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Post by droneflyer200 on Jan 7, 2023 1:07:51 GMT
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Post by Burkeomatic on Jan 7, 2023 1:13:42 GMT
Troy is a great designer that is for sure. His 777 is freaking sweet too. I haven't had the cajones to go all in on one of his designs yet. They are a tad pricey and on the big side for me... says a guy with 2 2m wingspan planes hanging in the garage.  Have you seen this dudes insane carbon fiber airbus. That said, I have always thought his designs were a bit on the pricey side. I am not sure how much is fair for the price of .stls though. I certainly don't expect them for free, it takes time and effort. There are some people that could charge who don't. 3D printed planes are always a crapshoot. I just think you are in 200-300 dollars and how much more time for something that may or may not fly. I haven't designed one yet, so I can't say what I think is and isn't fair. I also note that Troy has a giant build room full of multi thousand dollar printers, and I have a singe 200 dollar one. |
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Post by droneflyer200 on Jan 9, 2023 17:28:09 GMT
Yup you have a point a designer can't expect to get his investment in time back right off the top it takes time.
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Post by Burkeomatic on Jan 9, 2023 20:14:34 GMT
Yup you have a point a designer can't expect to get his investment in time back right off the top it takes time. Yeah, it kind of makes me wonder what does or should drive the price of a 3D printed plane. Complexity? Price? Size? It seems like the larger the plane, the more expensive it is. But does that mean they are more complex? Not in my experience. There are also tons of different ways to go about it. There was a similar discussion on RCG about this thing. The one guy said "if you can afford to buy the stuff to build a 120mm edf jet, you can afford 50 bucks for the .stls". Is that the case? So if you are building using more expensive electronics, that means you can charge more for .stls? I think complexity is what one should charge for. but that is me personally. But it always seems to include some combination of the above too. Then it comes into question, do you want more people flying your work, or do you want a select few with more money flying it? I get that you don't want dummies doing it. I suppose a lot of it (if you were trying to be profitable at least) would be to include R&D in there too. Which could vary widely based on the designers skill. It took me 3 iterations to get the DTFB mig 29 right. But I suppose if you are 3D printing some 2m wingspan beast like this, and you crash 3 iterations and possibly damage some electronics in the process, you are probably out a fair bit each iteration, 2 rolls of PLA, some carbon, electronics. I guess you could call it 1000 bucks in materials for a model like that, give or take a bit. Then you start putting a price on your time, etc. But if you are really good at designing, it also doesn't take long. I've seen people that charge for designs say that they can hammer out several planes a month if they wanted. So what is it? Then of course, Troy in particular gets sponsored which is why he has lots of 3d printers and other junk, which he had to earn in sweat equity in the beginning, which I also understand. But I also notice on his particular cults page, he doesn't display how many models he has sold, and how much he has made from it, which most do. Kinda odd, he either has sold so few that it would look embarassing, so many every socialist would boo-hoo and say the price should be lower and he could be charging less, or quite possibly just not think it is anyones business. Considering I don't see a ton of people flying 3d printed planes, and most consider them a novelty, probably a mix between one and three. I haven't seen anyone else build that particular one. Finally, it probably depends on why you are designing stuff. To make money? Or because you like to? I design/build stuff because no one else has really or there aren't many good representations of it out there, or just to challenge myself. I haven't ever thought of making money, although it would be cool if I did one day. Or, did you do it to make money, if so, wouldn't you want more out there and lower your price point, realizing someone is going to have to spend 300 bucks to make the thing? Well, that is my over analysis of it, and I could be completely wrong. It still blows my mind that there are enough people that buy speed build kits from flite test to keep them going. |
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