| Sprues, yes or no, please make your mind up [message #58134] Thu, 06 December 2012 23:04 UTC |
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Last order included some items attached with small sprues, and those grouped with a bigger one using loops to hold them. The received product has all the parts, but the small sprues are out of the closed loops (magic!). It's no big problem, all those wires would be cut anyway, but it would be a problem if, say, it was some kind of decoration to hang like a chain.
So could SW make some guidelines about sprues and stick to them? "Multiple parts per STL" is very vague. If you want to have extra freedom to optimize print runs, but at the same time not cause misprints, or rejects due to "items too tiny", you have to be clearer so we can just upload things grouped as best as possible for everyone.
If service wants to investigate the exact model, the id is 790695. It consists of 8 sprues with 4 small items each (and the items have some wires that aren't sprues), and the big sprue holding them.
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| Re: Sprues, yes or no, please make your mind up [message #58167 is a reply to message #58134 ] Fri, 07 December 2012 14:04 UTC |
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If your items are small, around the minimum size required for the material, you should join them together. If your items are larger than the required minimum than you should be ok not to connect them.
The Mad Moder
michael@shapeways.com
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| Re: Sprues, yes or no, please make your mind up [message #58177 is a reply to message #58134 ] Fri, 07 December 2012 16:23 UTC |
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Hi there,
First of all, thanks for using Shapeways!
That is correct what Michael says. If your items are below or near x+y+z≥12mm you would want to sprue them together so that they will not get lost during printing.
If you have further questions regarding this topic, please don't hesitate to contact service@shapeways.com
Happy Shaping!
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| Re: Sprues, yes or no, please make your mind up [message #58216 is a reply to message #58177 ] Sat, 08 December 2012 02:46 UTC |
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Great. The point is that such info should be in a tutorial addressing special details like any material differences that there could be. It could be completed with topics like sprueing methods. That's another thing that popups now and then, gets the obligatory pictures by some people showing how they build sprues or cages, someone questions if the cages should be added or not because someone else got one nifty cage for free, another fifth person drops to ask what is the abuse threshold, etc, etc... and then gets lost in forums until next time. Constant deja vu.
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| Re: Sprues, yes or no, please make your mind up [message #59215 is a reply to message #58216 ] Wed, 26 December 2012 10:52 UTC |
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I had this discussion very long ago (in the very early days of shapeways) and still have in mind that having multiple parts without sprues in one item is not the prefered solution for shapeways.
The simple reason for that is:
- if not connected they have to handle each item seperatly during post processing (cleaning, packing) ...
Is that still correct?
Woody64
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| Re: Sprues, yes or no, please make your mind up [message #59374 is a reply to message #59215 ] Sun, 30 December 2012 19:02 UTC |
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So does this mean we are allowed to have multiple unjoined parts, say pendants in silver, and pay only one handling fee? Or would it still apply to each part?
Thx
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| Re: Sprues, yes or no, please make your mind up [message #59392 is a reply to message #59374 ] Sun, 30 December 2012 23:37 UTC |
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AmLachDesigns, in silver it's not allowed except for earrings and cufflinks, check the material info pages.
Woody64, the order that caused this thread had also three repeated items and they were packed in the same bag even if they were paid in full. Cleaning would had been the same, sprue or not, they just saved two bags. Other person reported a similar issue, but with Sandstone, and that one was bad as the parts scratched each other in travel. And others showed kits with many tiny Sandstone parts or single but small, and they were printed anyway even if no part reached the minimum bounding box in the info pages (outdated?).
Based in puzzles and other example, we can guess Strong Flexible family will be yes with many parts, as long as they are not tiny. So until official resolution, you could say no sprues for big & medium parts, and group small ones into something that is medium at least. Cleaning a big sprue can be worse than some smaller parts and/or sprues, it behaves like a trap.
But the point is that everything (the cases for no, for yes, for yes if...) should be documented and enforced.
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| Re: Sprues, yes or no, please make your mind up [message #59397 is a reply to message #59392 ] Mon, 31 December 2012 01:11 UTC |
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Back when the "startup fees" were instituted, they told us that mutiple separate parts per file (except silver) were permissable. BUT.. We were also told at that time that if there were too many abuses of the system, then they would have to implement a startup fee PER SHELL within each file.
Your objective should be items that can be manipulated with human fingers. (sometimes large fingers  )
Imagine this item without the sprues: http://shpws.me/lLmq The individual peices are only 6mm cubes, and they tend to crush quickly if too much force is applied. But, in this configuration, they pass the checks (and shipping) just fine.
If I setup this model as 25 independent peices then it would be 25x the work to fetch it out of the printer. That's what you've got to avoid. If we create too many separate peices, then they will be forced to implement higher handling costs or shell-count rules that would be prohibitive.
Imagine http://shpws.me/lmiz if I didn't have the sprues.
Patience, Persistance, Politeness - the 3Ps will help us get us to Perfect Printed Products
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| Re: Sprues, yes or no, please make your mind up [message #59399 is a reply to message #59397 ] Mon, 31 December 2012 08:28 UTC |
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Stannum,
I thought I knew the rules about this for silver, but I believed they applied also to other materials, which was my mistake: that's why I was surprised by this thread, and just wanted to check.
I do agree, though, that more documentation on this and other design rules would be very welcome. The more that it is possible to know in advance what will and will not print/ship, and will do so reliably time after time the better.
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| Re: Sprues, yes or no, please make your mind up [message #59640 is a reply to message #59397 ] Sat, 05 January 2013 00:54 UTC |
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News... it seems if you ask for checks, analisys is run over the raw file, not the meshmedic result. So some hundreds of shells that form 16 final items are not acceptable, when a couple of weeks before they were and similar things had been printed many times.
So booleans are now needed? Then how do you take what was said about sprues? Yeah, you thought some desing approaches worked, that items were printing fine... well, forget it.
The customer is starting to get bit red, by the way.
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| Re: Sprues, yes or no, please make your mind up [message #61020 is a reply to message #59640 ] Tue, 29 January 2013 16:40 UTC |
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This is actually a very helpful conversation, and I can see how abuse is hard to determine.
When my item only costs about $2 to make, that $1.50 handling fee makes ordering a test run seem very prohibitive. But I certainly don't want to cheat the system by dumping too many objects in one file.
In particular, I'm thinking of items that are about about 12mm cubed (little robot helmets for mini-figs). Even if I sold them individually in my store, it would be handy to test them out in larger lots first...but those sprues do kind of get in the way.
So I guess it would be good to know how many objects gets obnoxious.
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| Re: Sprues, yes or no, please make your mind up [message #61021 is a reply to message #58134 ] Tue, 29 January 2013 16:57 UTC |
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I'm liking the discussion guys. And I also feel it should be easier to determine. I think items that are a problem with abusing the allowance, will be notified and asked to modify. I'm glad you guys don't want to abuse and lose. If it becomes a hot internal issue, we'll make everyone aware before making any changes.
The Mad Moder
michael@shapeways.com
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| Re: Sprues, yes or no, please make your mind up [message #61088 is a reply to message #61080 ] Thu, 31 January 2013 00:32 UTC |
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LOVE the picture!!! That's exactly what i've been trying to express!
Also.. remember that they start cleaning this by hitting it with an airhose. If you have some small loose parts.. they're gonna fly! <grin>
Patience, Persistance, Politeness - the 3Ps will help us get us to Perfect Printed Products
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| Re: Sprues, yes or no, please make your mind up [message #65531 is a reply to message #65350 ] Fri, 05 April 2013 12:20 UTC |
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| Quote: |
Multiple shells near the minimum bounding box make our post processing technicians very sad
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Yes But ...
There a two Problems for me as designer.
1. Where to Sprue the Objects? The place where I Sprue them together should nod be visible in the final Product. Else the Customer hast to clean up the parts.
2. Polishing. If I Sprue 2 Objects together will they Polished everywhere. Example my Minifigure fins (http://shpws.me/nwb0). If I sprue them together, will they polished properly on the sides where the two fins are sprued together?
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| Re: Sprues, yes or no, please make your mind up [message #65533 is a reply to message #58134 ] Fri, 05 April 2013 12:53 UTC |
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Your pieces have a hole, so you could create a post to go through the holes to hold the pieces together without deforming your model.
The polishing is don't in a tumbler, so if you sprue things, leave enough space for the polishing material to travel between.
The Mad Moder
michael@shapeways.com
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