Re: what RP vendors need to do..........

From: Michael Rees (rees@michaelrees.com)
Date: Tue Oct 26 1999 - 06:32:58 EEST


Hi Roger,

good points.

on the other hand, I have bought and am using an epson 3000 inkjet printer. It
is phenomenal in terms of color quality. Also, I purchased ICC color profiles
and special color management software. These softwares calibrate my monitor, and
place special profiles into photoshop (and other programs) so that what I see on
my monitor is what I get in a print (color wise).

Here's my point. It is incredibly difficult to use all these little gidgets and
gadgets. (Much more difficult than the software and hardware set up on any of
the 3D printers below $100,000). This is a mainstream product and to use
appropriately adn correctly takes a lot of my time. The total cost of the kit,
including 50 fine art papers and 4 packs of archival color inks is around $2500.
I figure that all I have to do is make 25 prints (at a print house it costs
typically about $100 per print) to break even. If I include my time and think
about sales, I can sell each of these prints for at least $500. If I only sell
1/4 of them (reasonable) that means, without calculating my time, that I'm
making $400 x 6 prints is $2400. At these figures I'm losing money on the first
25 prints and I haven't even calcultated my time. I'm losing a lot of money. My
hope is that within a year I would be able to make 25 prints a month and sell
1/4 of them every month. After the second set of 25 prints (a total of $4800)
I'm bringing in $2400 a month. Now again, what's my time involvement? Currently
I am keeping track of how much time I spend to manage the profiles the software,
store the papers, keep the inks in order, run various disk management programs
etc.,. My sense is that though I won't make a fortune, I would be able to make
some money on this machine this year.

If RP machines were between 10-15K (which is only going to happen when a large
volume of these are sold) I could invest in one and be making my art in the same
economies I described above. The thing that holds me back now from buying a
machine, is that I would have to start a service bureau and run parts for other
customers. My goal is to make my art with my machine. I have carefully looked
into the various gantry routers, and if they were as effortless as the rp
machines, I would have bought one 4 years ago, no problem.

10-15K. That would be a good price for any of the so called "concept modelers"
for me.

Best, mr

Spielman, Roger L wrote:

> Elaine wrote:
>
> > ....but I am curious about what you think RP vendors need to be focused
> > on for the next century. Like a political poll this is just individual
> > opinions only......
> >
> Hello Elaine, Micheal et al
>
> Service, service, service.
>
> Overall, most of the RP systems manufacturers give us a good tool we can use
> to enhance our jobs and learn new ways to produce useable parts. But we can
> only build parts when the machines are running (correctly). Allot of us are
> associated with a large company that can survive "downtime". Personally,
> this scares me. I see the overhead numbers, the lease numbers, the payroll
> numbers and wonder just how much "downtime" a small business owner could
> handle before the operating expense eats him alive.
>
> "On-time" sells machines. "On-time" is the only chance we have to promote
> and fine tune this process.
>
> Roger Spielman
> Rocketdyne Power & Propulsion
>
> For more information about the rp-ml, see http://ltk.hut.fi/rp-ml/

--
michael rees  effective immediately
suite Number 301  www.michaelrees.com
1015 Washington Ave 314 494 7393
St. Louis Mo 63101 msr@michaelrees.com

For more information about the rp-ml, see http://ltk.hut.fi/rp-ml/



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