Micro Manufacturing with a MakerBot

First, I am the proud owner of MakerBot 997. While I thoroughly enjoy making parts for myself, I believe that the MakerBot is the beginning of a new type of democratized manufacturing. Call it whatever you want, cloud manufacturing, distributed manufacturing, or even micro manufacturing. However, this type of low cost technology has the capability to put the common person back in the drivers seat of choice by allowing the manufacturing of low cost, low volume, high mix products.

My question is this, who else out there is using their MakerBot or other type of low cost manufacturing equipment as a part of their business? What is your business model? Pricing structures, etc.?

Making your own bottle opener

OK, say you are tired and thirsty after a long hot day at the baseball park. You grab an ice cold beer from the frig but after much searching can't find your bottle opener. What do you do? Resort to using the cabinet handles, pry it off with a screw driver, get in the car and drive to the store? No, download the model from Thingiverse and print it out on your MakerBot. These are photo's of the bottle opener I printed on Dewey. The thing actually works!

Printing of a cylinder

Building of the base

Printing the first hole

Middle of the print

Printing of the second hole

Final printing (approximately 45 minutes)