Final Negotiations on FD/FUD

Right ... however Jettuh noted that Shapeways probably will make a maximum parts per file rule in the future ...

If, in the what I would consider highly unlikely event that the start-up price is per order, not per model, I would retract my former statement, as that would be livable with. I don't think iut's likely, though since to my knowledge, none of the other material start-up costs work that way (or at least not on any I personally use, though that is granted, limited to SWF and TD).

The FUD chain maille I received had 192 parts (see; FUDtastic), I've also received WSF chain maille items with many more parts... the limit is the the number of triangles... the number of parts is how they're joined and what work is creates in the after print process... just be creative how the parts are joined/linked together

well i guess my best solution is to order all my FUD prototypes today before the price change and save like 200 dollars....

i was hoping to wait for my previous order to arrive first to see how well black detail did as a possible substitute on detailed models... but it's been over 3 weeks

short on funds this weekend but i guess i'm making an order.

Actually if your models are low polygon counts. You are better off to wait.

Adding multiple models to a single file is super easy. In ASCII STL files you can do it easily in notepad by cut and pasting the triangle info from each to a single file. For binary STL files I wrote a program to do it on my server but I am pretty sure netfabb can do it and the program is free.

As long as you keep under 1,000,000 triangles you can add as much to the file as you want. If the new resulting model is more then 5.5cm^3 then you will save money with new pricing.

I do this all the time to save customers $2.50 per model in WSF.


For those of you that buy paint then resell this will make your costs cheaper. For those that let the customer buy on shapeways this will make more expensive unless your customers are willing to buy bulk packs.

If anyone out there has a webserver and a bit of programming knowledge send me a message and we can negotiate a fair price for the code to render a group pack, and upload to shapeways so the customer can buy it.

$5 start-up?! Are you kidding me?! You just killed my entire product line. Between requirements for minimum wall thickness and level of detail, FD/FUD was the only material that you offer that made it even possible for me to print my models. My profit was already small. Now it's non-existent. What the heck guys?! The original FD/FUD pricing wasn't all that great, but at least it was do-able. Now? FRAK!

And how am I supposed to go nest a bunch of models into a single file? I have no idea how many of each my customers want, except that it's usually one copy of 3-4 designs, and it's always a different configuration. And I don't want to tie up my money in maintaining inventory and having to ship boxes direct to customers, along with increased communications. Shapeways' pricing already takes that into consideration.

The entire point of the store here is to automate this process as much as possible.

Thanks for shutting me down AGAIN!.

Totally agreed. Just like WSF before and after it has start up cost.
Time to change the FUD items in my shop to Not for Sale...nobody will buy it with that pricing anyway... :confused

Hm, i'm not that devastated by this pricing change, the models i have been preparing for FD/FUD were around 4-5cc in volume, near the "break even" price point.

I see F(U)D as a material for making very complex pieces, with working parts inside (and that's all i'm designing with the material). The startup costs discourage making tiny loose parts that are hard to handle, which makes perfect business sense. I often wonder how the guys at the print shop do to find and package the correct pieces from a big print run, sounds like an annoying job to do.

Implementing a limit on loose pieces per file could work, as an increased number of loose pieces complicates handling and cleaning, but probably should be done with a soft limit and rejection in a case by case basis. Say, allow the guy who wants to print a chain mail that wont be a huge hassle, but deny/split orders on the guy who wants to print a thousand knives without a support mesh (that will make the guys at the shop want to shoot them at somebody)

3D printing not only involves art, it also requires careful engineering and business thinking Something i noticed in the material sheet of fud is that it allows a 50 micron gap between loose parts, and some people took that literally and found out it's not possible to clean that well. That's info that should be added.

XD okay now i'm rambling, i think i'll better stop typing now :3

FUD does not work well for moving parts because the wax is very sticky and does not like to get out of printed bearings. WSF so far seems to make the tightest tolerance printed bearings and it requires 0.7mm. The powder does not escape at this but the powder is not sticky so the bearings still turn.

But what FUD does work extremely well for is making small scale detailed items without having to sacrifice proportions to meet thick wall requirements....

unfortunately the new pricing makes the material economically unfit for that purpose.

So what you're saying is that FD/FUD now serves no purpose whatsoever.

Want durability? Go with Metal or Strong&Flexible.

Want detail? Go X-Detail.

So what does FUD offer? Detail comparable to X-Detail, but with smaller wall thickness. Oh, yeah, at double the cost.

Pass.

Break even at ~5.5cm^3? Newsflash: If I have a model at 5.5cm^3, I'm already not going to print it in FD/FUD because it's simply too much. I know my customers. They're not going to pay $30 for a model that size.

So how big is 5.5cm^3? Ever play a table top wargame? Battletech or Warhammer? A "standard" sized fig is pushing 10cm^3. No one is going to pay $40 for that. Oh, that's right, that's the manufacturing cost. Forget about any mark-up.

The ONLY thing FUD had going for it was detail with small wall thickness requirements. Almost by definition this means small, detailed parts. And you guys just priced yourself out. I keep looking for excuses to work with Shapeways, and they keep looking for ways to push me to Ponoko.

Normally I would be leading the charge with torches and pitchforks in the argument against the new FUD charges, but I am going to go against you on this one. I happen to have a couple Galaxies worth of Ral Partha and Ironwind Metals Battletech figures on my desk and random shelves around the house. I can tell you one thing for certain, they are NOT about 10cm^3 worth of material. They might be pushing 6 or 7. And I would gladly pay the almost $30 that it would cost for a highly detailed and accurate miniature. It gets kind of old painting the same minis time and time again and there are times when I would pay good amounts for a new sculpt of say, a Masakari (Warhawk) or a Thor (Summoner). Just my two cents.

Really? I beg to differ: Warhammer volume check. That's a 70 ton Mech in CBT scale. Lighter Mechs will be less, heavier Mechs will be more. My lightest one is 6cm^3. My second heaviest one is 13cm^3. My heaviest one is 66cm^3, and that's in the same scale. In the end, like I said, they're pushing 10cm^3. Sure, I can hollow it. At that point New FUD will be $3 less to print than Old FUD ($29 vs. $32).

As a friendly reminder, $30 would cover the cost to print. That doesn't include any profit. And while I have no delusions about getting rich, I'd at least like to make my investment back. Having been doing this for five years, I know that it's not going to happen at $1 markup per model. At this point I am much, much better off going back to resin.

I know from melting one down but I will go ahead and take your word for it for argument's sake. Let's just say that with markup your mech is about $40. That is roughly 3 times the cost of one of the metal minis at my local shop. I would still rather pay for a new sculpt of a mech in a different pose and that might be more customizable than the metal one just to break it up. I don't really need 7 stars (or roughly 35) of the same mini. If I want to mix it up with a few different variants I will either need to spend a ton of time making the parts myself and cutting on a mini, or I can just buy yours. For me, SW wins this one. But like I said, that's just my thoughts on the matter and if you are making these somewhere else, please link because I would love to see what you have! Thanks!

My last print bureau used to list the volumes on the invoice. And my various pieces of software agree within a cubic mm. Of course that doesn't hold for all designs. I notice you're talking about Clan Mechs and I assume Omnis? Many of those are Chicken-walkers. Those tend to have both spindly arms and legs.

For me, I know what my audience will pay. The Warhammers and Marauders sold out in two days, so those were under-priced at $20 apiece. Or were they? I did a second, half-run for Warhammers and they took a month to sell out. I don't like sitting on inventory for even that long. The Rifleman, OTOH, had a run about 2/3 that of the initial Warhammer run. Three months later and they're still not sold out. Similar deal for the Archers, which took about six months to sell out. All were $20 per kit. So I might be able to hit $30, but that's pushing it (though I did see one pop up on Ebay for $55 once) and it's going to leave me sitting on stock for much longer.

Now, I know what you're thinking... Maybe the kits were no good? Yes, it's patting myself on the back, but I have a darn good reputation. You're welcome to ask after me (Justicar) on Lords of the Battlefield and The Mighty Ten-12 (Star Trek 1/2500) and see what people think. I'm pretty sure you'd be amazed if you saw my Warhammer: It's 26 pieces (in two inches tall) and has fully pose-able joints. Check that Photobucket link and you'll see parts breakdowns for some of them. About the only thing I didn't do was individual missiles, and I was sorely tempted to. This is the sort of kit that FUD was meant for, but the price is just too much. Well, in resin it's a multi-part kit. In FUD I would have had a half-dozen pre-posed versions.

That's why I started looking at going from 1/300 down to 1/450. I figured with 1" tall models I could hit $10 even with mark-up. With the new pricing, it's over $10 just to print it. I'd say it's back to the drawing board, but I'll be damned if I'm going to go back and re-design a model that was within their design tolerances. There comes a point when it's just not worth the hassle, and that's pretty much where we're headed.

All that said, I won't post any real sales information here. That's not the purpose of this thread. Sorry.

Hello,

I had a look on SW a long time and when they announced FUD I joined the community because that was the material I was looking for. High detail and small wall thickness, the right thing for railway miniatures.

Now the pricing system looks very bad for me. I see that the handling cost for a lot of tiny things are extremely high, but this system is not attractive for shop selling miniatures. As described above no one will look at an object that will cost 6$, when it has a volume of 0.10cm³ or less.
As self consuming designers we can combine several objects in one order, but will this help reducing SW handling cost? Other byers have not this opportunity and it couldn't be the SW idea that every costumer has to contact the designer to create a specific bulk.

I would prefer a higher volume price and then a discount for more than 5cm³ or something else, as it is done with WSF. Or what do you think about a handling and shipping fee per order?

Another approach I think could be possible, would be customized sprues. It is not as handy, because I like the 3D printing approach, where you don't have to remove any sprues. But I see also the handling problem in production and shipping. So my idea is, that the designer can define one or more faces of the object, which will be used as sprues. Now a customer can add several objects to his basket and if they have the same material they will be combined to one sprue. Perhaps this can be done automatically or we need an online editor where the user can design his sprue.
This will of course reduce the optimized packing volume of the printer, but will reduce handling effort as I assume.

m2cent
Michael

Hey guys, I wanted to let you know that I've been watching and listening closely to this conversation.

I know this is a tough break for a lot of you, and I'm sorry. I'm not going to weigh in on some of these details just yet, because I'm still speaking with our operations and production team, and I want any info I share to be coming from an educated place. Just know for the time being that it's not falling on deaf ears.

I am in the same boat - lots of small parts for 15mm scale models means my costs for many parts have sky rocketed - with fineline taking their Invision HR of fthe market this is now a double whammy for me... as commented this goes against the whole concept of being able to print very small yet high detail parts

Adding two parts to cart - both parts retain the $5 fee is it is per part to be printed and not per order.

This means I will certainly have to combine lots of small parts - makes it more time consuming for me and no doubt more difficult for shapeways to manage... No doubt will also make sprues of many small parts - again time consuming my end

regards
Andy

I had a part that was $.38 in FUD. Now it is $5.38. I placed 10 ea in my shopping cart. $53.80 ..

Geeze. Talk about cutting your own throat. I had been promoting Shapeways. Guess that will end.

Put all 10 into one file. Should come out to ~$7.90 total now.