Preventing Rejections - Update on Project Caterpillar

0.03" means 0.03 inches...

Whether or not that equates to 0.762mm I cannot say as I avoid the Imperial system like the plague.

Just a follow up to my prior comments about intersectiong shells- although the order hasn't shipped yet, the ORDERS page indicates the models that had intersecting shells printed- so they weren't rejected.

It seems that adjacent shells, even when there is no space between them, will get a rejection. I will test further on my next order.

Shells that sit face to face will cause issues with Meshmedic when you upload. Faces can not exist in the same space. the software will try to fix it, and most of the time it will not come out well.

when you say faces cannot exist in the same space, do you mean faces that intersect at an angle or faces that duplicate each other- well, at least for a portion of their area? I assume there is a term to define this, but I don't know it.

I think that one of my more recent rejections has a face of one shell in the same area as another. I don't think I designed it that way, but I had run it through netfab online and think it may have split it up into multiple shells. Hopefully that model is fully fixed. It is in production at this time.

The model that just printed has one portion of the model that is a seperate shell that I connected by locating it with a flat portion slightly inside another shell. Here is a picture from thje outside (yes, it's a minature port-a-pot):



And here's a view that shows the inside of the main shell and the other shell protruding:



This has worked in the past. Is it another issue that may lead to future rejections?

I believe the term is non-manifold.

As long as your shells intersect you should be ok. The problems arise when the faces of two separate shells are in exactly the same plane at the same co-ordinates with no intersection. The same is true of edges, and for all I know individual vertices too.

Coplanarity.

Wow, what do you know, it seems that I'm not even close to the only one who is becoming sincerely aggravated by inane model rejections.

So back at the end of February this was posted:
Still waiting..... losing patience too.


What drew me to this thread today though? I got a model rejection for a too thin wire. The issue with that? The unsupported wire was just a sprue anyway, meant to convert something that would be rejected for being "multiple models" into something that can be printed as one unit, and blatantly didn't need to arrive intact. The killer? That wire met all Shapeways specs. (WSF 1.0mm unsupported wires). The rejection cited no actual specifications for what would be acceptable, nor provided citation to where such specs could be found. It was fully compliant with the specs found here:
https://www.shapeways.com/materials/strong-flexible-design-gu idelines

The model is private, so I'm not going to post the image showing it, but the wire was supported every ~3.5 centimeters.

The first response to my "WTF?" by Maartje was broadly unhelpful, having clearly not read my initial email, was probably formulaic, and conveniently listed the WSF specifications to which my model had complied. A follow-up requesting contact with someone who could actually provide insight into the issue, rather than just flog a keyboard, was promptly replied to stating the concern would be passed along to the engineer who rejected it.

So here is the thing. There used to be a "fix my model if it can't be printed" option, which I'm sure was time consuming, but addressed the issue of these byzantine and apparently secret specifications regarding why a model could be rejected. So I could go through and list all the solutions customers have been clamoring for (shapeways fix it themselves options, just print it anyway and we'll accept it imperfect, actually bothering to list the full set of specifications against which models are being judged, not rejecting already test printed models, offering a model rejection/acceptance submission system allowing models to be approved permanently and prior to getting money involved, offering the option for model corrections BEFORE rejecting them and permanently costing us a customer/causing public embarrassment, automatically notifying us prior to print spec shifts so models may be updated, allowing order holds to be placed for model updates, etc etc) but since ALL these suggestions have apparently been found unacceptable by Shapeways, could you possibly come up with some sort of solution that actually works? Clearly there will always be some level of rejections, but the current way they're implemented just doesn't work.

As far as this part, that was only for meshmedic to automatically try to fix files that might not be manifold or have other model issues. It didn't check thickness of your model.

So, out of that ENTIRE post, and the larger string of complaints in this thread, your takeaway message is that really, the automated fixing feature, wasn't terribly helpful anyway. Nice. I can see that, as a company, you're really listening to your customers and working hard on resolving the major issues which are causing strife within the community which supports you.

BTW thanks for responding to my PM in exactly the way I've become accustomed: when pushed you eventually refer to something that has nothing to do with model rejection (in this case an obscure guideline regarding the potential of wall warpage which obviously isn't a problem for a sprue). Have you noticed that these "case by case" explanations tend not to be terribly satisfying, because they provide no reasonable way for a designer to forecast the next rejection?

If it were just a lone rejection, fine whatever I'll tweak the model and the world will keep turning, but its all the time and for ever increasingly contradictory reasons. And its on a whole different level when you reject an already test-printed model that a customer of ours orders. Last time I checked the rankings, I was in the top 100 sellers on Shapeways. Thats pretty ironic to me, because word has gotten around in the community I serve and people really don't want to order my products direct because they think that they'll end up only getting some of their order despite the models being test printed and photographed before being sold. So I have to go and inventory printed items before they'll really sell. That totally defeats the purpose of the Shapeways model. Likewise if I'm losing this many sales to model rejections, how badly must this be hurting other sellers and Shapeways' growth as a whole? And NOBODY is bothering to address this?

Am I alone in thinking this is nuts?

As you said I sent you a PM to try to help you with your issue. As you said your model is private so I didn't want to give out details that wouldn't make sense to those that don't see your model. I am not a company. I am the forums moderator. I help where I can. I relay information that I receive. And if need be, I clean up discussions that lead down the path of no longer being constructive. So if you'd like to continue to constructively add to the conversation please feel free to. As they say you will catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

Woah, woah, woah, hang on now. I wasn't going to weight in on this little exchange, but seriously? That last remark? 'You will catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.' While I am all in favor of civility and manners on the forums, something needs to be made clear here: Shapeways is the service, and we as designers are both the customers providing it with money AND the inventors providing it with unique work. OUR job is not to 'catch' anything. I wholly sympathize with you - as you stated, you are just the forum moderator, nothing else, and this thread is dangerously close to spiraling out of control - but it needs to be understood clearly and without compromise that SHAPEWAYS is the problem here, not us, and that last remark is straying dangerously close to 'you ought to be grateful' territory.

The real problem here is that Shapeways is impenetrable. You say you're just the forum moderator - okay, so where are the full Shapeways staff? Why aren't they weighing in on this? How and where can we address these issues to them DIRECTLY? Without going through forums, without going through customer service reps. We can't. If you, in your capacity as forum moderator, cannot give specific and clear reasoning or answers, then we as designers MUST be able to speak to someone who CAN.

I mean I understand that you're just a forum moderator, and most of the customer service people I speak with are also extremely polite which I appreciate to a point but...... at some point you need to talk to someone who isn't "just a _____ person" you need someone to roll a few heads until the problems are actually addressed, not apologized for.


Why do you think my temper spilled over onto the Shapeways forums? Believe me, in my native forums, there aren't these great mysteries of what the Shapeways problems are, everyone pretty much knows that there is something seriously wrong with the way shapeways processes designs, and in turn runs their business. I couldn't tell you how many more sales I'd be making if there wasn't the general attitude that you may or may not get what you've ordered, you have to shout at someone to get a physical refund although can't just get your order corrected to what you wanted, AND it takes several weeks to show up. Yeah okay, the third one isn't going to be solved any time soon its a labor intensive process to run a store with no inventory, but the first two are problematic and could have been easily fixed.


So, and I've said this privately to the very polite, but regrettably powerless, Mr. Michael and I'll say it again here: we (the makers) have pitched endless ideas on how this problem could be, if not solved, at least significantly improved. Some of these would be just policy changes, some software changes, and some just attitude changes. ALL, at least all I'm aware of, have been soundly rejected or ignored. Hell look at this thread. We're here banging on Shapeways' door and we're getting a (not your fault sorry) paid talking head who can't do a damn thing other than relay information and work the forum tools, presumably gaging me if I become too cutting.

So lets all stop pretending for a moment that Shapeways doesn't have a clue whats going on. Clearly someone who handles money IS watching this thread, and hoping that if they don't say anything we'll all just shut up and go away. Here is the thing though: Shapeways just sent out an email recently stating they had made one of their funding hurdles. Fascinating then that this whole little business experiment is still suckling at the teet of VC money. How amused do you think they'd be if they saw that Shapeways was intentionally poisoning the community they're dependent on and trying to build? I'd bet not very. I know more than a few venture capitalists, and even if the numbers looked good, a bunch of pissed off end-line consumers would make them pretty queasy.

So what'll it be Shapeways? Keep throwing pions at us, ignoring us, and figuring that all the little arrows stay green and pointed up, or are you actually going to show up and fix this?

I had an order completed Monday. But because someone in the production plant didn't take all the models to shipping. It sat there until I complained about it today. Now ShapeWays is over nighting my order via UPS. And that has got to cost them triple what the 5 day ground charge was. And for 2 days no one knew what was going on. They offered to refund the models they couldn't locate, But have yet to do even that. So I don't have the first clue whats in my order.

This is the type of stupidity that I and so many others are talking about. Rejection rates are off the scale. Orders held up and no one knows why, so they have to pay triple to get it to me on time. ShapeWays has people in the Service Team that know what they are doing. But that is mostly as a mouth piece to CALM the riots from the gates of avalon. ShapeWays is too busy worring about it's money issues, and not spending nearly enough time fixing the problems that are costing them money.

People used to order like it was going out of style. But since December when ShapeWays moved the production plant back in-house. And doubled down on their guidelines. The out going out of their way to find issues to reject models for. I don't know how you are suppost to put a Construction Fury together in one shell. Not at only 14mm wing tip to wing tip. When I have the Discovery One in my shop with 47 shells, and it sells all day long. My Spacer1999 Eagle set, has 170 shells over 4 pieces in the file. Yet it's one of the most successful models in the last few months. I'm attaching pic's of the Construction Furys.



Now I'm not a designer, I and my friends paid to have these designs made. And these designs are very successful. Models from our shop are always on the top selling page for vehicles. But it seems that no matter how successful these models are. ShapeWays seems to be trying to destroy our customer base. People no longer trust that our models can be printed. I've had to go back in and repair many models, and still can't get them to print. It's driving us all up the wall.

And like "hunterseeker5" stated, no one at ShapeWays main staff seems to care. The Service Team give good lip service. But rarely do they seem to have the power to actually do anything about the stupidity of the home office. I'm tired of yelling at the Service Team, it's pointless. They have their hands tied with nearly everything. So I want to know, "WHERE IS SHAPEWAYS IN ALL OF THIS?" Are they hiding like Enron CEO's did before their company tanked and it cost everyone their jobs? Are they off on vacation, like congress? And why doesn't anyone from ShapeWays main staff actually weigh in on this thread?

ShapeWays best realize something. They are the printing machines. But it's the shop owners and designers that keep them in business. I ain't going to go brown nosing them to get things done. I did that for 2 yrs. Now where's my damm kiss?

The forum moderators are here just to try to keep it civil. Well I've been biting my tongue for some time now. If I had a phone number to call, I'd be on the phone everyday screaming. I know that I am about half a heartbeat away from having TheVerse shop closed, and being thrown off ShapeWays, and being banned. But someone better start listening. Mr. Denissen clearly stated;

"We as cs are seeing the frustration on designers and customers who get rejections of models and we also know that some design rules are strange or tricky."

The sad part is, it doesn't seem to bother anyone at the higher levels in ShapeWays about the GROWING frustration from designers and customers alike. Of that their design guidelines are becoming so strange and tricky, that is causing many people to just give up on 3D printing. If models that have sold many upon many times before, suddenly becomes REJECTED. Why should people order from ShapeWays.

I truely hope that someone at ShapeWays upper management is reading this thread. Just wish they had to guts to speak up, and talk to "US" directly. Instead of passing the buck to the Service Team. I'm sure those folks go home crying most days, from all the emails wanting to know WTF is going on.

Samantha
@TheVerse

Hi all,

thanks for your candid feedback in this thread. Yes, rejections are a major issue and we share your pain - they cause us a lot of extra work (and frustration), too. The topic is on our radar and rest assured that the right people ARE reading these messages. I'm talking with our Product people right now to learn what we can share about our future plans here, and you can expect an update from us later today.

Also, if you ever feel that you're having a hard time getting through to us, please reach out to me or Natalia. We're here to advocate you, and are actively championing your issues in our product development groups. You literally can't bother us enough with issues that make you unhappy!

Thanks,

Bart

Bartv,

Your future plans should be to stay in business. But your rejection rates are forcing customers and designers alike to bail. How are you going to stay in business, if people all but stop using your company?

December 2012, that's the date when ShapeWays rejection rates jumped clean off the scale. Models from everyone, that printed without complaint, now are total junk. Because you reject for things that in some cases don't make sense. Try this on for size. I wish I still had all the rejection emails that I responded too. Because in them, not once, but several times. Models you were rejecting for WSF guidelines. WERE ORDERED IN FUD!! I've even yelled at the Service Team about it. With NO clear answer ever being given. You got the Service Team so tied in what they can, and can't say or do. They are more like robots. And the emails sound like it too.

When a model gets rejected for multiple shells, it's like WTF. I have one real great selling models in my shop. Discovery One. It's got 47 shells. AND IT'S NEVER FAILED!! So what is this multiply shells issue about? The Service Team either can't say, or won't. I'm tired of yelling at them folks. They are only doing what ShapeWays has told them too do and say.

You tightened your guidelines up so much, it's like trying to get a marble thru a plugged up fire hose. It sounds like it should fit. BUT IT DON'T!. Are you trying to push everyone out? You trying to make everyone not trust ShapeWays?

Because that's what your doing. I have a model that I had designed last yr, It works, it works very well. OR DID! Until December 2012. You used to offer black dye for WSF, and it worked dead on every time. But someone at ShapeWays thought, "HEY I HAVE A GRAND IDEA, LET'S MAKE ALL DYE MATERIALS POLISHED, AND LET'S NOT TELL ANYONE ABOUT IT UNTIL THEY ORDER SOMETHING". Or atleast that's the impression I get about it. Now that model sits. Can't sell it now. It's been shut off by ShapeWays. I tried to reopen it. But all the materials have been blocked. You should have seen to nasty email I got on that rejection last week. I'm still trying to find something soft to sit on.

You've tighened up your guidelines to ridiculous extremes. I've lost so many sells as a result. And they tell me they won't reorder. That mean's you lost out too. My tiny markups don't add to much, but they do work in helping pay the people that work for ShapeWays. Please try to remember that.

Advice, relax some of your guidelines. Allow the printers to try and print models that used to print. And if you have to reject a model, be clear about what, and why. Because I've had a model rejected for thin wall issues, on a detail. Something supported by 3 actual walls. But your people simply refused to listen to me, and even stopped talking to me altogether on the subject. After telling me to please continue to email them my concerns. I had a model that was rejected, corrected file uploaded, rejected again, new corrected file uploaded, rejected again. Only this time I noticed something. the rejection pic's WERE FROM THE ORIGINAL FILE! And too boot, the first file, PRINTED IN WSF, but was rejected for FUD. And I have the model sitting on my desk to prove it. Funny thing is. I took that last updated corrected file, and uploaded it as a new model, and it's never been rejected since. And I didn't make a single change to that last file.

Doesn't sound very damm professional to me.

Bartv, if you can't tell, I'm pissed. And I'm a full blooded Bavarian, too boot. But I'm trying to hold my tongue.

Lets see if you or anyone else, NOT IN THE SERVICE TEAM, has the guts to explain all that to me. And I ain't the only one ShapeWays needs to be talking too either. This thread is loaded with designers and shop owners that are at witts end over it all.

Samantha
@TheVerse

I've had models rejected that were right at the minimums of the materials with new thicknesses that WERE NOWHERE TO BE FOUND.....they were made up tolerances. I've also had issues with models being printed and working perfectly when all of a sudden all sales of that model are rejected.....WHY? Because someone found a "error" which wasn't causing any issues whatsoever in my model.

The best was a model that came back rejected because it was three bodies but in reality someone screwed up and it was still a .stl file that was one model that I made.....I mean I had been printing it for MONTHS before this came up. It seems kinda pointless to run a check each time its printed. I would only check it the first time and if it passes print it and never check it again.

The other thing that really makes me mad is when I receive part of my model and part of someone else's but not the rest of mine. Are you really rushing production that much that you can't make sure all of my stuff makes it in the same bag?


The last thing that makes no sense..... what constitutes a "wall" vs. a "wire" and what length defines a "supported" wire vs. a "free wire"....I mean seriously who thought up all these terms then gave no definition and assumes the modelers can figure everything out.......
https://www.shapeways.com/materials/strong-flexible-design-gu idelines

Basically all a lot of us want is for our models to be approved. I know my models all fall within tolerances but someone magically decides that it isn't.. Then we call and argue with you and OH it will print......The best rejection I've had in a while is that your automated check reject a 1.5 in diam by 1 in model for being too large in WSF..........

Has anyone here ever used competitive service? Their upload and preview process seems a lot more user-friendly (and I'm currently ordering a few prints through them to test their quality) - maybe the Shapeways team should take a few pointers from them.

I work at a high tech production facility with ( World Class Manufacturing / 9001 iso ) certification and still many mistakes happen. Murphy's law applies on everything, we are all humans (I've even seen robots getting confused)

I've had my deal of non/misprints and they've always handled it in a correct way by reprinting the product free of charge or refunding the costs. I believe that Shapeways does everything in their power to correct faults and mistakes and make sure they don't happen again in the future but on such a large scale they operate these days it's impossible to change things in a day/week/month.

Not all the problems that occure are Shapeways fault, imagine if they were negative towards us designers when we've designed a non-printable model that we've put up for sale :cry:

Remember that shapeways together with the designers are making this all possible, they are not more important than us and vice versa.
There are plenty of other services and designers in this world and none of them are perfect.

This counter-argument fails to address, or perhaps more appropriately ignores, some of the larger complaints:

1) We apparently don't have access to the full specs and definitions that the model screeners are working off of, so really we're fumbling around in the dark trying to guess whether or not something will print. Just as an example, what added height/width ratio converts something from a wire to a wall? What span length and grounding convert a supported wire from an unsupported wire?

2) Why can't we address issues before they cause irreparable harm and loss of face, not to mention finances, to customers?

3) Most of us test print and photograph models prior to selling them to assure printability. After doing this, try explaining to a customer why their order was screwed up for them.

4) Why when a "mistake" happens, why do we get a runaround from the CS people who are either unable or unwilling to fix it?

So I'm not entirely sure if you actually read through our grievances, or are just shilling for shapeways, but really your apologist statements fail to really see the issue thats actually being taken. I think all of us here are used to dealing with people, where mistakes can and do happen, but even if it were only that nobody should be accepting of your mistakes if you can't accept your own mistakes eg. model rejected based on something which was explicitly stated to be allowed (like multiple shells in SLS nylon) and when complaining for a correction you're politely told to go pound sand. Nobody is going to have sympathy for your "mistake" in that instance.

Hang on, now, hunterseeker. You have your complaints, and that's fine, and I'm with you to some degree, but slow down. There's a very big difference between complaining to Shapeways about issues that need attention, and actively accusing your fellow designers of shilling for Shapeways or being Shapeways apologists if they state that they have much fewer complaints. Let's have a little more respect in here.

Thank you for weighing in here, Bart. I look forward to these updates that you can provide.

I DO have to mention one thing, though - eventually, the lip service will need concrete advances to back it up. There are quite a few issues that we've been told over and over - by you, by Natalia, by anyone - that are 'being looked at'. Now, many of those issues are aging rapidly, several months by my count, and still all we've heard is 'being looked at'. I think it may be time to open the doors and let us see EVERYTHING. What are you looking at? How? Why is it feasible, or not? What meetings have you had and with who? What companies or contractors have you contacted? This isn't specific to this thread, but for all issues that will apparently take several months to resolve. We as designers are not just 'customers' - we're a part of the structure of Shapeways, and we NEED to be kept in the loop - at any and all junctures, if I had my way. It's not enough to know that something is 'being looked at'. We need to know how, when, why, by who, and how frequently, and we need to know AS it happens so that we can keep the faith that these issues are being legitimately and fully looked over.