The latest 3D printing marketplace to emerge on the distributed manufacturing scene is Print-a-Thing. Having launched last month, the crowd-sourced fabrication service aims to bring you all of the benefits of high quality 3D printing, locally and directly, at the lowest cost possible.
Print-a-Thing does make a few improvements on 3D printing networking services provided by other existing business models – like 3D Hubs or makexyz. They allow for the printing of large volume orders by distributing the load amongst their network of printers and state that they “..can produce a single item for you, or produce a job of thousands of pieces quickly and seamlessly. Instead of waiting for a single 3D printing factory to process a large order, we can divide and conquer – distributing an order of 200 parts into 20 orders of 10 parts, getting giving you the best of both worlds – many parts at the speed of a single one.”
They also deal with any headaches a customer might have in finding a local supplier in the network and then connecting with them to make sure the print is shipped correctly. Highlighting their advantage as a 3D printing concierge service, they aim to avoid any ‘third party run-around’ by handling all communications between the designer and supplier. They select the best available printer for your job for you, so you don’t have to worry about that, and also provide the supplier with instructions on how to print and mail the requested items.
Currently, Print-a-Thing is in beta and offers PLA and ABS material for prints, with more options to come later. In introducing themselves to the rapidly growing pool of community based service providers, they say:
We’re a group of innovators that believe in BIG things, and we’re using 3D printing to change the world. We believe that 3D Printing should be easy, affordable, and accessible for everybody, which is why we created our 3D Printing concierge service, Print a Thing. We know that through this technology, anybody, regardless of technical skills, operational experience, or budget, can bring anything they imagine to life. Our team has over 50 years experience in product development, engineering, marketing, and customer support. We’re here to help you spend more time focusing on making things you love, and less time worrying about finding ways to fabricate. We look forward to seeing Print a Thing become a positive force for startups, do-it-yourselfers, and creative spirits everywhere.
While in beta, they are offering a 30% discount on their printing prices so do check them out at printathing.com
Ok so if a town has some50 x 1000 $ printers, a few 20.000 $ 3d printers and only one 3d printer with a value of 100.000 $ , the most recommended printer is the most expensive one… Then it cannot share any orders…and if it shares that means that the quality of all the shared products must be the same wich is a rare thing in 3d printing.
Hi @draq: Thanks for bringing up a question that I think many others will have as well: If an order is split up, how can Print a Thing ensure that sufficient quality is achieved for all the suppliers that take it? We actually have a few ways we achieve this. The first one is that we keep quality metrics on every supplier, based on past user reviews and test prints – so we can show orders only to suppliers who have shown that they can print at a specified quality level. The second one is that we offer a money back garuntee. If a part that you receive suggests that one of our suppliers needs to improve, just mail the part(s) back and we’ll provide a full refund. We strive to make the process as robust as we can, and your full satisfaction is our top priority. 🙂 If you ever have any other questions, feel free to email me using our contact page. I’ll also try to stop by here.
SIncerely,
Andy Doucette
Founder / CEO of Print a Thing