Can you have multiple separate objects in the scene? I'm assuming that is fine as long as you keep within the accepted build volume? Are there any guidelines to follow? Should I make all the objects sit on the same ground plane, or does it not matter where in the space they are? I apologize if these are covered elsewhere. Thanks for your time!
Yes, we support multiple objects in a scene. During production the objects are printed as appropriate for the model. Don't worry about the positioning.
Is it acceptable to bunch up, say, 50 copies of a small object into a single scene, to save 49x the start-up cost of WSF?
So what is the limit? I uploaded a file with 32 identical objects and it was accepted and printed. I then uploaded a derivation of that model that had an issue with one of the pattern components so it had 64 objects in it, and that was rejected. I fixed the issue so it again had 32 identical objects, and that was also rejected. What gives? We need design rules for this, not arbitrary hit-and-miss depending on what mood the operator is in.
Are they ALL connected with sprues, such that it's effectively one single object? If the objects are small and loose, it's going to be extremely difficult to chase them all down during cleaning. Sometimes, the production team doesn't realize how much difficulty a model causes until they try to go clean it.