Joseph Chiu pulled me up in chat to ask if I had put in an order with PrintAThing. PrintAThing and MakeXYZ are services where you can register if you have a 3D printer to print things for other people and where you can request if you don’t have a 3D printer a quote for a print you want made. They’re great services if you have a 3D printer that you want to keep humming. However, I have no such problems and since I have a 3D printer there’s no reason for me to put in an order with PrintAThing.
Joseph C. asked because someone had put in an order and uploaded the STLs from the Chessbot Hero and Monster, the same set I sell on Etsy and that I thought I made pretty clear you can get from me. I would think if you didn’t have a 3D printer you’d want to support the person who made the designs if it were possible, but it seems someone was looking for a better deal. Now to be clear I’m selling these at very high quality and pretty close to the lowest I can for the time and effort involved in making and distributing these. Sure it’s not much plastic but it ties up my printer for about 8 hours making both sides (which I can double the output of when my right extruder works). Not to mention that I have made a number of little edits that I just don’t have time to keep updating the thingiverse pages for. It’s safe to say that the chess set you get from me is always better in little ways than the one you get from thingiverse. Joseph suggested I make it harder for people to do this sort of thing by breaking the set into individual pieces but that’s just more work for me.
Really, this is just the problem with being open. I made a decision and this is the first thing that really made me call that decision into question. So what now? Maybe I should clam up to protect myself.
Forget that, I’m opening up wide. I haven’t uploaded my lithophane holder yet so here yawl go. Take that desire to clam up. Go make your own lithophanes and don’t worry about me. (Yes, I branded it and yes I linked to my etsy store. I’m open, not stupid.)
