining traction, its easier to handle, comes off the spool easier, goes through bowden tubes easier, you can use the last few metres without feed problems. Unless you consider flexibles then 3mm still has a strong case.

---

Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

Quote
DjDemonD
I think the idea is sound but the economics might be challenging. I've bought plenty of clones, some work well especially the Big Tree Tech ones from Aliexpress, presuming you build them properly. However I've switched to genuine as I just don't want to have the trouble of the occasional jams. The fans supplied are usually useless and the bearings give up within days/weeks of using them, however the cast aluminium blocks are easier to work with than the machined blocks on genuine e3d, and they don't have to be that strong to work, so I don't see the machined block as a bonus, sure they're shiny when new but after 100 hours printing who can tell?

But the economics are tricky, Even if you work on a ratio of 30% duds discarded its difficult to make enough to cover your time including dealing with the inevitable returns from customers who expected a working hotend as they paid EUR 35 not EUR 11. Sure there are economies if you buy lots. But even if you're spending EUR 8 per clone, discarding 1 in 3, having to get them shipped, possibly paying customs/VAT or other tax then selling them for anything close to the cost of an E3D lite 6 you won't sell that many. I see clones as good for the beginner, they're cheap and they teach you how to (and how not to) assemble a hot end, so great for getting started but once you get serious about 3d printing you buy genuine as the time involved in getting the clone to work and fixing them when they jam etc.. is not worth the money saved.

If you could sell a reworked clone for EUR 20 you might get some takers, but if you're UK based there's the low value of the pound eating into your profits too.

On topic I'd say 65% 1.75mm and 35% 3mm. But 1.75mm is gaining traction, its easier to handle, comes off the spool easier, goes through bowden tubes easier, you can use the last few metres without feed problems. Unless you consider flexibles then 3mm still has a strong case.

Thank's alot for your reply DjDemonD ,

I have the genuine e3d v5, and v6.

I honestly never had trouble with my v6 clone's, only the nozzle hole wich isn't always consistent , however i have seen a friend with louzy e3d v5 clones which are a total disaster and probably the reason many people are negative about clones.

My point is, i am using a clone v6 myself on one of my printers, assembled with handpicked parts, and it's just as reliable as the genuine v6 on the other printer. Haven't had trouble with china fans either ( you are not the first i hear complain about them however)

If this wasen't my experience, i would not bother selling them.

I would never have to discard a clone, let's say the nozzle or the heatbreak is bad, i can just replace that one part.

Also, i think you guys underestimate the fact that there are people who pay more at european shop's, of wich most get there supplies from china, just to get it faster. In the past i have bought a ramps 1.4 for 5x the price it is in china for a clone aswell, just because i didn't want to wait a month to continue printing..

I am from Belgium Btw, not from the Uk ( wich explains my louzy grammar)


ps: i am also planning to sell inductive sensors for auto leveling, with the resistors pre soldered, plug and play.

Edited 7 time(s). Last edit at 08/23/2016 10:08PM by Govahnator.

Your grammar seems more than adequate to me. I hope it works out, there is something to be said in not waiting a month for parts. I like the idea of pre configured inductive sensors, those are a bit of a minefield.

---

Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

I supose you know it's not legal to sell E3D copys due to his Licence Terms (Non Commercial).
You can do it, but not legally.

Quote
VincentM
I supose you know it's not legal to sell E3D copys due to his Licence Terms (Non Commercial).
You can do it, but not legally.

Hi, I am not going to sell E3d's, but hotend's based on various design's.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/24/2016 10:38AM by Govahnator.

Hot ends based off of E3D designs... Not "Various"
Lets call it what it is now.

Quote
Floyd
Hot ends based off of E3D designs... Not "Various"
Lets call it what it is now.

Sure, but not exclusively.

I might just make hybrids of different parts.