Questions About What Techs Do With Our Models In Fxd

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Keystone_Details, Mar 22, 2017.

  1. Keystone_Details
    Keystone_Details Well-Known Member
    In FXD:

    When I upload a multi-shell model file, how much manipulation capability does the technician have when placing my model in bounding box?

    Can my individual shells be moved independently of one another, or must it be treated as a single entity by the technicians?

    Is a multi-shell model printed with all of the shells in the same locations as I designed them?

    What model rotations are the technicians allowed when the model nearly fills the bounding box, particularly H & W?

    Does the technician have permission to place other models around other models to fill the entire bounding box?

    What is the typical practice?

    Here is an example:

    upload_2017-3-22_21-1-56.png
     
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  2. MichelvD
    MichelvD Shapeways Employee Manufacturing
    Hi Keystone,

    We have complete freedom in orientating your models while planning them. So they could be planned in complete different places inside a platform.
    We try to use our platforms as optimal as possible, having freedom for part placement enables us to do so.

    I duplicated your model to give you an idea of how it could work with other parts in the same platform:
    upload_2017-3-23_11-35-14.png


    Kind regards,

    Michel
     
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  3. MitchellJetten
    MitchellJetten Shapeways Employee CS Team
    Michel is the big boss of our FUD/FXD department in Eindhoven ;)
     
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  4. Keystone_Details
    Keystone_Details Well-Known Member
    OK Big Boss Michel!

    Perfect response to my query, Thank you.

    Obviously this concerns me a bit as having no control over part orientation could yield unacceptable surface quality in some cases.

    Has there been any thought of how a designer could identify specific surfaces on a part that he or she considers critical to the quality of their part, and in turn the satisfaction of the customer? This would be a sort-of middle ground to the orientation issue and the tech's freedom of placement, that the tech would no know what surfaces are important to the design.
     
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  5. mkroeker
    mkroeker Well-Known Member
    I believe this was discussed a while back in a forum thread covering the introduction of user-defined orientation for parts printed in "strong&flexible". From memory, shapeways' main concerns were in no particular order (1)best orientation (or consequences of optimal orientation of just one particular face for overall quality) not always intuitive (2)extreme cost variations depending on amount of support material needed (3)need to communicate orientation to external production partners
    EDIT: did not fully realize this was almost a year ago, so down on page 15 of General Discussion
    https://www.shapeways.com/forum/t/print-orientation.35216/page-4 onward
     
    Last edited: Mar 23, 2017
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  6. Keystone_Details
    Keystone_Details Well-Known Member
    My question is not about controlling orientation, but more the ability to identify to the techs what surfaces are more critical than others. This might help them to orient individual parts on the bed. This was not covered in that thread.

    Maybe I should start a separate thread on that question specifically.
     
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  7. stannum
    stannum Well-Known Member
    Quality of some surfaces is another way of saying orientation. You want standing as normal to only have some marks in sides (and inside roof, so invisible), but you will probably get bathtub, giving you marks in sides and roof. Target is minizing support usage.
     
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  8. Keystone_Details
    Keystone_Details Well-Known Member
    There must be a reasonable compromise.

    The real question is "why?". Why shouldn't we shop owners expect proper orientation? Why should the shop owners, who are earning Shapeways their money, have to suffer their reputations for bad print quality because Shapeways wants to save a buck? This would never fly in any other manufacturing industry. After all, Shapeways is the shop owners' manufacturer, our supplier. No company likes to sacrifice their brand or image from bad or inconsistent quality. Why should we? Because they say "we won't"? I might even be willing to pay a premium for better orientation, and since when is wax expensive? Call me naive, but bad quality reflects badly on all parties, and frankly customers don't care about the process, they just want quality product without returns, refunds and excuses.

    Quality. First time through.

    Eventually we all know that customers will write this experiment off and stop buying product for unmet expectations.
     
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  9. 00dwkr
    00dwkr Member
    Well said!
     
  10. 00dwkr
    00dwkr Member
    Hi: I hope you don't mind, but I quoted you in another forum, Finishing Techniques:

    Powder Appearing On Fud After Storage

    From my perspective, that thread shares your concerns. Thanks. Dan
     
  11. mkroeker
    mkroeker Well-Known Member
    Depends on how expensive this flexibility would be - "greedy shapeways wants to save a buck" is probably too simple an explanation if they take the risk of producing sub-par prints. I wonder how much more you or your customers would be prepared to pay for "perfect" prints ? "Wax" in general may not be expensive, but perhaps this one type, certified for use with this printer (and possibly only available from a handful of suppliers) is ? I do not see at least their major competitors offering this option either.
     
  12. MitchellJetten
    MitchellJetten Shapeways Employee CS Team
    The simple answer is that our pricing method isn't made to go hand in hand with this.
    FUD price never changed since it's launch back in 2010 (? maybe 2011?), back when we did not have any experience with this material and we didn't print it in house yet.

    As you know, the required support material changes for different orientations, and the higher you go, the longer it takes to print (more chances of the printer crashing) and some other things aren't included in the current pricing method.

    Let's take this example:
    upload_2017-4-5_11-47-36.png

    The train is 5cm3
    Best output for this train would be to print the model as shown in the picture.

    With this orientation it will require roughly 58cm3 of support material (the whole inside is filled to support the roof).
    If we flip the model, as a bathtub, the way we currently print trains, it will only require 13cm3
    And printing it vertical will take roughly 42cm3 (but printing takes wayyyy too long this way).

    So for optimal result to balance price vs quality, it's printed bathtub style.

    I'm not saying I disagree with you, ShopOwners should have the option to change orientation.
    But this would require a lot of thinking and exploring, in terms of how a new pricing structure would work and be executed.

    I'll definitely forward your feedback to our materials team as it's definitely something that could benefit everyone!
     
  13. mkroeker
    mkroeker Well-Known Member
    Your coworker HunterYaw was (supposedly) onto this issue a year ago when the framework for user-defined orientation of xSF was revealed (thread linked from my earlier post). Perhaps it would be possible to provide some update now ?
     
  14. MitchellJetten
    MitchellJetten Shapeways Employee CS Team
    That tool is really basic and works for xsf.
    But for FUD you would need to know the difference in support material, surface area etc in different orientations.
     
  15. mkroeker
    mkroeker Well-Known Member
    Sorry about the unclear wording - I meant to ask whether there has been any progress on this topic, as the limitations w.r.t support material cost were already noted back then. As a side issue, the topic of ensuring consistent orientation of repeat orders (and potentially having to communicate this across varying production partners) was brought up back then as well, but thread updates ceased after a few weeks.
     
  16. MitchellJetten
    MitchellJetten Shapeways Employee CS Team
    Ah, no need to ask, I'm aware of the situation, it's definitely on our radar!
    But I can't tell when this will happen :(

    Once I have more information I will definitely update here :)
     
  17. Cygnus3D
    Cygnus3D Member
    Thank you for the explanation. This is my model:

    [​IMG]

    As you can see it seems to have been printed as shown here. The upper is crisp and well defined. The lower is a rough, bumpy mess. Now, if I want to optimize this, with your methods in mind, should I cut the model in half and lay it out flat? Would that guarantee that it's printed with the flat parts for gluing downwards?

    Edit: This is frosted extreme detail.
     
    Last edited: Apr 6, 2017
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