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Hi Filemon,

Is it possible to provide hooks into the back-end slicing engine that 3D Hubs uses for estimating product sliced-volumes?

I imagine it would require a bit of work, but if you were able to do this, we could enter in our default slicing parameters on our printer pages and at least have the 3D Hubs estimate come closer to our own individual estimates.

It would also be nice to have an option for support material generation estimates, either by a checkbox or an automatic guess by the slicer.

In any event, we’ve lost an important functionality when we are no longer allowed to enter in our own sliced volume into orders.

Thanks much

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22

Yes, we need to be able to manually enter values. Basically, all of my prints I end up manually reorienting and building support. So, an automated “support cost estimator.” Wouldn’t be super accurate either.

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23

I agree with over 30+ order I am consistently getting volume underestimated on all of my orders to the point where I think 3Dhubs is doing it intentionally to make order go through and slip it by hubs. I have ALWAYS cross-checked it with several programs including Simplify3D and Netfabb and they’ve always underestimated the volume by maybe 20%. Its horrible in terms of business because customers get a price and then get disappointed when the new price comes through and understandably so. Why can’t we just get accurate volume measurements that we can adjust?

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I agree with over 30+ order I am consistently getting volume underestimated on all of my orders to the point where I think 3Dhubs is doing it intentionally to make orders go through and slip it by hubs. I have ALWAYS cross-checked it with several programs including Simplify3D and Netfabb and they’ve always underestimated the volume by maybe 20%. Its horrible in terms of business because customers get a price and then get disappointed when the new price comes through and understandably so. Can’t we just get accurate volume measurements that we can adjust?

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25

Jep, I can see your frustration. I’m taking this up with the dev guys and will report back shortly. It will take a bit to make adjustments. Please let me know if other issues arise

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Wonderfull!

27

@

A lot of downsides of the update have been discussed already and I think there will be some improvement in the future.

From my point of view there are two important things that should be subject to change:

1. Editing materials, colors and the related prices take much more effort than before. It would be nice if there were an improvement that protects the hubs from doing more work than before.

2. The color listing should show real colors instead of names. It doesn’t matter if a customer reads ‘sunlight flare’, ‘bright orange’ or just ‘orange’. He will never have the correct expectation and it is always better to see colors instead of reading their names. Most relevant filament manufacturers can provide us images of their products and they will help you with this for sure (I actually asked 2 manufacturers and they were pleased to help).

Just my 2 cents :slight_smile:

Cheers,

Joerg

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28

Thanks @ will definitely use this feedback! Cheers

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29

got it! will put it on the list

30

I would like to see a time-based option as well. I usually charge my non-3dhubs clients by the hour. This makes far more sense for me, since I am not all that fussed about the plastic content; some jobs use little plastic but take ages to print, especially if I am using a 0.15mm nozzle.

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31

Hi, why we are still missing grams as price calculation. SLA, Poly printers they using grams not cm. material is sold in kg not meters? As you know 1cm of one material (glass) is different than other (Tango)

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This is a great improvement- thank you!

What about pricing for support material? That seems like it would be difficult to determine but a useful feature nonetheless. I know i have lost jobs when i quoted the extra $ for support used.

same with pricing via time. Large prints, complex objects, extra tall prints can have a small surface or volume but take a long time to print due to z height thinking about this would be useful.

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33

+1 rush would be really useful

34

I imagine this would be really hard, but if 3hubs ran a web version of say cura or simplify that picked optimal orientation for object based on our submitted profiles inc support, infill etc then we could have option to dl the gcode in addition to stl . Obvs we all have our fine settings and preferred slicers but it could be interesting approach.

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35

This sounds awesome! Fear that it’s a bit ahead of us indeed, but can’t hurt to look forward, right? :wink:

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It would be great having pricing details based on the print height. With DLP printers like B9Creator and Autodesk Ember the printing time only depends on layer thickness and the height of the print. For example, if you have to print a long and thin part that must be oriented vertical it would take a very long time with a minimal volume.

An xy resolution parameter could be interesting as well because limits a lot the number of parts that can be printed at once, but this can be configured only in a few printers like B9

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37

I agree with those asking for a time-based pricing option. I once had a company contact me directly to print some objects that were fairly large. They wanted to supply their own materials for a reduced print cost. I did reduce the price for them, but through the experience I found that the biggest factor for me in price was time rather than materials.

I know that my own time isn’t really involved – particularly since I am using Octoprint to be able to upload and remotely start a print. However for large or fine detail models, a lot of time is necessary to complete a print which means my printer is kept from other uses for myself and from other customers.

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38

Filemon,

I appreciate the effort you have put in to make things easier for the customer.

However, I cannot begin to express my disappointment that you have removed the single most important part of the ordering process. By removing our ability to enter the sliced volume of prints, you COMPLETELY nullify all the work we put into updating our printer pages!

Why have us modify our printers, resolutions, materials, startup costs, and other items, when we will just ignore all that and have to manually calculate the quote for the customer??

Again, you have removed a key functionality that I have relied on since I started printing for 3D Hubs back in January. My opinion of 3D Hubs has dropped considerably because you either fail to comprehend what’s involved here, or are just simply ignoring our feedback. I think you underestimate the importance of being able to enter sliced volumes into our orders.

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39

Agreed. I always bill customers by weight of printed object, including supports. Filament is sold by the kilogram, so the only reasonable materials markup is weight-based.

In theory, volume cost would be proportional to weight cost in objects printed at 100% infill, but unless you’re printing firearm parts, you probably don’t need 100% infill in most cases. Using lower infill parameters greatly complicates the calculation, because you have an outer shell that’s solid, enclosing an inner space that’s mostly hollow. Some slicers like Cura will tell you how many meters of filament the print will use, and estimate the filament weight in grams. These estimates are not always very accurate. For that reason, I generally provide a price estimate, print the object, weigh it, and then provide a precise price calculation for the customer, based on my setup fee (currently $10 per order) plus my price per gram.

On an unrelated note, I’ve discovered an annoying thing about the “3D print on demand” business. Most prospective customers don’t have a very firm grasp of what’s printable and what isn’t, because they don’t own a 3D printer and have generally never used one themselves. People try to get me to print objects that have insanely fine details (e.g. human eyelashes), or planes that have a thickness of zero. My general feeling is that 3D print on demand will become less of a thing as the cost of 3D printers continues to drop. Once anyone who wants a 3D printer owns one, the idea of paying someone else to print something will be seen as silly.

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40

This updated version is confusing on the customer view for my hub. I have RepRap printers of different configurations (print area, nozzle size, etc.) set at different prices, I cannot even tell which printer is what on the customer’s view. Where can I put this information? I have looked at other hubs, and see each color is in it’s own block of information, make for a very long page and hard to follow.

1 Like