Hi guys,
To provide an update:
This weeks release included a Printed Before tool into InShape (our internal system).
We now have Printed Before visibility in our rejection tool. This is not to say that all models which have been printed before should always be printable again--there are exceptions, like by material, or if it was printed several times unsuccessfully (as described belo), but we will be diligent about checking them, and we should no longer have any issues with mistakes in rejections of Printed Before.
What this means is things like your 84-times printed before model won't be incorrectly rejected again! I know it is a small step, but we are improving our tools as fast as we can.
The cycle of "everything is ok and then there are a lot of rejections" does indeed correlate with us growing, hiring new people, and getting more machines. To give you an idea, our New York Factory of the Future got another two machines last week and we're hiring another engineer. As we grow, we are streamlining the process, and improving so hopefully the cycle of disruption can be minimized.
To provide more insight into the process of why rejections happen in the first place, here is the process of ordering a model:
You upload a model.
We do an automatic check on upload.
When it gets ordered, it gets sent to the production facility, where they manually check it.
A person checks for printability within 1-2 days (which for the most part actually happens within 24 hours)
Sometimes we can see immediately that it should be rejected and sometimes we can't. If it gets rejected this usually happens right away (and we notify you with time to change your model)
If it gets approved, they print it and here is where delays can happen: they may try to print it once (which will take a few days) and it may break in post production, or crash the tray, or even break in shipping - so they will try to print it again (another few days) and the same thing may happen. At this point they reject it and tell Customer Service to tell you, but it is now officially late. (this is the worst case scenario)
The percentage of orders that this happens to is low (it hovers around 10% and is decreasing)
We do it this way to allow as many models to get printed as possible. To make it stricter means making design rules stricter and rejections higher. So yes you would get faster rejections, but you would also get more rejections - and possibly models like the planes would become unprintable outright. We are pushing the boundaries of what is possible with this technology and any advances we make, we want to pass on to you to let everyone design things. So we let you push the boundaries, so we can learn together.
I hope this provides some insight!
Best,
Natalia