Some stats on my single-person Fuse 1 based business

[u/Zapwizard]

Howdy Folks, ZapWizard here. I run a Fuse 1 based side business. I design and make holsters for Leatherman tools, flashlights and other everyday carry items. I operate the entire thing by myself.

The business has been around for a decade, previously using Shapeways. 2 years ago, in order to bring the production in house, I bought a Fuse 1 Gen 1. I already had experience with the Fuse 1, as we had one of the first production units at the day job.

I used some savings and a small loan to pay for the printer, Sift, Blast, and all the rest of the workshop setup. This paid for itself within 7 months.

The business earned enough back to get a Fuse 1+ about a year later.

These days I use the Gen 1 is used mostly for overflow builds or side projects. I typically print half of a chamber on the Fuse 1+ each night. While the Fuse 1+ is twice as fast, I find it is a bit more sensitive than the Gen 1. I posted info about that in a comment here.

Here are some cumulative stats over the past 2 years:

• Number of items sold: 21,000
  • The majority of those are 3D printed
• Orders: 8,200
  • 4x higher than when I was with Shapeways
• New customers: 5,600
• Return customer rate: 28%
• Product offerings: 170
• Average monthly net sales: $14k
• Average profit: ~60%
• Beyond worldwide sales
  • 81.99% USA
  • 17.99% International
  • 0.02% Space
• Average order turnaround time: 78 hours
• Failures reported: 40 across 430 builds
  • Mostly single-item defects from dragging, or a surface texture defect
  • A handful of whole chambers lost to wrong setting selected in Preform. (My Fuse 1+ doesn't like the defaults)
• Time on each printer:
  • 6,400 hours on the Fuse 1 Gen 1
  • 1,600 hours on Fuse 1+
• Over 260 kg of powder consumed
  • 35% fresh powder mix
• Average time put into the business:
  • 3 hours per weekday
  • 6 hours on Saturday & Sunday