Serious Problems With “tan” Detail Plastic.

I'm not one to post public complaints, but this is such a serious issue I feel compelled to try and open a little discussion about this problem.

Last year Shapeways have moved away from "frosted" fine plastic prints made on ProJet gear. They now use VisiJet M2R plastics.

The two plastics are VisiJet M2R-TN1 "tan" and VisiJet M2R-CL1 "clear". For a brief period they offered VisiJet M2R-GRY1 "grey", before switching to tan.

1) VisiJet M2R "tan" plastic is more brittle. I've had test prints with internal fractures and broken edges.

2) The print guidelines have silently changed. Many of us with Shapeways "fine plastic" products have suddenly got designs that are being rejected as unprintable. Reworking all my products is a massively time-consuming problem.

See those areas in red? Those all have to be redone on this design. A design which passed fine the other month.

I understand that grey had issues with higher temperatures, but switching to tan is not a solution.

3) VisiJet M2R-TN1 "tan" is a dirty muted yellow, not tan. What they means is that it's got an objectionable colour cast. If you're painting it white or a light colour, the yellow tone seeps through. You then have to put layers of thicker paint to increase the opacity, thus reducing details.

This wasn't a problem with either translucent or grey plastics.

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These are serious problems. Problem 2 is a real show-stopper for designers, though. I see sales drop each time Shapeways' prices increase, it's not really cost-effective for me to rebuild and fix all my designs.

I realize that Shapeways is more interested in targeting large companies than small private designers, but this is a disappointing change.

Please, move your mouse arrow to the word Materials at the top of this page and tell me which item(s) you are talking about. Have you removed the old product from the list? What was it before (assuming it has been de-listed or what one should be delisted now that the "Visijet M3 Crystal" (whatever that is/was/whatever) is no longer used)?
.
I positively and completely cannot follow what was/is/gonna-be/never-was/whatever. I do wish you could pick "A NAME" for a material and "A NAME" for a process, and stick to that ONE and ONLY name throughout all references to a product.

I understand the changes in design guideline, and if it result in increased printability or reduce reprints and refunds maybe its justified to lower the price for the material?

My story:


The problems with the changes:


So what now?


Grey plastic:

What could Shapeways do?

• Notify all stores immediately, by email, of this change.
• Update the revised design specifications, indicating WHICH specifications have changed.
• Publish a page detailing the reason for the changes.
• Generate a spreadsheet for each active store that uses “fine detail” plastic.
• Include in this spreadsheet a list of all models likely to fail the altered design guidelines. Include the number of sales for those models, the most recent sale date, and the most recent design upload date.
• Update the preflight “3D Tools” page to optionally generate wall thickness views using the previous design specifications. Then users can flip instantly between the previous and current design views, so they can tell at a glance the areas that have changed and which need alterations.
• Fix the 3D Tools so that it more accurately predicts whether a model will pass manual checks or not.
• Fix the 3D Tools so that they’re rapid to load, and don’t require a half dozen clicks and waits to view essential data, such as wall thickness.
• Fix the 3D Tools so that the loose shells function reliably shows the designer where the problem areas lie. Right now you click on the numbers and nothing really happens.
• Rework “fix problem areas” to be usable. I find it doesn’t highlight the fixed areas in blue as it’s supposed to, nor can it display only the fixes. It also downloads the fixed areas as .x3d files, which isn’t very useful. You can’t view such files in common tools like Meshmixer or macOS Preview, so you have to spend time converting to STL first.

I'm not 100% sure what you're asking here, but I'm guessing it's the situation of the naming of the different types of "fine detail plastic" aka "material jetting" materials?

My understanding is:

- Initially Shapeways used a translucent resin that they marketed under the name "Frosted Detail Plastic". This was used in dual-jet printers that also produced removable wax supports. The wax supports were printed on the bottom of each print.
- They offered the prints at two resolution levels, which they named "Extreme Detail" and "Ultra Detail".
- They then changed the name of the products to "Smooth" and "Smoothest". A bit confusing, since the only difference was the print resolution (29 versus 16 microns or something like that) - I don't believe the resin itself changed.
- Next, because the old printers were being retired, they introduced a new product line using different resin types. They no longer offered the highest resolution option, but went for a different default resolution. The new process encases the whole print in wax, but results in less wax texture.
- The new resin types were "grey" and "clear" fine detail.
- After a brief period the "grey" resin was silently switched out for "tan" resin.
- From a technical point of view, VisiJet M2R-TN1 is "tan" and VisiJet M2R-CL1 is "clear". VisiJet M2R-GRY1 was "grey".

I hope that's basically accurate. I don't know what year each change occurred, though.

Hi all, sorry I just found this thread. In fact I started another thread about this. My thread was more tongue and cheek, however the same topic. https://www.shapeways.com/forum/t/not-all-material-are-created-equal.102599/

The issue here are in todays age of many many resins and manufacturers. We are discussing a material and printer set which is really for the model making hobby. If shapeways has other clientele and verticals using the fine detail plastics great, but you have a large part of the marketplace catering to scale models. Personally I work in tabletop gamming section or 28mm or close to 1:48 or O scale adjacent.

Now I discovered this issue second week of January as I make variations of products. For example shoulder pads with customized symbols embossed on them. Well that week I saw one of my designs failed the 3d tools check for tan. I reached out to support and after some back and forth was also told the specs changed.

I asked could we get a report of what items were now unprintable and was told sorry we dont have that info and we just need to wait till someone orders the piece and it gets flagged.

My response was in those cases we are limited to only add 10% material to the fix. The response was the equivalent of a shrug.

Personally I have over a thousand items. Manually going through them and having to rebuild them as I see green will be time consuming.

Also we are told the specs changed .... well when I looked at the specs last week in the 3d tools, it looked the same sprues should be 1mm thickness of parts needs to greater then .7mm etc......but wait I just uploaded a model to test while writing this and low and behold I switch to Tan Fine Detail Plastic and no specs show anymore. So that means we now need to goto the materials page to see the results.... but really the specs are pretty darn close

Supported Wall Thickness Min
0.6 mm
Unsupported Wall Thickness Min
0.8 mm
Supported Wires Min
0.8 mm diameter (or thinnest dimension if not circular).
1.0 mm diameter (or thinnest dimension if not circular) for sprues, or wires bearing weight.
Unsupported Wires Min
1.0 mm diameter (or thinnest dimension if not circular)
Details Min Embossed
0.1 mm high & wide
Details Min Engraved
0.1 mm high & wide
Single Escape Hole Diameter (Min)
One escape hole is not adequate for this material
Multiple Escape Hole Diameter (Min)
4.0 mm diameter

Now as the other commenter said we are now getting help us fix your model emails
The last one I got was for a jet backpack with angel wings and dragon head jets on the side

Noew the are of concern was the horns on the dragons head

now I just had one printed recently. I hadn't yet heard the story of oh tan is brittle so we changed the specs. Personally this was a tech doing the layout and wanted to avoid a failure.

We recently designer got the option to print anyways so I said this is a know print lets print anyways

Well the order went through. No comments of a bad print, and it was shipped to the customer.

So I reached out to the customer and they sent the following



and here is the overall print


Now I have gotten smaller prints since we switched to tan and the prints were good. However the quality of this print's layer lineds are horrible

Here is the view in 3d tools its for clear, because even though the print went through and the customer got it Shapeways response was to pull the model stating I cant turn it back on until I change the model.




Now I follow different hobbyists who cover 3d printing and the quality of resins in the market are amazing to the point there is a discssion of do resin printers from elegoo, anycubic and so on can product prints that are better that traditional casting and now the topic is the quality better than computer created injection molding.

This Tan print ....... I dont know. The quality should be way better... the problem is other solutions out there do not have consistency as I place and order I know it will be created in europe, shipped to the US and sent to a customer. Xometry, 3dcraft cloud and the like are networks of small shops this month my order comes from arizona, next month Mexico. The pricing and the timing is not consistant....but thats a different discussion. This we are model designers need a affordable hi detail high quality. Again Im 28mm, I feel for the n scale designers you catalog must be hurting with this change.

So to @MitchellJetten what is the plan to improve this? You are already higher than the other print services. You are behind on the quality of the prints. You are having problems with global shipping costs, and honestly should look at doing domestic printing for where your prints are going to.

So whats the plan???? Can we have a dialog with those making the descisions?

Thanks

I offer many scale model kits of detailed fire apparatus. I brought the brittleness of the tan to their attention shortly after it was rolled out. Cutting parts from the parts tree and then having them brake, I have had many upset customers. But the reply I received was that it is no better or worse than the gray or the FUD. It must be the way I or my clients are cutting. Glad to see here that it is not just me. And i also agree with above that it does not paint well and the print lines are very visible. For the shapeways is charging for prints in this material, they should be much nice quality of a product.

@SemperVaporo not sure if you were answered this is discussing Materials > Material Jetting > Fine Detail Plastic> Tan Fine Detail.

@MitchellJetten I just received a email from customer about tan plastic. They are saying they have ordered tabletop mini parts recently and the parts are breaking and paint does not adhere well, even if cleaned. They are asking is there other material they can order.

We desperately need a new material inline with what home users have access to.

Please reply or have a person in a position to reply post what next steps are.

Mitchell,

Thanks for replying and thank yu for understanding the frustration here. On your comments

Regarding the current models available on the marketplace, if a model has previously been successfully printed using Smooth or Smoothest FDP, and it suddenly fails to meet the requirements, our production team will make an initial attempt to print the model. In the event of a failure, we will assess whether a second attempt is feasible or if a modification request is necessary.

This isnt the case I just had a customer purchase htt://www.shapeways.com/product/MKL3BATY4/cyber-samurai-v7-winged-dragon-jetpack

This was available in tan. the tech flagged it and since we didint know about the respec and it had been printed in the past in tan I chose the print anyways. The horns on the dragon head which was the issue printed fine and was shipped to the customer with out the print failing. However after the item was shipped the tan option permanently pulled, and shows the erorr on the product page and was told I had to redo the model before I can reoffer it.

If a customer receives a broken model you can ask them to contact Shapeways Customer Service.
We haven't seen any reports on the paint not adhering to the material, what paint and or primer is the customer using so we can investigate?

For customer who buy my items and have issues I have them contact shapeways right away. However this is a customer who bought something from another designer. They did not give me details only that they dont want to use the tan as it breaks (which I can attest to) and they had issues painting. I have asked if they can share details and if I hear back will let you know.

Because the print guidelines page doesn't list what specifications have changed, I've gone back to archived copies of the guidelines and compared them to the new ones for "fine detail" plastic.

In case they're useful to anyone else, here they are:

Bigger min thicknesses and brittle material - when everyone I know has these home printers that turn out finer details...

I started buying model train shells/components from Dec 2023 from this platform. A total of 15 items now, all but 2 in the Tan Fine Detail. Three have arrived cracked, that's a 20% breakage rate which is pretty crap in anyone's books. But for me the biggest issue with all this 3D hype is the fact one has to sand all the layer lines off, which basically means sanding all or potentially a lot of the detail off. Yet why is it that I see and can buy from other designers/vendors 3D printed material that comes with smooth surfaces ready for prime/painting. An example being from 3dcentraltrains.com. The detail and finish on their products (it's a front for multiple designers) makes the stuff I've got coming out of Shapeways look primitive.

Yes, it is indeed a shame that SW cannot get their act together to offer a high-quality material to match their high-profit prices!

As others have mentioned, I too have had models which printed successfully in the past now rejected in this tan material.
A lot of time was spent designing the parts so that they looked in scale for their purpose. Adjusting the models to meet the change in guidelines is not only time consuming but ruins the look and makes the parts now look poorly designed and out of scale.
At this point I do not have the inclination to redesign all my models and am prepared to let my storefront die a slow and lingering death rather than try to keep up with this and any future changes in guidelines.
I have an Elegoo Mars printer at home and the quality of the prints is far superior to anything I ever got from Shapeways. I have now started offering my prints online and so far, my home service is outpacing my Shapeways store by orders of magnitude.

I have to say I don't understand the SW business model anymore. When they started they aimed at hobbyists as their prime customers, providing the marvel of 3D printing in a world where such service simply didn't exist. Then later they decided to chase the small-medium market for rapid prototyping for business, turning their back on the hobbyists and telling us to take what we're given. But now with good-quality "home" printers being so cheap and so available, there is no longer a need for hobbyists or businesses to bother with SW. I know they tried to get into the mass-printing market but is anyone really using such expensive tools for mass production?