When I started working at Shapeways earlier this year, I
knew that I wanted to model something to make for sale in our marketplace.
It had been years since I last tried my hand at 3d modeling, so I wanted
to make something simple and practical that was something I would use on a day
to day basis. I decided at last that I was going to model a keychain
bottle opener.
I
set out with a few small goals for my bottle opener: I want to be able to
attach it to my keychain, must be able to print in our stainless steel and cast
metals, and the base model must cost less than $30 to keep it within a
reasonable price range to sell after my markup is added.
Initially
I thought the process would be easy: make a quick model, upload to Shapeways,
order a prototype for myself and make it for sale. As anyone who has created a
product from scratch would know, it is never that simple. After firing up
Blender and recalling how to 3d model I was fairly happy with my prototype: the
model looked like a bottle opener, it had a hole in the handle to reduce
material and add to a keychain. After then uploading to the site I realized
that I broke one of initial goals: it cost around $35, more than my plan of
under $30 . Back to the drawing board.
When
making a 3d printed product the easiest way to reduce the cost of the product
is to reduce the amount of material that is being printed. This can be done by
making the product itself smaller or by removing material from the product, for
example hollowing out a solid object. My bottle opener was already a little
smaller in size than the bottle opener I already had attached to my keychain,
so I was a little worried about making it smaller. However, I took another look
at the design of the product and found a few places where I could easily remove
some material in the handle and in the opener head. So I was able to remove a
large portion of material from the handle while still keeping the overall shape
of the model.
With version 2 ready, I upload and see that the price is
now under $30, while still allowing the model to be printed in stainless steel
and cast metals. Awesome! This is the part where I wanted to make my bottle
opener for sale to the world and wait for people to start buying. However,
working at Shapeways and all of the challenges with making sure products are
printable and functional, I couldn’t just leave it there.
How
do I know if this thing actually works? What if it is too small? What if it
snaps in half when someone tries to use it? I had to order a prototype for
myself first and check the integrity of the model. I ordered my first prototype
in White Strong and Flexible Plastic, as it has a shorter
lead time and is cheaper, making the prototyping process faster than with Stainless Steel.
After
waiting about a week for my prototype to arrive I was ready to unbox and test.
I checked the bottle opener all over for design imperfections. I held it in my
hand and of course I tested it out on a bottle. I did not actually expect the
plastic prototype to be able to open the bottle since the material is way too
flexible (in fact the handle easily bent in my hand), but I needed to check was
how it fit onto a bottle. Does it catch on to the cap how I expect? Unfortunately,
this prototype did not. The opener was not curved enough to fit on the cap
exactly as I would have liked, so back to the drawing board to curve the model
up a little.
I chose to make my product for sale just in the Stainless Steels as they share the same printing
process, so I knew if one worked well and was printable that print success rate
is shared among all stainless steel materials. I could have also made available
for sale in the Precious Metals, but I was not confident in their ability to
print and be functional without ordering a prototype for myself and the price
of a test print in gold or platinum slightly higher than I was willing to
spend. However, luckily enough for me, I had a co-worker who loved the design
of my bottle opener and wanted to order it in Raw Bronze. I was a little
worried since I have heard the material is softer than stainless steel, but my
co-worker was more than willing to be the first to try my design in raw bronze.
A
few weeks later after my co-worker received his print of the product we gave it
a try. It looked beautiful! We were excited to try it out and we soon
discovered remembered why it is important to test in many materials– the handle
was too thin for bronze and bent the opener instead of opening the bottle. I
felt bad that he went out of his way to help me try my product in a new
material and it did not work. I wanted to fix it for not just him but anyone
else who might want to purchase in one of the Precious Metals, so I went back
to create a new version with a slightly thicker handle, I uploaded and ordered
for myself in Raw Bronze to see if I fixed the issue. So if you are looking to
buy key chains and bottle opener visit Allindiayellowpage.com
to get detail information about supplier and available stores.