Excellent and very insightful interview. The conversation between Travis and Gabe touched on some very important industry topics. Thank you both for doing this.
Great interview with Travis @shopnation ! I watch nearly every video - Excellent content creator / great video presentation / extremely wise to his ways & excellent business acumen! Thanks @slant for having Travis on the channel.
I'm exactly at the point of thinking if I could go full time I could grow more and be more "flexible" in my day or weeks. I work during the day, come home do the family stuff, they go to bed and I go back to "work". For the most part most of my income comes from providing the design and printing services for other people. I really appreciate both of your channels! Great interview.
Really Loving your content. When I got started with 3D printing in 2015, there really weren't many consumer plug and play printers. It has been interesting to see companies like Bambu Labs and others really start to attack this problem that is one of the last hurdles to making 3D printers become a part of everyday life. Really looking forward to the next 10 years of 3D printing and listening to leaders like yourself who are helping to push this industry forward.
The topic of print farm power requirements/limitation was fascinating. 3d printers tend to operate mostly on DC power (not AC, like the grid), so each printer tends to have an independent power converter brick that has a significant amount of parasite/vampire power loss. For a print farm it may be advantageous to utilize integrate more scalable DC power source (centralized, or a few distributed units). This could also centralize the need for UPS, integrating with the DC power supply. If a location is power constrained, adding additional battery storage would allow shifting power demand in time to different part of a 24-48 period, depending on power demand as relates to peaks and valleys of production and power need. In parts of Texas (like Austin), utilizes actually pay customers to utilize power at night. This litany could pay for battery storage over time.
11:22 Western Container Corp, Yazoo Mills, Marshall Paper Tube, Spiral Paper Tube & Core, Greif. Tape and label cores looks to be what you want with the smaller length 3 inch tubes (with whatever inner diameter you're after). Most of these companies have quote request forms, so I can't quite say which one would fit your price margins the best.
Never done spoolless before so not sure if I have to rewind it or just add reusable sides to the core. If the sides form factor doesn't already exist, there's an opportunity! :)
I ordered a 3 pack of 1kg spools and my 3 kids were stoke with the little gifts inside. They told me to be sure to order more filament from you lol. Being the new Cracker Jack (and not lame) is a fun idea. I do find it funny that a 3d printing company contains Chinese made molded toys.
Dear lord printing regolith... wow. That's a challenge. That is going to challenge to lifespan of hardened steel nozzles, even at the volume of an at home printer. As an Aerospace Engineer, we studied that material in graphic detail. It is by far one of the biggest thing to consider for anything that moves on the lunar surface. It is all EXTREMELY fine powdered, impact strata, volcanic glass like obsidian. It sticks to everything. It slaughters bearings. The martian soil is similar. The Spirit Rover is a prime example of what that material can do to a bearing. The motor failed "likely due" to a seized bearing in 2006 but the rest of the rover kept on roving in 2009 until it got stuck.
Again, still have the Slant Spool, still love the Slant Spool, still make the Slant Spool (in house only, we aren't jerks), still use the Slant Spool. Thank you.
Great stuff, I really enjoyed the discussion and can relate to a lot of it. I manage a group at a large company that has CNC machining and 3d printing to support R&D efforts at the company. I see firsthand the challenge of training engineers to understand the limitations of 3d printing and when they should be using traditional manufacturing methods.
Incremental development has its own problems... Make sure to add a build number on each part, and if you iterate a part with minor changes, change the build number so you can determine if future problems are created by the incremental design changes, at least you can tell how far back the change affects the built machines. On your Power issues, look at using lithium iron batteries and inverters. If your area has cheaper power at one time, charge up all your batteries at the lowest cost time and use the batteries (and perhaps solar) to help offset the power to your building. By charging batteries overnight (when power is usually cheapest), the cost of power is cheaper all around the clock. If you use batteries, depending on how many you have in your bank, that gives you a grid disconnect buffer so the lights and machines stay on during an outage. If you need more capacity, you can add batteries to the bank, often without taking the string of printers offline. Having a single source UPS is not a good idea, since one failure takes down your whole farm. It would be better to scale it smaller, with a rack for power (chargers, inverters and batteries) in a small rack at the end of each row of printers. AC feeds into the rack, and the rack acts as a buffer and feeds the whole string of printers. Or multiple strings of printers. That depends on how much power each string requires, and the capacity of inverter you choose.
Wrapping paper and toilet paper manufacturers have cardboard tubes that should have a supplier that should be able to make 3 inch tubes. Yazoo mills looks like they could do what you need.
I know a local company here in the Netherlands that sell spoolless, i think theyre called ATA-3D, they also use the cardboard cylinders, maybe you can try to contact them to get more info on those. Its not quite USA, but its closer than china i guess
I genuinely never considered that Prusa use customized versions of their printers. Hands down, I've always kinda wondered how much maintenance they did, because I know people who's been frustrated at them when they're "worn out". Thanks for clarifying this to the rest of us. This actually sounds kind of dodgy though, because I'm quite sure that they market them as using their own machines in their own production.
I think Travis accidentally made a great point. I think a lot of print farmers want to do it all themselves instead of building a business with employees. It’s a big decision that can change over time, how much do you want to do yourself, how much control can you let go of? If the goal is making money on Etsy instead of driving to a dead-end job, 3D printing is making that simpler to do, but not necessarily easy.
I know it's not high on your priority, but I'm waiting on boxes to show up to send back a bunch of empty spools (1kg, and in time 3kg) That should have arrived this last week. We'll see.
Re tangled colours: I bought 3kg of black, but honestly I really, really, REALLY rarely print in black. Two out of three of the spools probably won't be opened this year. I occasionally teach a FDM 3d print class where students have the option of dozens of colour options. No student, child or adult, has even once chosen black. (White or medium gray are common choices for my own prints). On the upside, I don't think I'll need more black filament until 2026.
@@pipdesignshop I think their metrics are probably a very practical choice, just not what I want to print with. That said, when I need black filament again in a couple of years, I know my source!
He's probably basing his estimates on his own customers, which very likely includes a lot of businesses & industry. A factory wanting some machine parts probably doesn't care for hot pink and will want a neutral color, and black is the color that Slant 3D will likely suggest as it wears out Slant's machines far more slowly than grey or white. I'm not 100% sold on all of his claims about people not wanting a decent choice of colors and such. It's more about his goal to reach $10/kg and keep his business tightly focused.
I'm guessing that the time to print the cores and the cost of power and plastic significantly exceeds the cost of paper cores. I suspect that printung them all off in the scale that they need will quickly begin to eat up a huge chunk of the farm's capability.
@@jensenmiller6410 yeah probably true, mostly was thinking that cylinders could be cheap and quick if vase-mode could be used, though i'm sure not as cheap or quick as cardboard (assuming precut tubes are a commodity)
I really find it hard to believe that black is 50% of sales. I almost never use black. Maybe you could survey your customers to see which colors are more useful. As I have said before, natural/clear would be cheaper for you to produce, and for me would be much more useful than black.
Yeah, I think Gabe should have captured his own audio separately outside of the call software. But something just isn't working with his current setup either, unfortunately.
This is gonna be harsh feedback but why so high stress 🫨 some real make your bed energy 🙄 what is soooooo serious? I'm interested in the content but the vibe is like a department store supervisor or 7/11 manager reprimanding their employees or stressed out because the big boys are coming or a deals gonna go through. Are you a creator or a corporate stiff? 🤔 I get it, business is business, but I wouldn't want to work with you because it's like you had 12 cups of coffee and your wife had twins. It would make sense if you were like a weapons dealer or something. Anyway hope alls well
Thanks for having me on, Gabe! Enjoyed the conversation and looking forward to more to come!
Thank for coming on Travis. Our pleasure
Excellent and very insightful interview. The conversation between Travis and Gabe touched on some very important industry topics. Thank you both for doing this.
No lie, I used to think this 2 were the same person. They are both great motivators, & teachers. :)
Same lol
@@ThisisDD haha LOL, :)
@crazydeathcar haha, true!
I saw the thumbnail and was like "why did he interview himself?"
@@InternetDoggo ha ha
Great interview with Travis @shopnation ! I watch nearly every video - Excellent content creator / great video presentation / extremely wise to his ways & excellent business acumen!
Thanks @slant for having Travis on the channel.
I'm exactly at the point of thinking if I could go full time I could grow more and be more "flexible" in my day or weeks. I work during the day, come home do the family stuff, they go to bed and I go back to "work". For the most part most of my income comes from providing the design and printing services for other people. I really appreciate both of your channels! Great interview.
Really Loving your content. When I got started with 3D printing in 2015, there really weren't many consumer plug and play printers. It has been interesting to see companies like Bambu Labs and others really start to attack this problem that is one of the last hurdles to making 3D printers become a part of everyday life. Really looking forward to the next 10 years of 3D printing and listening to leaders like yourself who are helping to push this industry forward.
The topic of print farm power requirements/limitation was fascinating. 3d printers tend to operate mostly on DC power (not AC, like the grid), so each printer tends to have an independent power converter brick that has a significant amount of parasite/vampire power loss. For a print farm it may be advantageous to utilize integrate more scalable DC power source (centralized, or a few distributed units). This could also centralize the need for UPS, integrating with the DC power supply. If a location is power constrained, adding additional battery storage would allow shifting power demand in time to different part of a 24-48 period, depending on power demand as relates to peaks and valleys of production and power need. In parts of Texas (like Austin), utilizes actually pay customers to utilize power at night. This litany could pay for battery storage over time.
Print your own spools with the transition filament.
11:22 Western Container Corp, Yazoo Mills, Marshall Paper Tube, Spiral Paper Tube & Core, Greif.
Tape and label cores looks to be what you want with the smaller length 3 inch tubes (with whatever inner diameter you're after). Most of these companies have quote request forms, so I can't quite say which one would fit your price margins the best.
Never done spoolless before so not sure if I have to rewind it or just add reusable sides to the core. If the sides form factor doesn't already exist, there's an opportunity! :)
Two 3D printing GOATs. Great conversation!
Animals can't print anything wth are you talking about!
@@BradKwfc 🤣
"sir! Tim got drunk again and began trowing toys at the packing machine...we are gonna have to repack the whole batch!
Gabe: nah, i got an idea..."
I ordered a 3 pack of 1kg spools and my 3 kids were stoke with the little gifts inside. They told me to be sure to order more filament from you lol. Being the new Cracker Jack (and not lame) is a fun idea. I do find it funny that a 3d printing company contains Chinese made molded toys.
The irony is not lost on us. Working on that part of it. Glad they were a hit
Great Interview! Good questions, Good Answers. Should do a round 2!
Your filament may not be 'high speed', but it's printing great at 43mm³/s for me 🤣
(Lancer hot end)
Dear lord printing regolith... wow. That's a challenge. That is going to challenge to lifespan of hardened steel nozzles, even at the volume of an at home printer.
As an Aerospace Engineer, we studied that material in graphic detail. It is by far one of the biggest thing to consider for anything that moves on the lunar surface. It is all EXTREMELY fine powdered, impact strata, volcanic glass like obsidian. It sticks to everything. It slaughters bearings. The martian soil is similar. The Spirit Rover is a prime example of what that material can do to a bearing. The motor failed "likely due" to a seized bearing in 2006 but the rest of the rover kept on roving in 2009 until it got stuck.
Again, still have the Slant Spool, still love the Slant Spool, still make the Slant Spool (in house only, we aren't jerks), still use the Slant Spool. Thank you.
This is the video we’ve been waiting for.
Interesting interview. Thanks Slant 3D!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Great stuff, I really enjoyed the discussion and can relate to a lot of it. I manage a group at a large company that has CNC machining and 3d printing to support R&D efforts at the company. I see firsthand the challenge of training engineers to understand the limitations of 3d printing and when they should be using traditional manufacturing methods.
Incremental development has its own problems... Make sure to add a build number on each part, and if you iterate a part with minor changes, change the build number so you can determine if future problems are created by the incremental design changes, at least you can tell how far back the change affects the built machines.
On your Power issues, look at using lithium iron batteries and inverters. If your area has cheaper power at one time, charge up all your batteries at the lowest cost time and use the batteries (and perhaps solar) to help offset the power to your building. By charging batteries overnight (when power is usually cheapest), the cost of power is cheaper all around the clock.
If you use batteries, depending on how many you have in your bank, that gives you a grid disconnect buffer so the lights and machines stay on during an outage. If you need more capacity, you can add batteries to the bank, often without taking the string of printers offline.
Having a single source UPS is not a good idea, since one failure takes down your whole farm. It would be better to scale it smaller, with a rack for power (chargers, inverters and batteries) in a small rack at the end of each row of printers. AC feeds into the rack, and the rack acts as a buffer and feeds the whole string of printers. Or multiple strings of printers. That depends on how much power each string requires, and the capacity of inverter you choose.
Wrapping paper and toilet paper manufacturers have cardboard tubes that should have a supplier that should be able to make 3 inch tubes. Yazoo mills looks like they could do what you need.
I know a local company here in the Netherlands that sell spoolless, i think theyre called ATA-3D, they also use the cardboard cylinders, maybe you can try to contact them to get more info on those. Its not quite USA, but its closer than china i guess
I genuinely never considered that Prusa use customized versions of their printers. Hands down, I've always kinda wondered how much maintenance they did, because I know people who's been frustrated at them when they're "worn out". Thanks for clarifying this to the rest of us.
This actually sounds kind of dodgy though, because I'm quite sure that they market them as using their own machines in their own production.
I think Travis accidentally made a great point. I think a lot of print farmers want to do it all themselves instead of building a business with employees. It’s a big decision that can change over time, how much do you want to do yourself, how much control can you let go of?
If the goal is making money on Etsy instead of driving to a dead-end job, 3D printing is making that simpler to do, but not necessarily easy.
Hybrid inverters will be a good UPS. Also, using solar makes sense.
"that's a good question"
"that's fair"
😆
Such a great interview!!
12:22 I’m gonna have to learn how to respool.. I’ve wanted to but gonna force me into it by choice lol.
Also super cool episode and discussion.
Good job!! You should do this more.....
I got 3 of the 3kg spools and I finally feel like I’m set for a while.
Thanks
I'll buy transition filament at regular cost. I want to recycle filament partly to just have weird, splotchy colors.
2kg down on my filament. No clogs or issues
Fantastic. Thanks for the feedback
Could your spooless fit on the reusable bambu spools?
I know it's not high on your priority, but I'm waiting on boxes to show up to send back a bunch of empty spools (1kg, and in time 3kg) That should have arrived this last week. We'll see.
Or not... apparently where I was ordering the boxes from has notified me that the boxes are no longer available. Looking for other options.
Wow, I always thought these were the same two guys!! 😂
Re tangled colours: I bought 3kg of black, but honestly I really, really, REALLY rarely print in black. Two out of three of the spools probably won't be opened this year. I occasionally teach a FDM 3d print class where students have the option of dozens of colour options. No student, child or adult, has even once chosen black. (White or medium gray are common choices for my own prints).
On the upside, I don't think I'll need more black filament until 2026.
Limit the options, or let them choose other colors for a donation
@@pipdesignshop I think their metrics are probably a very practical choice, just not what I want to print with. That said, when I need black filament again in a couple of years, I know my source!
He's probably basing his estimates on his own customers, which very likely includes a lot of businesses & industry. A factory wanting some machine parts probably doesn't care for hot pink and will want a neutral color, and black is the color that Slant 3D will likely suggest as it wears out Slant's machines far more slowly than grey or white. I'm not 100% sold on all of his claims about people not wanting a decent choice of colors and such. It's more about his goal to reach $10/kg and keep his business tightly focused.
I don’t see any links to your interview subjects stuff in the description
The filament says simulation moon dust on their page- am i missing something?
I’m all for your success in lowering the cost… I hope it’s not involving Chinese manufacturing however.
Simulated moon regolith . . . that's got to tear up your machines pretty quickly.
im sure it's deeply impractical but 3d printed spool-less cores?
I'm guessing that the time to print the cores and the cost of power and plastic significantly exceeds the cost of paper cores. I suspect that printung them all off in the scale that they need will quickly begin to eat up a huge chunk of the farm's capability.
@@jensenmiller6410 yeah probably true, mostly was thinking that cylinders could be cheap and quick if vase-mode could be used, though i'm sure not as cheap or quick as cardboard (assuming precut tubes are a commodity)
I really find it hard to believe that black is 50% of sales. I almost never use black. Maybe you could survey your customers to see which colors are more useful. As I have said before, natural/clear would be cheaper for you to produce, and for me would be much more useful than black.
Cardboard label cores
Audio quality
Yeah, I think Gabe should have captured his own audio separately outside of the call software.
But something just isn't working with his current setup either, unfortunately.
Interview Joseph prusa
Mirror match.
First
This is gonna be harsh feedback but why so high stress 🫨 some real make your bed energy 🙄 what is soooooo serious? I'm interested in the content but the vibe is like a department store supervisor or 7/11 manager reprimanding their employees or stressed out because the big boys are coming or a deals gonna go through. Are you a creator or a corporate stiff? 🤔 I get it, business is business, but I wouldn't want to work with you because it's like you had 12 cups of coffee and your wife had twins. It would make sense if you were like a weapons dealer or something. Anyway hope alls well