How this all works
So you have hit the ‘order’ button on Shapeways? And you want to know how we turn the most wonderful 3D designs to tangible products? This page explains the intriguing process of personal fabrication through 3D printing
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Order
- Whether you have used the Shapeways Creators, Co-Creator Platform, bought a model from one of the shops or designed something yourself and uploaded it to Shapeways, you have hit the‘order’ button and finished the payment process.
- Shop models sometimes cannot be printed in the material of your choice. We will delete these
models from your order and inform you by e-mail.
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Model check
- Our servers then check your model to see if we can 3D print it. If the model is printable we
will send it to our production facility where you order will be processed.
- If there is a problem with a model upload you will get an email telling you this, you can then
repair it yourself or get help on our forum. We also have lots of tutorials to help you out.
- Shop models sometimes cannot be printed in the material of your choice. We will delete these
models from your order and inform you by e-mail.
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3D Printing
- We define 3D printing as any additive manufacturing process whereby one machine turns a
digital file into a finished physical object by building up that object layer by layer.
If you were to be more precise the technology would be called rapid manufacturing and
3D printing would just be one of the manufacturing processes used to create objects in this way.
- There are a whole lot of 3D printing machines & technologies. SLS (Selective Laser Sintering), SLA (Stereolithography), FDM (fused deposition modeling),
LOM (laminate object manufacturing) etc.Check out the video's on the right side of this page to
see the process for yourself.
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Shipping & Delivery
- 10 working days after you have hit the order button you will receive your plastic objects.
- Metal objects take 14 working days to arrive. Our friends at UPS will make sure
you will receive your package safely and complete.
- Finally you can hold your model in your hand, show it to everyone you come across,
photograph it in weird places and upload the pictures of your creative reality to the
model on your my designs page!
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Design your object in 2 minutes
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