Hi, folks. I just thought I'd let the community know of a serious pair of problems with the "fine detail" processes used by Shapeways. For some years this has been the mainstay for reasonable quality wax-supported prints in the model-making community, albeit at a rather high price.
I, and many other designers, have used it successfully to produce decent prints for people interested in my 3D designs for model-making.
Over the past little while Shapeways have moved away from their old "frosted" or translucent prints made on ProJet gear. They now sell prints using VisiJet M2R plastics. In many ways it's an improvement, since the new prints don't have the "crumbly wax on one surface" problem that the old process had.
They offer two types of plastic: VisiJet M2R-TN1 "tan" and VisiJet M2R-CL1 "clear", the latter priced higher. For a brief period they offered VisiJet M2R-GRY1 "grey" plastic as an option, before switching to tan.
There are two problems.
1) VisiJet M2R "tan" plastic is more brittle than the previous type used. This means a higher level of broken details.
But worse, they have silently changed the print guidelines for the plastic, increasing the minimum wall thickness, etc. That means that many of us with Shapeways "fine plastic" products have suddenly got products that are rejected as unprintable. As you can imagine, reworking all the products is a massively time-consuming problem.
See those areas in red? Those all have to be redone on this design. A design which passed fine the other month. Multiply that by each design I have.
This is a really aggravating change. In fact, the data sheet for VisiJet plastics specifically mentions that "tan" plastic has a lower durability rating. They give "tan" a rating of three, versus grey and clear which have ratings of four.
It appears they made the change because tan has a greater heat resistance than grey. Unfortunately it has other disastrous side-effects.
2) VisiJet M2R-TN1 "tan" is a dirty yellow, not tan. What they means is that it's got an objectionable colour cast. If you're painting it white or a light colour, the yellow tone seeps through (visually, not chemically). You then have to put layers of thicker paint to increase the opacity, thus reducing details.
This wasn't a problem with either translucent or grey plastics. Shapeways have indicated that they do not intend to offer VisiJet M2R-GRY "grey" again, or VisiJet M2R-WT "white" or VisiJet M2R-BK "black".
If you're affected by either issue, please let Shapeways know what you think. I don't have high hopes that they'll at least given us grey plastic as an option and so fix both problems, but if we don't tell them, they definitely won't!
I, and many other designers, have used it successfully to produce decent prints for people interested in my 3D designs for model-making.
Over the past little while Shapeways have moved away from their old "frosted" or translucent prints made on ProJet gear. They now sell prints using VisiJet M2R plastics. In many ways it's an improvement, since the new prints don't have the "crumbly wax on one surface" problem that the old process had.
They offer two types of plastic: VisiJet M2R-TN1 "tan" and VisiJet M2R-CL1 "clear", the latter priced higher. For a brief period they offered VisiJet M2R-GRY1 "grey" plastic as an option, before switching to tan.
There are two problems.
1) VisiJet M2R "tan" plastic is more brittle than the previous type used. This means a higher level of broken details.
But worse, they have silently changed the print guidelines for the plastic, increasing the minimum wall thickness, etc. That means that many of us with Shapeways "fine plastic" products have suddenly got products that are rejected as unprintable. As you can imagine, reworking all the products is a massively time-consuming problem.
See those areas in red? Those all have to be redone on this design. A design which passed fine the other month. Multiply that by each design I have.
This is a really aggravating change. In fact, the data sheet for VisiJet plastics specifically mentions that "tan" plastic has a lower durability rating. They give "tan" a rating of three, versus grey and clear which have ratings of four.
It appears they made the change because tan has a greater heat resistance than grey. Unfortunately it has other disastrous side-effects.
2) VisiJet M2R-TN1 "tan" is a dirty yellow, not tan. What they means is that it's got an objectionable colour cast. If you're painting it white or a light colour, the yellow tone seeps through (visually, not chemically). You then have to put layers of thicker paint to increase the opacity, thus reducing details.
This wasn't a problem with either translucent or grey plastics. Shapeways have indicated that they do not intend to offer VisiJet M2R-GRY "grey" again, or VisiJet M2R-WT "white" or VisiJet M2R-BK "black".
If you're affected by either issue, please let Shapeways know what you think. I don't have high hopes that they'll at least given us grey plastic as an option and so fix both problems, but if we don't tell them, they definitely won't!
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