- Download a bunch of free bolt and washer models from McMasterCarr and other places
- Start a kickstarter for $250,000, to make a website that sells said models for $10 to $50 a piece (!!!).
- Sit back and watch the money roll in
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2027443264/print-a-part3dcom
It is a bit WTF! why would anyone not just buy the nut/bolt from the usual places?
I made the mistake of watching the video… uh… wtf? KS just doesn’t care anymore i guess.
@Liam_Jackson they are not selling nuts and bolts. They are selling MODELS of nuts and bolts. Which you know, is the last thing in the world you would want to print.
Models of parts are useful, because they let you design parts that fit to those parts. Of course, the manufacturers already give away the models for exactly this reason. Why does this project exist?
Because either he doesn’t know. Or that he didn’t know and now he knows and then he thought, wait, I can make a ton of money kickstarters to the poor schmucks out there.
STL models don’t always work so well in CAD. Misumi & McMaster-Carr offer 3D solid models for a lot of their parts. Misumi’s part generator seems to custom generate a part model to spec. Solid models are often more useful for CAD.
Even if a lot of hardware is made of plastic now, that doesn’t necessarily mean I want to 3D print it either. That would be a last resort.
Wow! I’m in!
For my pledge of a mere $5,000 US dollars I can get some flash memory cards with some .stl files on them. Outstanding value!
That cool video is a must-see. Very professional. They will reach their goal of
$250,000 in no time at all. Bob Al is a genius!
Is it April fools day today?
I nearly lost my coffee just now…
Their website is awesome!
I can BUY the .stl file for a half-inch washer for a mere $9.95! They are on sale at the moment, reduced from $19.95, but they can’t last long at that price.
And get this - I can buy .stl files for even bigger washers (up to 1 1/2 inches) for the SAME PRICE as the half-inch washer!
And the best bit is this: I can buy in quantity!
They let me specify any quantity I want on their site, so I guess I should buy at least 100 of the same .stl file for the same half-inch washer, before the price goes back to $19.95 per file. A saving of nearly $1,000! What a steal.
Washers must be so hard to draw with CAD, I guess because it is really hard to get those two circles exactly centred. Am I right or what?
I am glad that somebody has finally made a website like http://printapart3d.com
He’s openly acknowledging that he’s into rent-seeking. He already has a web site, so his need for an inordinately expensive web site is clearly a distortion at best.
“We must also fight the trend which de-values the work of 3d designers by giving their work away for free.”
Well, OK, but 3D designers can choose to charge if they want. Others might give them away. But this is nuts, bolts screws and washers, commodity parts that can be drawn by any decent CAD operator. Which the people selling that hardware often give away proper CAD files, which can be exported trivially.