
Launch HN: Voodoo Manufacturing (YC W17) – AWS for Manufacturing - jschwartz11
https://voodoomfg.com/?utm_source=hn
======
jschwartz11
Hi Hacker News! I'm one of the co-founders of Voodoo Manufacturing
([https://voodoomfg.com/](https://voodoomfg.com/)) in the current YC W17
batch. Voodoo Manufacturing is an automated 3D printing factory capable of
producing anywhere from 1-10,000 plastic parts in 2 weeks or less, at
injection molding prices. The difference between us and other 3D printing
services is that we use lower-end commoditized 3D printers rather than
commercial or industrial machines. Today we have 160 MakerBot Replicator 2s.
We started Voodoo because we believed these machines were capable of making
high-enough quality parts and products for various use cases. Obviously we're
not (yet) producing any high-performance parts for airplanes, etc., but we can
make cost-competitive hardware components, and surprisingly we make a lot of
promotional products (event swag, trophies, memorabilia, etc.)

Since launching Voodoo we've come to realize that traditional manufacturing is
still really hard for most people and companies, and definitely falls short
when you're producing parts in runs of less than 10,000 units. More than 3D
printing, we're excited about the future of fully digital manufacturing --
going from a digital design to physical parts with virtually no upfront costs
or overhead. Today we're cost-competitive with injection molding for runs of
1-10k units (the exact cross-over point depends on the part), but our goal is
to reduce costs by 90% over the next 5 years, and thus become competitive for
runs of up to 100k units. We also believe that 3D printing and other digital
manufacturing technologies will continue to improve, from materials to
machines, and so over time we'll become capable of producing high-quality and
high-performance parts that can be used for more applications.

A couple of projects we've worked on include this current marketing campaign
with Dixie ([http://www.crushtomizer.com/](http://www.crushtomizer.com/))
where they're using our API to submit orders to be manufactured and drop-
shipped on-demand, and a pet-project where we printed a life-size body model
in less than 24 hours ([http://blog.voodoomfg.com/2016/06/10/a-life-size-
human-model...](http://blog.voodoomfg.com/2016/06/10/a-life-size-human-
model-3d-printed-on-88-printers-in-under-24-hours/)). Today, we've worked with
over 1,200 customers, from large brands to small startups, to help people make
things that wouldn't be possible or economical with other manufacturing
methods. We're excited about all the things currently happening within
manufacturing, and are proud to be one of the companies trying to push forward
and build a new type of factory, right here in the US.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on what we're doing, what you might want that
we don't currently offer, or help you out if you have a project in mind.
Thanks so much!

------
bsilvereagle
How many hours do you have on your Makerbots? I've worn two into the ground,
and at around 500 hours things start to "go wrong". Air prints, printer head
misalignment, more frequent clogged nozzles, a variety of things. At 1000
hours, belts start to show wear, build plates have noticeable warpage,
extruder gears need replaced.

If you can, could you speak to your long term maintenance plan? I was swamped
keeping two Rep 2s running consistently, I can't imagine managing a fleet of
160.

In a similar vein, it would be really cool if in a year or so a blog post
showed up showing statistically significant numbers about wear on the MBs,
percentages of successful prints, why prints failed, etc.

~~~
thearn4
I also have had really bad experiences with Makerbots after a few months of
moderate daily use. But Makergear and a few others around the same price point
have been pretty great so far.

That said, my organization moved on from the consumer tier printers to a few
of the higher end ones, so I likely won't have the best input on those
anymore.

------
jc4p
Are you just doing FDM printing or can you also do milling?

I'm very very interested in multiple possible $300-$1000 budget things for
both. Edit: Looking at the other comments (I haven't priced anything out using
the site yet, scared to do so b/c i don't like drip campaigns), some of my
projects might be below this budget using you! Wow!

Is the goal that I use this service to make beautiful enclosures for my
projects, or to do all the hardware needs for my project from design to
complete?

I've mostly used Oshpark/Shapeways. I was looking into getting a desktop
milling machine like an Othermill or Shapeoko, but from my testing they're
still way too loud to have in my home office.

Do you cater to one-off things from people like me, or is the hope to be doing
mostly B2B?

~~~
jschwartz11
We're just doing FDM today, but in the future we plan on expanding to other 3D
printing technologies (i.e. SLA, SLS, etc), and eventually even non 3D
printing tech like milling or laser cutting.

If you don't want to submit a form on our website, feel free to either email
me at jonathan@voodoomfg.com.

Exactly, today's cine we'r eonly manufacturing plastic parts, most hardware
companies use us to make enclosures, brackets, and other internal and external
components. And then prototypes of course as well.

We definitely do one off projects. If you want, you can just upload files to
our website Direct Print service and checkout. Those orders leave our factory
next business day: [https://voodoomfg.com/direct-
print](https://voodoomfg.com/direct-print)

~~~
jc4p
Oh this is fantastic. I have a few ESP8266s sitting around bare / in tiny ugly
plastic containers, I'd love to finally get them nice enclosures. I'll
definitely check out the direct print / your site!

~~~
jreed91
Would you mind sharing your schematics for these? Would like to get some nice
enclosures for mine too

~~~
jc4p
The only schematics I have right now are for an external project from years
ago with specific slots for sensors/cables. I haven't made anything for my own
projects yet since I considered the enclosure part too expensive and not worth
the time, I'm going to rethink that now though.

------
froindt
Good to see a manufacturing startup in YC! I'm currently a grad student in
industrial engineering and have been working with geometric analysis for
manufacturability for around 2 years now.

What types of analysis are you doing on the parts to determine cost? Slicing,
orientation optimization, volume analysis, full toolpaths with estimated time?

Does your analysis automatically look at the tradeoff between injection
molding and 3d printing for a particular design which was uploaded?

I noticed the current interface requires all parts to be in the same unit. Any
chance of a per-part unit selection (while keeping the batch)?

~~~
jschwartz11
We look at object SA, V, and geometry and without slicing estimate print time
and material usage. From there we factor in other costs such as machine time,
labor, and packing and shipping.

We don't compare to injection molding to calculate price. When we say price
competitive between 1 and 10k units, it's based on avg IM mold and units
costs. It's pretty hard to find data on that though.

Yeah, good point. We don't yet let users assign different units to different
models in the same purchase on our website, but can add that feature!

~~~
froindt
Oh, I follow now. I was going to mention that your site doesn't advertise PIM
at all if that's a service offered! I really wish there were readily
accessible data sources with pricing in the manufacturing field. Trying to
estimate impact and cost savings is a mess without the data.

What kind of internal fill patterns are you using? What are some of the tests
which get run in the machines? Do you have any numbers on how accurate the
printers are compared to Joe Schmo who just bought his first $1,000 3d
printer?

~~~
jschwartz11
I agree, but at the end of the day you need some estimate of what's being
manufactured to produce a price. Otherwise, we'd only be able to give you some
rough prices per g of material, print hr, and labor...

We very our infill depending on the part, but usually just standard hex. We
did have some factory-wide precision numbers which I'd have to dig up. If you
interested in learning more feel free to shoot me an email at
jonathan@voodoomfg.com!

------
fudged71
What made you choose to go through YC a second time after your startup Layer
By Layer? Isn't the network there for you after the program?

~~~
jschwartz11
Great question. It was for a few reasons. A lot of YC is still what happens
during the batch (Tuesday dinners, office hours, demo day, etc), and we felt
those were things that could benefit us. As well, a lot of VCs aren't used to
"manufacturing" startups, so we felt that having the YC stamp would provide
some nice validation and hopefully make conversations with investors better.
Also, YC just naturally pushes you to work so hard for the 3 months your in it
that we felt it would also be a net positive. At the end of the day, we
determined that if we went through YC and continue to do well, it would be
worth it, and if we end up failing, YC won't be the reason.

------
antoniuschan99
I did a price comparison vs Shapeways of the direct print which was 20 units.

Total cost was $158 for Voodoo and Total cost was $332 for Shapeways.

Is it true that you guys are cheaper and any reason why?

~~~
jschwartz11
We are definitely cheaper! I don't know if you compared to the Shapeways PLA
option, but that's actually us doing the fulfillment ;)

We're cheaper than other 3D printing services because we took a different
approach and use lower-end commoditized 3D printers, rather than commercial or
industrial machines. The machines we use are cheaper, and use cheaper (open)
materials, and require cheaper maintenance and repairs. We're also optimized
for volume and cost-reduction as a company, where as Shapeways is more
optimized for variety and low-volume orders.

------
physcab
"we make a lot of promotional products (event swag, trophies, memorabilia,
etc.)"

Is there a gallery of products you've made? Also, do you do your own drop-
shipping?

Looks cool!

~~~
jschwartz11
Thanks! You can check out some case studies on our website
([https://voodoomfg.com/case-studies](https://voodoomfg.com/case-studies)).
Also, our Instagram account has a bunch of product photos
([https://www.instagram.com/voodoomfg/?hl=en](https://www.instagram.com/voodoomfg/?hl=en)).

And yes! We drop-ship right from our factory in Brooklyn.

------
qume
We use 3D printing extensively, for large sized parts, and there are very few
options out there.

Consider buying a few machines that can do very large parts. We would use you
literally today if you could do that. It's a very underserved part of the
market.

I'm talking apx 700mm x 400mm x 300mm

~~~
froindt
Does it have to be a single piece, or is partitioning it into smaller chunks
an option? There are a number of academic papers on cutting models to fit
inside the build box constraint of 3d printers, though I'm not aware of any
nice, automatic, commercial options right now.

~~~
jschwartz11
Thats' a great point. We've actually done a handful of projects like that.
Here's an example: [http://blog.voodoomfg.com/2016/06/10/a-life-size-human-
model...](http://blog.voodoomfg.com/2016/06/10/a-life-size-human-
model-3d-printed-on-88-printers-in-under-24-hours/)

In many cases, when you cut up a model like that you can actually print it
faster and cheaper than on a large format machine.

------
cindywu123
I just got one of the Voodoo manufactured "coffee stoppers" from
[http://www.crushtomizer.com/](http://www.crushtomizer.com/) in the mail!

~~~
cindywu123
We also use them to print keychains
[http://imgur.com/a/yGbFv](http://imgur.com/a/yGbFv)

------
kitcar
I noticed you guys don't ship to Canada - any specific reason why? Also your
user edit page appears to be broken -
[https://voodoomfg.com/users/edit](https://voodoomfg.com/users/edit), click
update, drops to a blank white page

------
manglav
This looks great! I myself just bought a chinese 3d printer to prototype some
parts. One thing I noticed was QA was difficult. If I did a run of 10k parts,
how would you QA them?

~~~
jschwartz11
We are able to get more consistent prints than a lot of people using their own
printer, mostly because we've been able to build a lot of process around
maintain and operation. So, for a given part, we'd make a sample for you to
get approval, and then use that as spec. We regularly test printers to make
sure they're operating normally.

~~~
manglav
Great! Sorry I didn't know whether or not to post to the root. I noticed you
only had PLA and TPU materials. Is ABS in the works? My project required
waterproofing and more strength than PLA.

~~~
jschwartz11
Definitely in our roadmap! Until then, we can also print with PLA++ (a
stronger PLA), and have done some projects in nylon if that would work for
you.

------
ashaytejwani
This is a really cool approach to make 3d printing affordable! I'm one of the
cofounders of Rolling Cube (rollingcube.in), an Indian startup in the digital
manufacturing space. We're trying to make traditional manufacturing convenient
and accessible to everyone, starting with laser cutting, and would love your
feedback on the concept.

~~~
grzm
If it meets the guidelines, this may be better submitted as a "Show HN".

[https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)

------
izak30
I bought $50 in prints from you last spring! Everything went very smoothly.
Good luck!

I own a Taz2, but it's nice to have somebody else handle the printing every
once in a while.

------
killerham
What's the pricing like? Or is it quoted per order?

~~~
jschwartz11
Quotes are based on the specific model. You can upload a STL or OBJ to our
site to see what the price is for our Direct Print service (low volume). For
high volume orders, sometimes the price is slightly different since we quote
more accurately and can sometimes make optimizations. Generally things can
cost as little as $0.25 and pretty much go up from there.

------
ph0rque
Really cool! I signed up for your mailing list, eagerly awaiting when you can
offer materials other than plastic.

~~~
jschwartz11
Thanks! What type of materials do you want or need?

~~~
ph0rque
I know this is a huge stretch, but I would love to prototype some shapes out
of... mycelium: [https://3dprint.com/7279/3d-print-fungus-
mycelium/](https://3dprint.com/7279/3d-print-fungus-mycelium/)

~~~
jschwartz11
haha, definitely exotic, but we've actually printed with an algae filament
before. It smelled kind of weird printing!

What are you interested in making? Feel free to shoot me an email at
jonathan@voodoomfg.com if you want to discuss further.

~~~
ph0rque
Hey Jonathan, I'm interested exploring making mycelium media modules (how's
that for alliteration?) for aquaponics. I've blogged about it here:
[https://blog.automicrofarm.com/mushroom-media-
adventures-2e2...](https://blog.automicrofarm.com/mushroom-media-
adventures-2e2cb388c670#.uxqxg4fr3)

I'll email you later today to discuss further details. Thanks!

~~~
jschwartz11
Looking forward to hearing more!

------
spraak
Did anyone else think of 'OMFG' in the URL? I.e. I read it as 'Voodoo OMFG'

~~~
mdfriefeld
Yep, we definitely saw that about 4 months after founding the company!

------
hengheng
How do you compare to protomold?

~~~
mdfriefeld
We can make plastic parts at the same volumes but without the mold startup
cost (that is how we are cost competitive). Because we don't need to machine a
mold out of aluminum, we can get started immediately from your digital file.

Because we work from digital files, we can do a lot of other fun things like
customize every object to be slightly different! It's all about zero spin-up
cost and time!

------
gyey
Please consider adding support for international shipping.

------
notnot
Why no .SLDPRT support?

~~~
jschwartz11
Our quoting engine needs a mesh file to estimate price from. As well, all of
the 3D printer compiles need the same... It should be easy to export your
model as a STL or OBJ though!

------
LinuxFreedom
Please develop a different, self-degrading material - we already have too many
plastic material in the ocean and it _is_ a major problem - you certainly did
read about it, this is commonly known nowadays. I wonder how anybody would
build a new business on the idea of flooding the world with even more poison.

~~~
jschwartz11
The material we use, PLA, is actually biodegradable! It would take a while
naturally, but can be done easily with industrial equipment. We also recycle
all of our scrap material back into filament :)

~~~
LinuxFreedom
Sorry, but that is just greenwashing.

[http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/responsible-
living/stories/biod...](http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/responsible-
living/stories/biodegradable-plastic-what-you-need-to-know)

Here is a german study you might be interested in (needs to be translated):

[http://www.umweltbundesamt.de/presse/pressemitteilungen/biok...](http://www.umweltbundesamt.de/presse/pressemitteilungen/biokunststoffe-
nicht-besser)

Conclusion: "bio" plastics are not better in any way.

Especially PLA from genetically modified corn is not a good solution, sorry.

To reduce the amount of harm you are doing to the planet with that mass
production facility should build a safe recycling chain for your customers
until you find some less destructive way to make money.

To the HN techno-blinded crowd: downvoting these facts does not produce a
better health for your children.

Growing up and becoming an adult also means being able to take responsibility
for the future. But, yeah, Trump on, Amerrica!

~~~
dang
Please don't post like this here.

