Cast Metals Price Restructuring

I think mirror image was always allowed, but multiple parts was limited to only ear rings and cuff links. I know when I friend tried to print wheels for a railway wagon in brass it was rejected for multiple parts,

Mark

Hi Hunter, thank you for your responses. A few follow ups:

1) Why bias pricing towards solid models, ie the solid cube? As far as I can tell, the majority of designs for 3D printing focus on lattice, filigree or surface geometries that minimize material use and maximize the capabilities of the technology. Why not just charge for the support material used? Why penalize all surface area when you can't determine what does and does not effect polishing?

2+3) Is this about lowering prices for users, or covering manufacturing costs for shapeways? Judging from responses on this thread, it does not appear that this will result in a majority price decrease. In my own case, anything larger than a ring will go up in price dramatically. Is the intent to favor smaller, more solid, less complex designs? Is this the majority of what is printed through shapeways? Its difficult to imagine anyone other than ring and earring makers being happy about these changes, but perhaps they are the silent majority here.

Hi @oliverjewelry, our aim here is not to raise prices - it is to align our prices more closely with our costs so that most of the pieces currently printed in cast metals on Shapeways can be made less expensive. It was mentioned several times around the forum, but I want to highlight that we did not take these decisions easily but it comes after a researching among the community and with the community.

Hi @DaveC1964 , I totally understand your points, therefore I want to say that we did not take this decision without the community and that the results of our research came directly from the community members and based on the printing data over 2016.

Regarding the raw cast metal price, I would refer you to the post that my colleague @hunter_yaw gave to a community member with an example:
The cost of surface area is not only a function of polishing. This is best illustrated with an example. Imagine two cube-shaped designs with the same size - one of which is solid and the other has a latticed internal structure. The solid piece takes the same amount of machine space to print as the lattice design but will be sold at a higher price based on metal volume. As a result - the cost of printing it is more easily offset by the volume-driven price than on the lattice piece. Together with machine space in the 3D printer, we have to consider the support material required. A solid cube requires support material only under the cube itself whereas a lattice design requires support material under every internal component, making it much more expensive to print. Lastly there is the challenge that we don’t know which surfaces will be polished and which will not when the model is uploaded and so are unable to distinguish in pricing between polishable and unpolishable surface area.

Ha-ha! Very 'smart' Shapeways....announcing this change as 'Prices going down'! Great cover up because you know how many designers have big and complex things. Having a complex shape is THE WHOLE POINT OF 3D PRINTING!!!!!!!
Thank you for nothing. Out of business. Back to serving coffee.

'If a supplier in a more professional industry tried to do something like this with a 10-day notice period, they would lose all of their customers overnight'....
Great words, but Shapeways knows there are just a few competitors on the market. That was an easy decision as they not going to lose many customers.
Very unprofessional and as always announcing the change 10 day before it will happen! Mortified.

@fitchwork makes a great point -

I agree, it seems like Shapeways is basing it's new pricing structure on an algorithm that's too broad and clunky. This new pricing will rob Peter (latticed larger structures) to pay Paul (solid smaller structures). If this wasn't the case, surely you could do something to offset the astronomical cost to Peter. Such as the following suggestions I've mentioned in previous posts:

- An opt in 90 day grace period where models already uploaded to SW are grandfathered in at the current prices.

- A 20% discount for ordering stock now to help us offset the impact of this significant price increase, since small business cash flow doesn't revolve on a ten day cycle.

- A revised calculation for larger items that bills only for the surface area and material use that actually affect cost and labor. Since some surface area can't be polished, and not all of the surface area needs support structure, the new price revision doesn't seem logical according to your explanation. There has to be a method to calculate unreachable surface area and subtract that (or even 50% of that) from your equation of SA x rate. Then add on a separate function for support structure. Without implementing a more fine-tuned algorithm, the new pricing won't be even, as you say, it will be very uneven. Weighted in favor of small solid pieces and against medium sized intricate structures.

Any of the above three suggestions would help offset potential devastation to the community as a result of this sudden change in pricing.

All I am reading is frustrated designers with their prices going up! Where are these happy people who requested the change? Dear Shapeways would you be so kind to share your research and show how did you come to this conclusion? I don't think you will...
And would you explain why the prices are going up for RAW metals? They are RAW....no finish needed?
This is the 3d or 4th time I see changes like this and have to re-design a lot of my pieces. I understand that 3D Printing is a new industry and you are still figuring out how to make profit. But you are only making it because of us. We HAVE TO be smart. It is us who comes up with new designs worth printing every time you bring those changes. So for once, think of your designers and turn around before it is too late. No one wants to print a simple band ring.
Lucky that everyone is too busy to look through your terms and conditions and find a loop hole that legally wouldn't allow you to make this change....not with a 10 day notice anyway.
All you have to do now is to read comments, all we have to do is to re-design our businesses...
Sleep well.

Angry Designer

This is great news. So I could l, for example, upload a single file with, say, 10 different unrelated little objects which would cost about 5$ each per volume and surface, paying thus a total of 50$?

And what about ordering multiple copies of the same object? Do they sum up to make the minimum price? Or do I have to make a single file with multiple copies inside?

Ha! this is exactly how the repricing went for "Strong & Flexible" a few short years back... a grandiose announcement of reduced cost, but in actuality an obscene & debilitating increase for many. My costs went up as much as 400% with the "Strong & Flexible" repricing. I've discontinued using Shapeways as a vendor as much as possible in effort of avoiding ever getting too comfortable with them again. Turns out it's been the right move & I will have to discontinue cast metals as well. What's even the point if everything needs to be small & simple? Not much of a testament to the "Factory of the Future".

For reference:
This round of new & improved pricing for cast metals increases my costs over 200% for polished silver. This is on a 1.14 x 1.5 x 1.5 inch piece with Material Volume: 2.9118cm3 & Surface Area: 82.542cm3.

Another piece of mine (which I would agree is large) has jumped from $325 to $910!
Dimensions: 6.668 x 8.796 x 8.906 cm
Material Volume:14.4970cm3
Surface Area: 365.1462cm

I think the bigger picture shows the deep flaws in their business model. It is impossible to consider committing to a vendor who hits you with these types of increases & short notices. My efforts in using 3d printing as a medium & developing a market for my work has directly suffered from Shapeways shenanigans multiple times. So much so that I've all but abandoned the medium & certainly Shapeways. I guess it was fun while it lasted... I'm off to other adventures.

Admittedly, this is going to hit some designers hard and the community is going to lose some great designs that are just too large to be profitable. That loss is unfortunate because we need people who are ready to "go big" design-wise. We all learn from them and they make amazing stuff.

That said, a quick scan of the pieces I sell the most tells me my profits are definitely going to go up with this new pricing scheme. I've found a price point that works. My customers are looking for something special as a gift for a graduating PhD student, a gift for their major advisor, something to represent their scientific research, etc. and once they find me, they rarely balk at the price. I will be probably be keeping my prices exactly as they are, but the new pricing scheme means my profit margin is more along the lines of what a good accountant will tell you you should be making in a business.

So put me solidly in the "yea" category regarding the price change. I'm looking forward to the extra Euros rolling in.

The difference here is that we no longer require parts to be identical. The limit on the parts per file is two. I hope this is helpful!

For the topic of raw cast metal prices, I will refer you to the response provided by @hunter_yaw
"The cost of surface area is not only a function of polishing. This is best illustrated with an example. Imagine two cube-shaped designs with the same size - one of which is solid and the other has a latticed internal structure. The solid piece takes the same amount of machine space to print as the lattice design but will be sold at a higher price based on metal volume. As a result - the cost of printing it is more easily offset by the volume-driven price than on the lattice piece. Together with machine space in the 3D printer, we have to consider the support material required. A solid cube requires support material only under the cube itself whereas a lattice design requires support material under every internal component, making it much more expensive to print. Lastly there is the challenge that we don’t know which surfaces will be polished and which will not when the model is uploaded and so are unable to distinguish in pricing between polishable and unpolishable surface area."

Will the price increase be commensurate with better QC, fewer problems with porosity in casting, better polishing consistency, better plating etc.? If I'm going to be paying these significantly higher prices, I expect that I will never again receive a cracked piece, a mixed-up order, a badly bent bracelet, plating that wears away after a few hours, rings full of polishing compound, etc.

I'm someone who asked for pricing changes for cast metals. I certainly don't consider myself a jewelry designer, but I do create a series of bronze models that can be used as either a keychain or a pendant. They are small - a little bigger than a quarter - but have very fine engraved text. I'm frankly amazed that Shapeways can produced text this small in a cast metal (I think they are also, almost every new design I create gets rejected until I show a picture of one that has already been printed!).

These cost around $26 in raw bronze currently before any markup. I primarily make these for myself, but I offer them for sale with the hopes of at least offsetting the cost of creating them for my own use. It would be even better if I could make profit! To that end I have promoted them to a particular audience (geocachers and similar map or geography geeks) but have only sold a few to date. Feedback has been that they are nice but far to expensive. It doesn't help that there is at least one commercial producer of items like these that sells them for under $10 - albeit they are cast pewter (bronze is the authentic material) and not nearly as nice as mine (IMHO). It's tough to argue with 1/4 the price, plus mine need some extra hand finishing to get the results shown in the photo below.

Running this model through the new pricing formula and the cost will drop from $26.34 down to $20.19. That is significant drop and it will certainly help as I make these for my own use, but I'm afraid it's still probably not enough of a drop to make this competitive. Other models I have that have a shape similar to a bottle cap have a price reduction of just a few cents because of the higher surface area.

To keep this in perspective, I remind myself that without Shapeways, I would not be able to realize these creations at all, they would just be models in my computer. It would be fantastic if Shapeways could produce them at a price competitive to some mass producer (probably in China), but that's not realistic, given that every order is essentially a one off custom item. Think about it, they print a master from our designs, create a custom mold, make a casting, and destroy the mold in the process. Repeat for every single order they receive! That's an extremely flexible model and supports the infinite variety of amazing designs you designers are sending them, but it's hardly an efficient way to handle anything in volume.

Unfortunately, the general buying public isn't going to care about any of that. It's up to the individual designer to somehow make the distinction of whatever it is about 3D printing that makes your particular product worth it's price - rarity/specialization, complexity, customizability or just plain how did they do that amazing! This is distinction I've failed at completely as I mentioned earlier!

I'm not smart enough about the production costs involved to really evaluate the old pricing vs the new pricing, but I would assume that Shapeways has the breakdown on what has actually being produced over some period of time - small/simple vs large/complex and what it costs them to produce each and have factored that into the changes. I can also understand the bind they are in with timing. There really is no easy way to phase a change like this in. It seems unfair and unrealistic to hold them to some standard a traditional manufacturer would have with a designer where I would suspect there would be contracts in place with everything spelled out in detail, including minimum orders sizes for example. The flexibility and freedom of not having to deal with any of that has significant value. I know it does to me.

Oh, that's not so great. So, printing tiny pieces is still not economically viable; you really should allow more parts per file, at least four in my opinion.

Can you at least confirm that multiple parts are now allowed for any item, be it a ring, pendant, miniature or whatever, and not only for cufflinks and earrings?

And will you offer quantity discounts for ordering many copies of a single item, like at least one of your competitors is already doing?

If I were a hobbiest, I would probably take a similar position. But if you would have invested in software, development, photography, catalogs, had wholesale agreements, retail shows scheduled, plus everything else to make a business work and all of that came crashing down in 10 days... Well things just do not look so bright anymore...

@xela

"Can you at least confirm that multiple parts are now allowed for any item, be it a ring, pendant, miniature or whatever, and not only for cufflinks and earrings?"

1) There will not be a category restriction so I can confirm that!

"And will you offer quantity discounts for ordering many copies of a single item, like at least one of your competitors is already doing?"

2) We will be announcing and launching a Bulk Discount for Cast Metals in June. We will share full details closer to the date but this is indeed coming soon. In the mean time if you are planning to place a large order please reach out to our Sales Team who will be happy to help! More details here.

@kasiawisniewski The quality issues you mentioned - a cracked piece, a mixed-up order, a badly bent bracelet - are simply inexcusable at any price point. They of course warrant immediate resolution and should not be repeated. Having said that - we have recently doubled down our continuous work on improving quality for Cast Metals. Specifically we are looking to achieve greater consistency. This includes more clearly defined quality standards, including around processes like polishing which vary greatly depending on the design and require striking a balance between too much and too little.

Any reason for a limit of two? I can see it helps with the jewellery but for other categories two isn't much help even if they can be different. I'm not asking to print 100 different objects, but maybe sets of say 5 or 10 parts (think brass boiler fittings for a steam loco) as a set. Most of these would be so small they would come in under the minimum price, so printing 10 pieces would be 10 x minimum price, whereas if I could group them or even better sprue them I could have a single model that would come in at a lower price.

Actually that's another good question, with the changes are there any changes to rules on spruing parts?

Thanks

Mark