Road To Major Fud Improvements Starts With Repricing

@Sonic_Sun, i think you miss the point. the potential 70% percentage of items to get lower prices is actually virtual. in reality the percentage of items with lower prices is much less. why? because the automated setup for fud is horribly messed up and it results higher prices, no matter the number of parts, no matter the size of parts and no matter the orientation of parts. any lower price - if any - for the moment is a matter of pure luck. as for my designs - since you asked - i see no difference in price. no matter i tried different orientation, it simply doesn't work! no matter loose parts attached on sprue to be considered as a single piece item, no big difference on price. the only new feature i can see by now, is a new complicated to understand price calculation guide, while shapeways is not fixing problems for fud plastics, ignoring the 30% of items and hoping that the remaining 70% of products could raise sales

if you noticed, designer HOLDEN8702 rightly complained that his item was automaticaly oriented in a standing position causing higher price due longer measure on z-axis. wanna hear the worst part? he had no choice to make the part pararel to 3d printer's tray, in order to reduce model's heigh and ofcourse production cost. explanation given by shapeways employee MitchellJetten, mentioned that the amount of supporting wax in cm3 when model is placed standing, is about half of amount of wax when model is pararel on tray, but he forgot to mention that only few mm difference in z-axis (height) could multiply cost due the complicated formula of production cost calculation. you missed one critical detail! heigh affects production cost much more than supporting wax does. automaticaly orienting the models in a standing position is causing much higher prices and designers cannot fix that nor have any control ! now, do you understand why everything is messed up and why the announced 70% of items with lower prices is only virtual and not realistic? shapeways is hoping to increase sales , only by relying on a virtual percentage 70% of total items and will completely loose the rest 30% at last.

an item cost $10 before new prices and $9 after new prices is considered as a "success" for shapeways and filed into the 70% percentage group of "reduced price" products. i would not be happy because reducing price from $10 to $9 is not so great "success", it does not makes big difference and there is no need to cheer about. same time, i would honestly have no problem if the price would become from $10 to $11 after new price and no need to worry about - the $1 only difference is not something to be sad about. on the other hand, an item cost $10 before new prices and $50 after new prices is filed into the 30% percentage group and does makes big difference ! why ? because re-orientation of model does not help, total parts reducing doesn't makes sense and shapeways will completely loose customers of this specific item. plus, a designer who will flee on another 3d printing factory for lower prices , will never return back to shapeways .

see my point? see why i strongly believe that new prices were applied without adequate preparation and without ensuring that the system will work smoothly under any condition ?

Holden's case looks to have been computed fine (= standing is cheaper) if the following math is OK.
USD/wtfunits, supportA cm2, height cm, USD/cm3, supportV cm3
(0.09 * 17.88 * (0.26**1.25)) + (0.38 * 6.08) = 2.61
(0.09 * 1.28 * (4.06**1.25)) + (0.38 * 2.98) = 1.80
45% more for the flat case, while using over double wax.

having model standing is cheaper than orient it pararel on tray ? that is interesting. i admit that i did not expect it. the use of the new complicated price calcuation formula, results unexpected answers

I only know one German proverb. Not sure if it applies to anything in this thread.

"Aus einem verzagten arsch kommt niemals ein fröhlicher furz!"

Correct, with the new formula, optimizing (split or join products, add or remove sprues, stack or flatten...) to achieve good price and quality is going to be complex if not maddening.

Next week when they change the rules its rise and repeat. That's why I'm sittting out on making changes until everything settles down.

If I can understand your maths (I'm an architect, but I swear I've been lost into all these new pricing method) you are talking about 45% more wax (or double?). As I said,
I'm sure finally machine space printing (modified height x 1.25) will make the difference.

But "flat" models allows to print we would say 4 models in a machine tray (I'm guessing) in two hours (guessing again).
You need an engineer (or more) with a cup of coffe standing near the machine to remove printed models and for adding a new printing tray to keep busy and hot the expensive machine. Night workers, weekend workers,...

You take these same models, put them "standing", regardless if they are more expensive or less detailed (this is not the shapeways business), and you can fill a machine tray with 12 to 20 models to be printed in 12 hours. All these engineers will sleep at home, no coffee, no night working teams, less man cost. Easy.

Did You (and me) are more happy not knowing all this shit a month ago? Sure. But usually shapeways fall into pits full of shit and try to get out putting the foot on designers shoulders.

LOL

Don't forget that currently the orientation view shows the cheapest option. This might not be what you expect (that part on its side for instance) but it currently doesn't reflect how the part will necessarily be printed as an engineer could reorientate to increase the quality without charging you more.

If anything the mistake shapeways have made is to introduce the new pricing formula without also allowing us to set the print orientation. It's clear the two things are fundamentally linked and so should really have been released together. That would have allowed us all to easily see the cost difference on different orientations without guessing and to then make the trade off decision between cost and quality for each model ourselves.

I'm hoping that the orientation tool gets released soon, as I think that will solve problems for a number of people, especially those who haven't released models because they need a specific orientation due to surface detail etc.

Mark

When you offered the new pricing structur I was shocked. Then I recieved a message that there was a bug in your software and it (and as far I understood the new calculated price too) will be corrected till saturday 27th (May 2017).
I fellt hopefull, but now I am desillusioned. A basic price (without margin and tax) increasment of finally 85% is the final result! For an item less than 80x80x70 mm the final price now is Euro 126 instaed of Euro 77 before. Off course, my margin did not change. Compared to last week the price still increased about 50% if I would give my design away for free! In teh past I was always happy with Shapeways. Quality was very good, support excellent. And I really liked the feeling of "beeing a part" of a wonderfull creative community bound together by a great and innovativ company.

I do not really (want to) believe that Shapeways did not earn enough money by doing and selling my and others designs in the past. So why changing the price structur to make it impossible to print even small designs (8 cm does not look very large to me) in FuD at an affordable price relation? Even I can not afford my own products in FUD now. Nor can I afford the dozend test prints I did in the past, before I offered a final product.

If I need a (single) flatshaped piece I do not neet to print it. The advantage of printing 3D objects in FuD imo was the possibility of creating rounded and complex shaped designs in (near) direct usable (and multiple) copies.

I first thought about investing another 25-40 hours in splitting up my design in seperated parts to low down the need of support material. But now I decided to test the HP printing first and compare it with S&F and look for a new printing partner for complex FuD prints. I guess, now after you raised your price from 50-80% for my favourite actual design it will not be to difficult to find affordable competitors.

Conny (Ralph Conway)

@MitchellJetten , even though the orientation setting is not in production, is it OK to set the orientation using the button now so that when it is live the previously set orientation will become active? Or will we have to reset all of our orientations once the tool goes live?

Since FUD/FXD is calculated with support volume and machine footprint*height^1.25, it would be recommended to display these variables in the upload screen.
Currently you see 'size', 'part count', 'material volume', 'machine space', and 'surface area'. The 'support volume' and 'machine footprint * height^1.25' is not showed.

I think SW should present all information necessary to the designers in a transparent way. Looking into the viewer what happens and wait until you've grown a long beard is not exactly nice. Can you please add these variables in the first screen?

regards,
Maurice

What button? Currently there are orientation buttons for strong and flexible and porcelain, and for setting the renders but nothing that would affect FUD,

Mark

Some interesting experiences uploading the same set of sprued 1/48 sailor heads.
(and yes, I have some more interesting tasks to do).

(I'VE BEEN INTERESTED ON THE PRICE FOR THIS POSITION IF I COULD CHANGE DIRECTION...)



(THIS IS A WINNER IN PRICE, BUT WILL BE NICE TO SEE IT IN FLAT ORIENTATION...)



(AS YOU SEE, HAL 9000 IS VERY DIFFICULT TO FOOL FOR CHANGE ORIENTATION...)



(MY OWN WINNER, JUST THE DIRECTION SAILORS FACES HAVE TO BE ORIENTATED!
WHAT IF I BREAK IT INTO THREE SPRUES?)



(OH GOSS, WHAT A MESS! THE AUTO SYSTEM EVEN ROTATED TWO OF THEM IN A WEIRD DIRECTION DIFFERENT OF THIRD!)

Thanks,
I see that now- I assumed it was a master button for all materials, DUH.