I agree it’s nothing new. I operate both FDM and SLA printers. If you read the guidelines it says hubs WILL remove and sand the supports. As I stated, I HAD the option to use support material removal as an optional upcharge. Now I do not have that option and am forced to include that service in my base price making me less competitive especially for customers who wish to avoid paying shapeways level pricing.
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I don’t see it that way. If it’s minor supports I include the removal for free.
If major supports are required, I charge extra for the support material (which also includes removal, unless the customer wants to remove it themselves). The guidelines do not say you cannot charge for removing supports.
Also we need to remember that once a customer already has paid as long as you explain what the charges are for, they will comply.
Now if 3D Hubs insists you remove supports and you do it for free, well then that would be a totally different issue.
What is sad is that 3DHubs is doing this in a vacuum. Did they reach out to hubs asking them what to do? Probably 2 or 3 in Amsterdam. My hubs prices are very low, as the goal for me is to get 3d printed parts out to people for a reasonable cost. There is no place to state what are optional services, or what MANDATORY services are. Might be time for us all to switch to other 3d printing sites, like makexyz.com.
If 3dHubs is going to micro-manage all of us hubs, then I would say that we are being employed by 3dHubs and that we should be also compensated per hour for anything that we have to do with regards to printing. Uber lost its claim that it was just an app and that it’s driver’s were subcontractors, and they are employees. If 3dHubs is going down this path, it is a slippery slope.
There next step is going to be that hubs won’t be able to assign prices for their prints, and that there is one set price per location.
The support material removal option needs to be made a cost definable option that the customer can select during ordering.
Out of 50 orders, only one was surprised/confused by having support material attached. I am now spending more time explaining to the customer about support material and if they want me to remove it, or if they want to and I supply free side clippers. I even have “My prices do **NOT** include support material removal.” as the first line of my Hub’s About section which is visible during ordering, but I still have to explain it. If this system is not altered to have this as an optional cost based service (no matter how it get defined), I will voluntarily offline my hub until that does become a feature. That isn’t a declaration of protest, it is simply my determination that the current SLA guidelines will make my continued high level of service too much of an inconvenience for me. My other option is to add my hourly rate to my complex calculation, which will have me receive 0 orders (or people asking if my prices include hand delivery by Justin Bieber, where he also plays a full concert post delivery).
@Wirlybird curious as some of my non-3d hubs orders I do remove support and sand. This can take me anywhere from 1 to 3 hours depending on the number of parts, how fragile the parts are etc. If I were to use my typical rates, the minimum cost would be over $300 USD for a stupid simple print that take only 1 - 2 hours of time.
I think there is some flexibility in the guidelines. Ex. I have always removed support material, but offered full sanding and priming as an add on. I made sure to update my hub’s description to spell this out. (Basically, it’s how I can keep my price lower than other hubs.) With this stated up front, it creates an understanding with the customer and therefore meets the new guidelines. I think as long as customers aren’t surprised, then everyone is ok.
The first line of my hub states I don’t remove supports, nearly all of my clients have no idea what my hub ‘About’ section states unfortunately. Even though it also appears during ordering too, it again goes unread. This is why it needs to be selectable as part of the order process.
9 days later
I think I have solved my own problem within the 3D Hubs ordering process. Using colors creatively.
I know it! Most of the stuff I make doesn’t have very complicated supports so they are not to bad to remove. I just do light clean up on removal and let the customer know about finishing that they can do. I probably spend an inordinate amount of time fiddling with the supports so that when they print they can pop right off! I guess that is my OCD challenge!
I did have one job where each part had massive supports (each print was 35 hours) and were a pain to remove, sliced hands and all! Who knew PETG could be so sharp! Because of the size and cost of the job I still included it as basic support removal.