Terrible Terrible Lead times
Quick update on where we stand with the lead times / backorder times for orders. We frankly have been crushed with orders! While a great thing, it was something that we didn't expect for a tiny terrain shop.
Just to put things into perspective, a single Desert Tower which is comprised of two separate large pieces takes 22 hours to print. 13 hours for the base piece and around nine hours for the roof. We have two printers currently, so even one, just one of these orders can set us a back a small amount of time. This problem will compound as we add additional pieces like the upcoming laser tower (so nice btw, I had a great time modeling it.).
What to do? I have been identifying potential production partners, or 3d print farms based in the US. Even at large volumes their pricing structure doesn't work for our business. We would be paying them, and in some cases losing money on every piece. Clearly that is not an ideal solution or even a feasible one. We are left to expanding our own print farm!
With this option we are still able to make a decent enough profit to pay ourselves back and keep the prices reasonable. The plan for this upcoming print farm expansion is fairly straight forward. We have to get the power upgraded in our production facility (Garage :), which enable us to grow from 2 printers to 4 printers. Our 3rd printer is ordered with Prusa right now (We are a Prusa shop!). It will arrive late this week and I will have the weekend to assemble it.
That 3rd printer is the MK2S, not the newest printer model which is the MK3. The MK3 will ship sometime before the end of the year, and we have one of those ordered as well. The MK3 has quite a few upgrades, mainly printing speed will roughly double for us. We run print speeds fairly slow to maintain a good quality finish on the terrain. The MK3's will be a game changer for us in terms of fulfilling orders faster and at a higher quality.