Dragons, Minecraft and alike. Market Traders

[Lee Foulkes]

I have heard the guys mention this trend on the podcast a few times.

I was at a “car boot” this weekend selling junk from a garage clear out. For US makers this is akin to a ‘yard sale’ but we go to a field, pay a fee and then scramble to sell as much junk as we can for the least amount of money. They we queue to get out of the field, burning the clutch of the car out in the process.

Anyhow - I’d taken my puzzle box £1 coin bank (cryptix) down there as well as used books, dvds and kids toys - just to engage with the punters. Put some money in and challenged them to get it out. Nice way to get talking to people about the hobby.

Last couple of years I’d seen small stalls where people were selling only 3D printed stuff. Mostly the articulated dragons and a popular Japanese animal type game characters.

But this weekend a chap had a huge stall probably the equivalent of 3 cars, with that kind of stuff, plus large Minecraft objects. He also had some neat resin printed and painted more adult SciFi film stuff, predator alien etc.

Anyhow I grabbed my puzzle box and went over to engage with him.

What I was surprised at:

The pitches are not cheap £10. He took up at least 3 so would have been paying £30 i think.

He was selling the dragons at £6. So must be doing ok to stick at it - has to seek 5 of those before he makes any money.

He said he was doing most of them on the X1C (said he’d put 2000 hours on it with hardly any maintenance). If that’s true then it provides some insight into how sellers are able to justify and recapture the investment. He said he just added a P1S.

We exchanged groans about Creality and I left him in peace.

Buyers going to these events are not looking to spend a lot of money. They complain when I ask £0.5 for a DVD. I sold a 20” combo TV, wanted £10, knocked my down to £5. It wasn’t very good.

The point is people seem to be willing to pay reasonable amounts for these 3D prints.

It’s an interesting contrast between a puzzle box I spent hours and hours designing and iterating, versus the download and click print trend.

It doesn’t interest me. I’d be to paranoid about the product indemnity. But my gosh the space has come a long way over the last few years. Particularly since the Bambu x1c.

My ultra realisation is a product that i can convince somebody to invest in an extrusion tool for mass production. But that’s just a dream and i battle like the rest of us to find that unicorn.

So yes 3D printed ‘dust gatherers’ on the rise!

Puzzle box for context.

PuzzleBank

If anybody fancies trying to print - give me a shout and I’ll share the files FOC.

 

[3D Printing Tips and Tricks]

Nice! A Thing of the Week for sure!

I DO believe that if someone develops a functional object that meets a need it will sell even if it's made with a 3D Printer. I have printed more than a few for designer clients who sold their objects that simply could not be found any other way. I have dozens of samples some of which we have discussed on the podcast.

But... trinkets like flexible dragons... those can only go so far and then my bet is the sales will fizzle out.

[Lee Foulkes]

Thanks for kind words. I am thinking of circling back to this. I didn’t do a version for the US market and wanted to. Also have a QOL upgrade where the coins stay stacked when the inner unit is unscrewed. Rather than fall out.

I wasn’t sure about the popularity of coins in the US now. I know the quarter was still pretty popular back around 10 yers ago. But everything is done by Apple Pay now - laundry, vending - probably video games cabinets :( Where did the 80s go?

This size of the coin is not too dissimilar to the UK £1. Slightly thinner and slightly larger circ.

Perhaps if I could update it might be worth you printing for a TOTW. There are some interesting printing techniques on display.

- individual CAD parts for the lettering - which can be coloured (colored) easily in the slicer.

- a floating pre-printed part that requires pausing of the print.

- built in supports for the clicking mechanism that are removed in assembly.

- tolerances / seem hiding.

Would have to change the ‘pound’ word out. 5 letter work Americans associate with cash. Hmmn. Dollar-X, quarter-X……….

Only problem is i lost the main model from my Shapr3D account, but do have stls / steps files somewhere so could work through it.

It’s a nice little Xmas gift. And not to expensive to print at around 450g.

Anyhow see what you think.

[Lee Foulkes]

Correction. It is six letters. Just found the model. So yes Dollar.