BagClamp: A Consumer Product Manufactured with 3D Printing

Manufacturing a Product for the Cost of a Website.

At Slant 3D we are working to make it as simple and affordable to create a physical product as to create a website.

If you want to make a website or an app all you have to do is spend $25 per month to host it and then spend a weekend writing or coding. You now have a platform that can become worth billions of dollars. (Seriously this is all it took to start facebook)

Actual manufacturing is not like that. Inventors have to spend tens of thousands of dollars just to get started. That is because they literally have to build a factory and supply chain for each new product. And they have to do all of that with Scratch.

The reason websites are cheap and manufacturing is expensive is because websites are built on top of infrastructure that already exists. Manufacturing has to rebuild that infrastructure everytime. Facebook just had to be posted on the the internet, a fidget spinner had to be built, packed, and shipped each time one is ordered. 3D Printing provides that infrastructure

Large scale 3D Printing with 3D Printing farms allow inventors to create a new product and post it online, just like a website. Then when it is purchased it is made. There is no cost of injection molding, and no cost of warehousing. Using Slant 3D fulfillment there is not even the effort of shipping the product. This means that new ideas can be tried for free and if they are successful then the inventor can really make a career or company out of it.

We are demonstrating this with the BagClamp.

The BagClamp is a simple consumer product. Something you would pick up off a shelf at a Walmart for a couple of dollars. But unlike all of those products, which used tens of thousands of dollars to be made, the BagClamp is entirely digitally manufactured. And it cost only the time to create it.

The BagClamp was designed in 2 days at Slant 3D. It was conceived prototyped and prepped for production in 2 days. That is light-years faster than normal product design. But we did something very interesting. We didn't create it and then make 1000's hoping they would sell. We made 10, for a few dollars apiece, and are now testing it on Kickstarter with a small campaign. The kickstarter proves that the product is a good one. With nearly 2000 units presold on Kickstarter it is worth putting it into production. And that production is already paid for with preorders. So the product has been created and put into production almost for free, just like a website.

But what is really interesting is that we will be mass manufacturing the first 100,000 BagClamps within our 3D Printing facility in Boise, Idaho. And we will do it profitably. ​

Carbon 3D and Adidas 3D Printed Shoe Coming out of Machine

There are few single products that have been mass manufactured with 3D Printing. Carbon 3D and Adidas have manufactured almost 100,000 sets of $400 dollar 3D Printed shoes. Etsy stores make custom cookie cutters for $25 dollars apiece. "3D Printed Products just don't cost $2 and are mass manufactured." But actually they are. 

3D Printing has only the cost of material and electricity. Based on that is should be the same cost as injection molding. It hasn't been because 3D Printing has always required a huge amount of human labor. ​

At Slant 3D we have created entirely automated 3D Printing factories. Hundred of 3D Printers working for weeks on end without human touch just producing parts. This lets plastic products, like the BagClamp be produced very cheaply and at scale. 

Help us show the world that 3D Printing is ready for mass manufacturing. Get a BagClamp for yourself. Or if you or your company needs help manufacturing plastic parts without the cost of molds, reach out to us for a free quote and design review. Today it is as easy to get a product manufactured as it is to start a website.