Shapeways
 

Have any of you Shapeways sellers had issues with them lately? As of late they are being complete pricks.

I've had an item on Shapeways for months and they have printed and sold fine. I've never gotten any emails indicating there were printing issues. The past month I have had multiple orders cancelled due to "printability issues". It's odd these "issues" didn't stop them from printing in the past.

I contacted customer service and they agreed there were no printing issues. But the cancelled orders were not reinstated for the guess accounts.

Today I get an email about an order for another item, that I've had printed myself, that was cancelled due to printability issues.

Shapeways is slipping quickly down my list. Are there any other alternatives?

Re: Shapeways
 

I put in orders a couple times a month from various designers without issue.

Re: Shapeways
 

I haven't had any issues on the buyer side - just on the seller side.

Re: Shapeways
 

Hmm. I too have ordered from a couple of different designers in the past few months without issue. I can appreciate your concern. Did they not tell you specifically what the issue is?

Re: Shapeways
 

They said the walls of the parts might be too thin which could cause printability issues, but as I stated, they have printed just fine. I confirmed this for the first part with Shapeways. She said the history shows they printed fine, but the engineers could still flag it if they chose to do so.

Re: Shapeways
 

Gotcha. Too bad. Sucks for you and the consumer, who obviously wants the print.

Re: Shapeways
 

I had a bowhouse skid for my tf2 printed from shapeways without issue.

Re: Shapeways
 

The small elephant that you 3d printed had good quality.

Home printers will be competetive if they use a print head that uses virgin plastic granules as raw material. (They will be a bit heavy for those twiggy home printers :lmao:) These print heads are readily available in the market and if need be, one can design and build them as they are easy.

I personally hate the filament method because the filament itself comes at an inflated price (3 times expensive). It increases production cost.

Re: Shapeways
 

Filament printing is less expensive than resin printing.

Re: Shapeways
 

I can get a 25kg bag of virgin plastic granules for around 55$ and another 5$ for additives.

I am guessing you pay close to that for 4 to 5 kg of spool.

Re: Shapeways
 

Sorry, I thought you were comparing resin printers to filament printing.

I pay about $25 USD for a 1kg roll of PLA filament.

Re: Shapeways
 

Filament printing is like pennies on the dollar compared to what Shapeways charges but isnt as strong if its something that is stressed.

Maybe your first prints were their 'test' prints and now they dont think they are thick enough so theyre kicking them back?

Re: Shapeways
 

They were not first prints. I've sold dozens of the part if not more and it never once got flagged for printability issues.

Re: Shapeways
 

Hmmm wonder if they would be printable on their newly expensive HP printer. Hmmmmmm :mrgreen:

Re: Shapeways
 

Haha. Yeah maybe it's a sales tactic. Good thinking.

Re: Shapeways
 

Shapeways just canceled a print I ordered today. It was there standard black plastic, and that's now taken off the list but white and metallic plastic is still an available option. I don't get it?

Edit: I reordered in white plastic, let's see if it goes through. Lol.

Edit #2: white went through. Shapeways is retarded.