I'm quickly loosing my faith in Shapeways

Jon,

welcome to the club. My best story so far was the rejection of a model (because its not printable) at the same day as they printet them and send it out. And its unprintable since them......

Hans

Hi Mike,

Having followed several of these threads, I'm curious. Does SW keep a tally of failed attempts for each model? I know it burns to get a rejection on something that plays by the published rules, and that might even have successfully printed in the past, but as a designer I'd be rather more sympathetic to the techie's rejection note if he/she could add "your one successful print in August took us four failed attempts" or similar, just so I could see how the balance was tipping. After all, we all know the "rules" evolve based on experience, and nobody wants to see SW go bust trying to print the unprintable!

Tom

From one of my recent rejections: Since they said 67%.. I would say that YES, they can see how many times something was printed, and how many times it failed.
BUT... it is very likely that such statics are not available before the InShape2 upgrade last year, so for the shop owners like myself that have been here for a good long time, the number of failures might not be available for older models.

So why don't Shapeways convey the print partner's finding as and when they occur... ffs that's what I've been asking for for over two years...

Clear and consise communication from whomever is good... repeating the same old stuff is bad.

I gave up banging my head against a wall coz my doctor said is was bad for me.

Why do you bother?

Paul

I didn't read the thread, I just looked at the pictures. HAHAHA!

Just wanted to say great work on finishing and painting these! Amazing work!

Hi Stony,

That's interesting - having "failure rate" data sure helps us to understand when the rules alone just aren't enough to ensure a print. Do the records make any separation between failing to emerge whole from the printer, and breaking during cleaning/packing? (I've had stuff that prints ok in WSF, but apparently breaks if polished - but it was described in a note so I'm not sure if it was just anecdotal evidence rather than stats...)

Tom

I'm not able to answer that question. I don't have access to any of Shapeways internal systems or processes.. I was only reporting what I saw from my rejection email.

OK, I've stayed silent for a bit to see how things would play out before I make any new comments with my issue. Unfortunately things have gotten worse, not better for the life expectancy for these two models.

Strike one,

somehow someone has ordered these models even though Shapeways has put a mandatory "not for sale" sign on the models in the store and it appears to be impossible to even order these models as the "buy" option is not even an option.... I've been told by customer service that they don't know how this happened and the only info they can see is that it was ordered on Oct. 15. But I'm sure I'll find out when I get a private message from a disappointed customer who's models they ordered got rejected. Once again, its my reputation for designing models that can be printed that's on the line, not Shapeways. And rightfully so. After all, they are rapid prototype company, not the designer. But I did not want this model sold if my customers are not going to get what they ordered. That's why as I previously mentioned I always order at least 2 models and make sure they can be printed and finished before I put them up for sale on my store.

Strike two,

I made all the suggested changes and was told to upload and update the new model. But I was also told that they can't tell me if the model will pass until someone orders it or if I order it.... I already successfully ordered the models at least twice each! Now I have to order it again???? I'm not made of money or have the time to test and finish models I have already done that for several times over! So instead, I have to wait for a customer to order it and keep my fingers crossed it does not get rejected. And if it does, once again I have a unsatisfied customer that is looking at pictures of a finished model in my store that they can't print out..... Regardless, model files are updated and are now "for sale" and I've done all I can do.

Strike three (not there yet),

Model gets rejected. I'm done. You win Shapeways and my customers lose....

I just read your post in my email Jon.

Well said! That appears to be check mate to me. All Shapeways can do at this point is fix it. There is no way to smooth that over.

Perhaps Shapeways should not charge for further development of a model that has already been printed successfully. This just makes Shapeways look bad. Further developments wouldn't need to be shipped or extensively processed, just verified. So, basically all Shapeways would be loosing is the space in the printer and material cost, which isn't much of a loss when models could be put on standby for when space is available.

Doesn't Peter read the forum? Gosh, if I were the CEO I'd have this fixed in one day. It's going on months now!

I know Shapeways is the pioneer here, but it seems to me, when viewing the gestalt of the problem, it's beyond the research and development stage. It's well into the DO SOMETHING STAGE! HAHAHA!

Something needs to be done. Shapeways cannot afford to have designers getting to strike three and moving on.

James,

First thanks for all your kind words about my finished models, I really appreciate that.


I agree with you 100%. It would be one thing if I never printed a model out and demand it to work the first time. But if a model has been printed out several times over and then gets rejected, it should at least get tested at Shapeways expense when re submitted. Otherwise if it gets rejected again, the designer loses, the customer loses but Shapeways gets to keep the money and force the customer to spend it elsewhere in Shapeways. There might be good logistical reasons that Shapeways does that. But I don't know how they think this makes or keeps customers happy. In a way it makes them hostages. My customers that got a credit for these models have to either hope I can fix these models or hope they can find something else they want to buy. Otherwise they are stuck with a credit they may never use.....

Thanks,

-Jon

Suggests someone with higher powers - shapeways internal order to review printing of this model due to your complaint ?



Strange. It used to be that one could ask service to check a model "out of line" ?

Strange. It used to be that one could ask service to check a model "out of line" ?
[/quote]

That's what I thought....

Ask Peter if I can be the CEO for a day and I'll fix it in ONE DAY!

Maybe you guys should have a FIX SHAPEWAYS IN ONE DAY contest! The winner gets CEO wages for a day! HAHAHA!

Ok, seriously though. I would ask you why you think it is that it cannot be fixed in one day, but I'm aware that you're not at liberty to discuss some of the possibly proprietary operating methods of Shapeways, so you might not actually be able to have a conversation about that. And perhaps there is a whole list of hidden things I am being naive about that would in fact prevent me from fixing it in one day. Regardless, I know that I could create a company like Shapeways that wouldn't have these ongoing problems centered around rejection.

That said, let me just show you one of the things I could do in about the first two hours just to buy me time for the rest of the day. Ok, what is the number one problem with rejections? The number one problem is that the designers are getting perturbed when they feel they are not being treated fairly. Correct? They never get perturbed when they make an actual error and it is pointed out. They get perturbed when they're doing everything right, in their mind, while still receiving rejections of various kinds and in various ways.

Ok, how to fix that. Simply inform designers right there in the design rules that the rules are not actually rules. That if a designer spent a month designing something by the rules it doesn't necessarily guarantee that it won't be rejected.

In this way, prospective designers will know what they are getting into right from the beginning and therefore they will not get perturbed when they get the kinds of rejections everyone is complaining about.

At first glance it would appear that new designers would be reluctant after reading that notice and would shy away from using Shapeways and consequently Shapeways would lose revenue. However, without that notice you're actually losing more business when the foundation stones of your business turn into pillars of hate. When they go out to the public and describe all manor of unfair treatment perpetrated by Shapeways.

I could fix all the other stuff too, provided I'm envisioning the entire picture there at Shapeways and nothing is hidden from me.

If you can think it, you can make it.

Yeah, folks will sooo look forward to rejection messages once those get semi-funny three-liners appended

Seriously, the problem (as I see it) is not rejections as such, but (seemingly) inconsistent ones, in particular unexpected rejections of parts that were successfully printed before. Part of this is a training issue, which will take more than a day to "fix" unless you develop a way to flash people's brains
from a single "known-good" source. Another part is a log-keeping issue, it must be clearer what was or was not successfully printed, and printing
results must be communicated to the designer automatically where necessary. Third part is redesigning the flow of information when a third-party
order is affected - does the (presumably inexperienced) customer just get a normal rejection message, or does the designer get a chance to resolve
the problem without the customer even knowing it existed.

On the other hand, from what we see in the other discussions here, the issue appears to be compounded with cases where the designers tricked themselves - making supposedly minor changes to successful models that cause them to fail, unknowingly stabilizing fragile designs by printing
them in linked groups and then wondering why the print of an isolated item fails. And last but not least, we see "selection bias" at work - reports are
almost exclusively of things that went wrong, and only shapeways knows how big a percentage of all orders (or even just all shop orders) these
represent.

Er, no disrespect, but Mr Weijmarshausen has done pretty well so far so he gets my vote.


I don't think anyone can reasonably complain about true problems with their models - yes, it's frustrating but fair is fair. In my case (and, believe me, I know not everyone agrees with me!) I would prefer that a model is rejected than printed once but not again without mods. That way I have a clear idea where I stand. But then that succesful model should always print, normal snafus notwithstanding.


Very true. Human nature I would suppose, but SW seem pretty good at accepting the negative feedback and moving on.

I would add that SW is my favourite 3D Printing company for many reasons, and that the reason I offer my (apparently unheeded) suggestions is to make SW an even better company than it already is.

As shown in the image, there are legitimate reasons these items were rejected, even though these elements were over looked previously. I'd like this thread to continue to be constructive about the issues originally posted and not sent off topic. So from this point forward, if you have something to say about rejections that isn't directly related to the issue originally posted, please feel free to on the Preventing Rejections thread in the Suggestions section.

Agreed! I highly admire Pete! He's actually managed to change my entire outlook on life, since building things has been my lifelong pursuit and Shapeways is all about helping people build things.