3D print for a living? - Meet a Maker: Myles

[@wickedlee]

"It's hard work." Never a truer word spoken. So many people think it's easy - 'sit behind a desk and make things'. Thanks for doing this interview Myles and sharing your story.

[@andrew66769]

Everybody's gangsta until you can't find what you want on thingiverse.

[@KnightDriveTV]

I've watched this channel over some time, but missed this video until now. My business is VERY much like Myles, I was kind of surprised by the similar path. I run 18 Prusa's currently, and transitioned from 18 Ender 3's. My products are aftermarket modifications and much of what he said is just dead on. People will doubt the strength and the process, but once you've shipped tons of product...that goes away. I also use ABS but I brim everything as well. While enclosed, I've found brimming was critical to keeping purely flat parts. Prusa's saved my business because the battles I was fighting with the chinese printers was sending me down a path of failure. At one point, I just had to force the transition. They are work horses...that's all there is to it. I run them 24/7 and the only real issues I have are occasional clogging. Would love to talk to Myles but we are an ocean apart. The upside of 3D printing is cost leverage. Small volume (hundreds or a couple thousand) manufacturing with 3D printing gives great cost leverage. Therefore you can make an engineered (customer value perception) part, that does the job at a high amount of leverage for profitability. I've also invested in the Einscan HD Pro, but sometimes think I should've pushed to the HX. I scan cars also and the Aesub spray is essential to getting good data. I outsource a lot of cad work on upwork...things like reverse engineering jobs, etc. It can be done. I launched a product and pulled in over 200k dollars in pre-orders with a single printer and a prototype. I then scaled the business as a "kick start" and delivered the products. Now almost 16mo into it, I'm over 500k and have more products coming out.

[@DoubleBullet]

congrats bro 👍Thanks for sharing your success story! Let me know how it goes for you. I also started my own business recently and so far it's a lot of testing and research, hopefully soon I can start selling.

[@waynefilkins8394]

Any advice on coming up with a product? I designed and sell a couple of things, but they are just standalone products that I sell to consumers via ebay/etsy. I would really like to get into what you're doing, selling more unique functional parts.

[@tobiastho9639]

MCM 🥳 Can't wait to see the collab! Chopped!

[@Engineerd3d]

I do have some advise for those running a bunch of printers. Instead of running octoprint. Run reperire server. I have run 4 printers at once using a pi3 and the thing worked like a charm. I feel it's more of an industrial setup. One more thing to note is putting a hour meter on your printer can give you an idea on parts durability and expected maintenance cycles.

[@B3D]

please share more info about it. btw isit repetire server ? i cant get any related on reperire, what printer you use? is that mean you use repetire slicer aswell?

[@Engineerd3d]

@@B3D i use repetier server. Sorry phone auto correct has this messed up. As for slicer i use the latest cura slicer. As for printers. 2x monoprice delta minis, and 2x ender 3s. Many times all 4 printers went on at once. No drama, hiccups or any issues. I like it so much I bought the paid for version to give me previews on the library of parts. I use an old tablet as an interface for it or my phone. This setup has been going on for over a year. Over 1000 hours of print time for each printer. Happy customer as well as camper to have all of the printers share a device.

[@TheJacklwilliams]

@@Engineerd3d Great detail, thanks for sharing. Apologies but for clarity, why Repetier over OctoPrint? I ask because after 6 months with pronterface and my Anet A8 Plus (amazing printer) I'm looking at OctoPrint and Clipper... Keep in mind no print farm yet but it could quite possibly head that way. Why Repetier over Octoprint? Thanks ahead of time. These discussions can be very fruitful. Edited to add, Klipper not Clipper.

[@Engineerd3d]

@@TheJacklwilliams i went with repetier server due to its ability to handle multiple printers at once out the box. I am still running it and it is working flawless with no real bugs. With that said, klipper is a completely different game. I intend on trying it at some point with a 32bit board.

[@labemolon5739]

Mattercontrol is hands down the best for managing fleets of printers, all with separate or duplicate profiles, cloud saving, material cost estimates, and it’s free. Pc, Mac, or Linux.

[@mcorrade]

I agree 100% that CAD is the key. This is the reason I spent months learning the CAD software (fusion) well before even buying my printer. Once I got the printer, I was able to design and print parts without the need for thingiverse although I do love finding good designs there. The first print I did on my ender wasn't a boat or a cube but a design of my own which I find very satisfying. I do see the need to print those items for config purpose's.

[@ColinJWiens]

For real, CAD skills make your printer 100x more profitable; they're the only reason I've earned money from my printer.

[@justin60222]

Now learn stress analysis, failure theories and FEA lol jk jk

[@DelahayeChristophe]

Or Sculpting if you're into miniatures

[@annekedebruyn7797]

@@ColinJWiens Learning CAD should be of interest of anyone who likes to do things themselves which is something I realized waaaay too late.

[@sethlaske3164]

Yeah, a ton of people at my maker space at school just pull up models from thingiverse to print, and are very shocked or confused when I model something of my own and have to print like 5 iterations to get it right. Its way more satisfying to have this stuff on my own

[@RomanoPRODUCTION]

Myles has many skills and very focused on the activities and making them rationalized. Very interesting. Thanks for the video Michael 👍

[@spikekent]

Fascinating to hear from a guy that has already done it and made it a success, great work Myles and I wish you all the best with your bussiness.

[@sneckburger3270]

Great advice. Cad designer myself in the UK. Ive been on furlough since March so I've started making parts for my classic car and selling them on Ebay.

[@TeachingTech]

Very cool, thanks for sharing.

[@robertjusic9097]

What kind of stuff do you design?

[@MichelClavette]

Thank you for the very enlightening interview! I find the "niche market using various fabrication method" approach much more viable than the "I can do anything as long as it's 3D printing" approach we more commonly see in the 3D printing world.

[@sashidasage1257]

Hearing this side of the business from multiple people opens eyes. I watched this back to back cause there was so much info. Thank You for Your Time.

[@matthewweinberger7023]

At first I thought the dude was a static image and then he nodded

[@glennleader8880]

a 3D printed statue.

[@whopperlover1772]

I seriously thought it was a split screen

[@3dpprofessor]

I kinda thought the same thing. Even then, I'm not sure Michael wasn't green screening himself into the shop.

[@BlueJeebs]

Maybe he was just in 3D printer observing mode!

[@crmogrovejo275]

Such a hilarious comment

[@nhand42]

Myles comes across as sensible and honest and I daresay that's two of the reasons why his business is successful. Making a good product and being a decent person gets you repeat customers.

[@xyngg4894]

He seemed so thrilled at the beginning

[@desktop3d]

Great advice for people wanting to start a business using 3D printing. I am planning to quote Myles on my blog with a link to this video. I will refer to him as "Maker Myles" as it is obvious he is not looking for branding credits. Your videos are always full of straightforward, concise information. This one is no exception.

[@TurboSqu1d]

ayy Mighty Car Mods Myles! How cool to see the behind the scenes side of his 3D printing abilities

[@maxbiagi3091]

Most important, you need make your own filament from plastic pelets ;) i live in Indonesia and making some parts and holder for Honda scooters, and after few months i decise buy extruder from china and start making my own filament. Its so much big different!!! eSun 1kg od ABS here is price 15USD, my filament 1USD/kg +el.bill (0,1USD/kw)

[@jon9947]

Great video! If you have any lawyer friends you should get one of them on to talk about the various licenses we use in the 3d printing community.

[@basementdwellR]

No need - None of them do anything unless it's a purely non-functional design. You gain automatic copyrights to any artistic designs, but you have zero protection for technical solutions unless you register very costly patents in every market you intend to sell. The time for patents is pretty much gone with 3D printing. All there is is being first, having a good reach within the community - a good reputation and the goodwill of the community to go support you so that you'll keep making new stuff. Basically if you intend to sell and make money on non-artistic stuff, publishing the models is not the best. Currently the CC licences that are all over the 3D printing community mean absolutely nothing for protecting technical solutions and you don't need to be a lawyer to figure that out. Just go to the site and read what they do. They are originally meant for software and code and as such could protect a digital file, but that just does not hold up with a 3D print unless (as mentioned) it's purely artistic design in nature. You can check out the case of the hex dice box that went to court. It's pretty much exactly this. You can't copyright a design that is functional and consists in this case of primitive shapes and say it's an artistic expression. This was also touched upon by Thomas Sanladerer with the V1 Engineering MPCNC where he wanted to publish some derivative designs of some joints that he improved and there was some fallout of differing opinions on what the CC license actually protected. It's not great if you are an inventor, but on the other hand - improvements and crowdsourced evolution is pretty amazing and the alternative of copyrighting "ideas" would be a nightmare. It's just sad that people with good ideas don't get much incentive as is to make them public as you'd have to be one helluva PR and social media monster to financially subsist on making stuff.

[@jon9947]

@@basementdwellR So I hope that you take as little offense to this as anyone possibly could, because I do appreciate you taking the time to write all this out. Every one on the internet knows something and has an opinion, and when it comes to the law I would much rather hear it from someone with a law degree. I am a natural skeptic and Michael is one of the few people on the internet I mostly trust, which is pretty high praise for me. With that said, money and protecting my work really isnt of much concern for me. I do publish a fair amount of stuff, and I am relatively sure that people would like to hear the kinds of things you are speaking about from a lawyer, but myself I am mostly interested in how licenses can be mixed if at all. Yeah, I would prefer someone not steal/sell my work, but I am most certainly not going to loose any sleep over it. I do publish a fair amount of original work on Thingiverse, but I also publish a fair amount of remixes. I recently uploaded something that used a bit of original work and expanded on two works from different people. I think the licenses were compatible, but they were also different. I credited the original makers, but like I said it would be nice to hear it straight from a lawyer. I always publish everything under cc-nc-sa, as that just seems like the best/most catch all license.

[@basementdwellR]

@@jon9947 Absolutely no offense taken. I much like you have always been interested in what is lawful and what isn't, and what means of protection I could afford myself as well as what rights I have. I've sought out that information in any way I could (not pertaining to strictly 3D printing) and what I wrote above is pretty much the distilled version of proffessional input on the subject. I highly recommend you don't take my word for it :) I think that is the sane stance on everything that has serious implications. I am also very interested in fanart and how people make money off of it for instance. It's not something that is raised in the community a lot as it seems no one wants to ruffle feathers. It's an old problem and while legally black and white it's very much grey in reality depending on company and who makes the fanart. There are some interesting articles and videos on the subject, but none that seem to touch on how it's exploded within the 3D printing community. It's like an awesome angry giant wasp net that noone wants to touch. I'd love see a real discussion on this subject and a fan license come into effect that would be an official thing that could be split into 2 categories: non-profit and commercial of which the commercial would not be free. I think that would be fair given that all IP starts off with small artists before it becomes Marvel or what have you.

[@jon9947]

@@basementdwellR Thank you again. I had never really given fanart much thought till you just brought it up, but now that you have I am a little surprised that there are not teams of lawyers out there going after it. Media players like Plex and Kodi scrapes tuns of fanart.

[@SHENRAR]

Down to earth guy, this is the kind of people I like to work with.

[@MakeScienceFun1]

Thankyou Myles and Michael. Well done and very interesting. All the best with your business and thankyou for taking the timeout to share.

[@buckeye3dprinting433]

Do I smell a colab with Mighty Car Mods!?!?! Been watching those guys since they were in Marty's mom's driveway.

[@stevesloan6775]

That was just as awesome the second time. Great work!🇦🇺🤜🏼🤛🏼😎🤓🍀

[@owenmcnally5735]

Loved seeing the crossover onto MCM, teaching tech and MCM two of my favourite channels keep up the great work guys

[@IanMott]

Thank you both!

[@darrendonaldson3567]

Might car mods✌😎great video!! Doing the same thing myself in a different industry but still small and getting going, great to know I'm on the same path as someone successful 👍

[@jcoghill2]

Safest bet to starting a business is to keep it FUN! Then if and when it takes off it will be easier to keep it FUN because you are already there.

[@hectorhernandez6846]

You guys were great on MCM. Made me start looking at my car and seeing what I could upgrade or replace using my ender 3

[@JoeStanfordDoughty]

Great video. Very interesting to see. I work as a industrial robot programmer, mainly for the automotive industry. 3d printing is a hobby I took on to achieve additional skills.

[@robertjusic9097]

Did you finish coding?

[@mattlennon3]

Very insightful, thanks to both of you! I thought the part about not advertising as a 3d printing company was important to note.

[@good4stuff]

Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience. Your insight was much appreciated.

[@RajeshAcharyaHSVJ]

Thank you Miles and Michael!

[@tpatel7091]

All the best. Am thinking of starting 3D printing

[@nikivan]

One key question I would've asked is how to calculate pricing for their parts.

[@alyandthecats]

CNC Kitchen and Maker's Muse have great videos on that! I personally have a list of costs I can easily reference and a template quote set up in a spreadsheet, so I can take a little bit of data from my slicer and get an accurate cost pretty quick.

[@mjodr]

Besides paying off the initial investment on the hardware (printers) and throwing in labor, R&D and stuff--Cura has a built in calculator to tell you exactly the cost of filament for each print. At least that part is easy to calculate. What your time is worth and how you price that in is much harder. I'm starting to do prints for other people and I'm finding they don't value my time at all. They see it as $2 in filament and want to pay $2 total (or less). Frustrating.

[@sethlaske3164]

IDK about him, but I created a excel sheet for myself, based on a couple others I saw. pretty much divides into printing, shipping, labor, and a multiplier for profit

[@airgunningyup]

I have a small machining business , niche market like him.. Also do 3d printing for subcomponents.. Anyway , hes spot on , and older folks generally dont like plastic , or they question the durability constantly so theyre often a hard sell on printed parts.

[@tomgrant6563]

Interesting video and cool to see Michael have a real conversation rather than the script reading style he uses in most vids.

[@james.faster]

Exactly what type of "UV resistant paint texture coating" is he using. It appears to be polyurea on the air intake sample part, and a different coating on the mounting brackets sample parts.

[@sindrejl]

Hey, you said its not possible to just go out there, buy a printer and start selling stuff I acctually went out, bought a printer - one year later I have a company selling printers, filament and I have 8 3d printers going 24/7 So it is possible ;) I have zero CAD skills, but I get alot of orders from company designing the parts themselfs but are not able to print well enough quality But I am thinking outside the box and that is definitly key to this business

[@nagarajaprasad8591]

Very interesting and helpful video, thanks Michael.

[@cassiuslives4807]

This interview was great, really enjoyed it. A fellow Australian considering what parts business can be run with a 3d Printer

[@phiromseng5698]

One step closer to a mighty car mods collaboration

[@christopherparker1823]

Nice to see some locals doing some cool shit! Love it

[@EldarKinSlayer]

It was great seeing you both on MightyCarMods!

[@flyingcadet2004]

I'm in the middle of upgrading a Two Trees Sapphire Pro. The OEM main board has marlin support issues, so it's about to be replaced with the SKR 1.4 Turbo. The OEM hotend isn't the best, so I'm replacing it with a mosquito hotend. The knock-off BMG kept coming apart, so it is now replaced with a Bondtec LGX. I also added a BL Touch. Once I set it up as z-min stop for homing and dialed in the z-offset for UBL, prints have gotten more reliable. I'm using github user inib's (sp) marlin branch for his sapphire pro, at least until I can get the time to convert to the skr with (probably) klipper.

[@ColinJWiens]

Great interview, good questions. Never knew that automotive niche existed.

[@james.faster]

What's the names of Myle's company? He's a great inspiration.

[@robertfisher3507]

Great info. Lets me know I'm on the right path.

[@Tarbard]

This guy was interesting to listen to. Thanks for the video.

[@SirLANsalot]

If you are using ABS, then use ASA for anything outside, ASA is UV resistant ABS.

[@aximisu]

This in an awesome post. Very helpful. Tanks a lot. I really love it.

[@versus023]

Thanks for the video and the interview. Can you tell us what I’d the coating he put on the cold air intake for the car? Love that texture. Thanks.

[@Andy-Fairweather]

Great video as always, good to hear how a maker business operates.

[@elozfer]

Thanks for this video, its been very helpful to know this type of things!!!

[@enyoc3d]

best video on youtube

[@agapiosagapiou]

nice to see 3D printers enter a lot of business. 3d printer is one more tool in the toolbox!

[@frontierbrainrobby5449]

I love this so much, thanks! Keep up the content like this!!!

[@AttilaGara]

Great video and an interesting insight into what goes on behind the scenes of a business like this. Thank you.

[@my3dprintedlife]

Great video. Found myself nodding the whole time.

[@dakota.zimmerman]

Thanks for sharing your experience with us Myles, this is awesome to see and filled with great advice! I finally bought myself a 3D printer to make some things for myself about 6 months ago. I spend a lot of time on automotive forums and quickly realized, especially with older vehicles, there is a lack of available parts or convenience items they never came with. I also have an extensive background in CAD and do it for my day job so it was a no brainer to start producing parts myself, essentially a similar business model as Myles however I target the end user rather than companies. Currently I'm creating and releasing a new part every other week or so and I'm getting to the point I need to get another printer ordered and online to stay ahead of the demand. So far I've made enough money to pay for my Ender 3 Pro as well as all the upgrades I have done (Thanks for the videos on those!!) and have finally started to turn a profit. Its definitely not enough to make a living off of but with a lot of work and devotion, I can easily see this becoming a major source of income. Its also quite fun and rewarding to see people value something you created. Not something I have ever experienced until now. Thank you for continuing to put out great content and I'd love to see more like this, its very motivating to keep moving forward and a great resource for questions or advice for 3D printing as a hobby or for profit.

[@michaelnewsomegreen5500]

This is a fascinating vid, thanks guys.

[@jorgealonso2238]

Great job guys, thanks for sharing some insight.

[@benjaminford8173]

Awesome, thank you so much for the info Myles!

[@sethlaske3164]

Does he have a link to his store or such anywhere? I didnt see anything about a link or website to his stuff

[@jaythatguyyouknow5135]

At 11:43 He says "Never sort of down talk another persons products". That is not good advice just for this but for any business or industry. When you talk crap about others its seen as deflection of your own flaws or even worse it will be taken as generally un-professional and you can lose a lot of business that way. It was a hard lesson for me to learn while I was young but when I did, the difference in how customers take what I had to say was very noticeable. Even if you have a customer talking crap about someone else in your line of work, steer them away from that by saying something like " I don't know how they do things there but this is how we do things here" and show them some of your strengths or perks. Even if that person doesn't care if you talk crap if others over hear it there is a chance you will lose a customer or have repeat customers consider looking elsewhere.

[@josephmacina863]

Nice video. It gave me some insight and perspective. Thank you.

[@Ezanity]

So have a business 3d printing but that's only if you have plasma cutters etc to male the finish part

[@jacejk2]

Hey, Love your channel. When he said some were PRUSA Clones. A question about that. In general, can the PRUSA clones take the PRUSA firmware and take advantage of the P.I.N.D.A. for auto -calibration and then the mk3s filament sensor ?

[@Falney]

Getting prusa's down there may get cheaper. Au-uk trade deal + UK-EU trade deal means prusa can export through the UK to eliminate duty.

[@migael92]

So it's gonna be M,M,M M. Best news of 2020 so far!

[@manosantonakis5167]

One question I wanted to see was regarding legal issues. Does he have to pay royalties for the parts he makes? Also what about liability in case of an accident due to a failed part?

[@BenjaminRayner]

Brilliant, great interview and hard facts..

[@Pan_Samochodzik]

How do you price the 3d prints, any loose formula?

[@rajkumarukkuturi5756]

Just like Myles. I also run a 3D printing services company.

[@Netherlands031]

Cool! I wonder why he doesn't print ASA, it's basically ABS but more UV resistant.

[@HotCarTrack]

Excellent vid guys.

[@julienbietlot3401]

great interview !!!!

[@rdmkrns]

Great info !

[@sashidasage1257]

Please have more videos like these.

[@arvkgtdesayners7875]

thank you sir for sharing your success story

[@officialspock]

Do you need to register an LLC when you start a 3D printing business?

[@DaneSaysStuff]

Secret project = Doing something for Mighty Car Mods? I've heard them mention Myles. They got something for their RB swapped 240Z dash 3d printed.

[@Jopakilo]

The hardest part must be keeping your printer consistent.

[@peacepipenetwork]

great advice. thanks.

[@aytunch]

great interview

[@theamateurmachineshop2150]

Great video and insight into 3d printing as a business!

[@scottypres1]

Great info. Can you post a link to his business?

[@TeachingTech]

This was purposes to protect from potential copy cats as the parts are on clear display. I hope you understand.

[@adverzuz4330]

this is very helpful thank you

[@VorpalForceField]

Awesome ..!!! Thank You for sharing

[@shanemartin2491]

Thank you

[@roofoofighter]

Is PETG a viable alternative to ABS for car parts?

[@virtec3d]

Thank you for sharing.

[@dtovee]

Great video but he doesn't earn a living from 3D printing, it forms part of his business where he can do the CAD and then print out the models if required. Cool setup.

[@mrgreenswelding2853]

Wow, that awesome!

[@jacksoni349]

Can you do a "How To" video on selling 3D modeled designs? I am not sure if you need to create a company first in order to profit off this or not. Can you just sell designs directly on MyMinifactory or similar?

[@TheSmellyPasta]

It would be interesting to know after how many working hours do things start to break on those prusas.

[@maskwith]

Depends on the individual printer, nothing in particular fails, never had a mainboard or a stepper fail, I swap the bearings every 6-9months. Hotends and thermistors fail the most

[@cinialvespow1054]

@@maskwith Interesting :) That's super often replacement for bearings that really don't see that much wear. In skateboarding my buddies and I replace bearings after 4 months maybe, but these bearings get all kinds of dirt in them, moisture too, take massive impacts and roll for kilometres on kilometres. Do you find the bearings really need to be replaced ever 6 months?

[@Excalibur32]

Nice interview!

[@des4511]

So, what is the business name?

[@bratwizard]

Good advice!

[@PaulDominguez]

Great video, info here is really helpful.

[@staceysmith5561]

Is that a commercially available cabinet or custom-built?

[@waynefilkins8394]

How did you find your first part to sell? I don't quite get how someone gets into this sort of thing. I try to just sell on etsy / ebay, but would like to do parts like this for companies but I don't know what to even design. Any advice?

[@ItsKyleMang]

Why doesn't he use ASA in place of ABS for weather resistance?