New Chinese bracelet with more chances to be printed

Hi shapies,

I got rejecting of order in Platinum ($8000+) on one of my bracelet already printed in polished polyamide. Similar bracelet has been printed also in gold-plated steel in China (see photo below). I remove all series of such bracelets from my SW shop and develop more printable version http://shpws.me/JuSY

I would like to see it printed in cast metals soon.

Sincerely.

panguver sorry to hear this, can let me know the specific URL for the model so I can look it up?

Thanks,
Andrew

The problem is, cast metals require stilts for filling and air vents. Your model would require lots of stilts to ensure flow, and they'd have to be cleaned by hand and to not effect the look of the design would be extremely difficult.

This model here http://shpws.me/JuSY

I understood text message with rejecting, but still have some questions.

1. When all cast/support structures will need to remove, you are afraid to damage geometry in weak areas (0,7/1mm), ok. But I cannot see these places, where sprues will be removed. So, I will add material in thinnest areas and increase sides of bracelet in new revision on link. More over, I decreased number of ornamental areas and increased also overall wight of bracelet. Also I add thinkness of support structures in ornament about 20%. However, I still not sure in printability of bracelet because I got only this grey picture in rejection letter and cannot see problem areas.



2. Most of my designs are intended for polishing only of the external (upper) parts of the main ornament. So no needs to polish side internal parts like you see below.




How I can say that this item http://shpws.me/Jzld really printable in polished silver/etc ?...

... because it needs to be polished in some up areas only like on picture:


Most of my designs (include rejected) was REALLY printable, because they need polishing on top of main ornament, not inside or support structures. So my designs needs "hybrid" finishes - RAW + Polish. Similar structures would be beautiful in "antique silver" finishing like competitor has now.

Sincerely.

I really love your designs, panguver, and I'm also impressed with how much your designs are testing the limits of 3D-printing technology. You're making it easier for all of us who favor intricate designs. Keep up the good work!

Thank you for warm feedback and wishes! I create my designs according to my current experience in printing of it. As example, these rings originally printed on competitor service and has long elements with 0.47x1mm in cutaway...




Also my platinum rejected bracelet ($8000+) already printed on competitor even in steel...



I am very disappointed that the best service in the world still can not catch up with competitors. Maybe soon I'll place my designs in China also, because they can print it as you see.

Hi Panguvar:

I've gotten in touch with our Supply Chain team to check out the rejection on this piece. They responded with a few problems with this model:

1. There are no flat areas for them to sprue and lots of sprues would be needed. When removing sprues, distrotion is possibly and likely, plus there would be loss of details since there's design all around.
2. There are areas of that bracelets that are down to 0.6 mm. Our minimum supported wire thickness is 0.8, but in this design he'd need the wires to be minimum 1.0 mm for it to be printable and avoid distortion

Youknowwho4eva touched on the sprue issue, but you've mentioned it's been printed in steel before. The process to print steel and cast metals is very different at Shapeways. With cast metals, we 3D print the wax and from there use a traditional lost wax casting process. The Steel process, however, is comparable to our nylon plastics, in that it starts off as a powder and is sintered (then later infused with bronze for strength), and therefore has very different capabilities/guidelines than our cast metals. Hope that helps clear a few things up. Have you tried 3D Tools on your model to see any problem areas in cast metals?

Also - do you have an order number you so we can look into the Platinum order? (Feel free to direct message myself or Andrew Thomas (Andrewsimonthomas) if you don't want that to be public.

Thanks! Let us know if you have any other questions or concerns.