Show HN: Calcumake – A 3D print pricing calculator (Rails and Kamal)

1 points by moabjp 7 hours ago

Hi HN,

I just got into 3D printing about 3 months ago after picking up a K2 Plus. I live in a somewhat rural area of Japan and don't know a single person with a 3D printer, so friends and family immediately started asking me to print things for them.

I struggled to give them accurate prices. At first, I was guessing ("100 yen for this, 200 yen for that"), but I realized I was ignoring setup time, CAD work, failed prints, and electricity. I checked out the top results like OmniCalculator and Prusa’s tool but found them frustrating—specifically the inability to save calculations or handle complex projects with multiple plates and different filaments.

So, I decided to build my own. I have Rails experience, and using Kamal I was able to keep cloud pricing to a minimum. I used Claude Code to assist, finishing the MVP in about 2 months of free time (real talk: I know some people ship SaaS apps in a week, but that sounds hellish to me).

I'm trying to optimize the code and push updates every day. The next big update involves an AI tool where you can paste text or invoices to automatically bulk import filaments. I'm also working on:

A native 3MF import tool.

Per-unit pricing (for people running web stores).

Better failed print calculations.

I've even considered adding a directory to search for makers by city or neighborhood (since I can't find anyone near me!), but I'm undecided on that.

Right now, I'm just trying to get the word out. Hopefully, someone besides me finds this useful.

Feedback is welcome!