@filemon, will we ever get all our materials back? Many of us (prototyping) FDM printers went through the trouble to enter in different exotic filaments, i.e. flexible, woodfill, metalfill, etc. and now customers cannot see those unless the customer already knows in advance to specifically search for them.
At the very least, can those be put back in the drop-down list AFTER a customer chooses a hub so they at least get some clue that those are options?
They are not listed anywhere else. With all the debate about FDM vs. SLA/SLS etc., all those other materials have been quietly removed.
If that’s the case this is very upsetting… I just spent almost 1000$ on getting new exotic filaments, testing them and getting them working with my fdm systems. This would explain my sudden decline with exotic material orders. This goes back to my question about the materials I had asked before, specifically at the time armadillo by ninkatek, but if this is an issue across all materials I think something needs to be done.
I was going to mention it to you when I looked at your hub earlier, I noticed you had a lot of exotic (prototyping) materials.
Check it out for yourself, play Customer and see if you can see any of those materials from the front-end without knowing the name of them.
I already raised the issue with support@3dhubs and was quite bluntly shut down. Not sure if someone was just having a bad day or who knows. Before giving up completely, I thought I would give it one more try by asking @Filemon directly.
I am not trying to be unreasonable, I understand the goal is to increase conversions by not overwhelming the customer with too much information, but by the same token, I feel it is a gross error to completely eliminate materials that are available. Add an options button just for those customers that want to look, or just put them back in the drop-down again after they’ve selected a hub to let them see what is really available.
The downside? None, they’ve already converted from upload to material to hub selection. The upside? At that point, they may actually decide to choose a material that (usually) yields higher revenue for the Hub and 3D Hubs. Win-Win.
Hi guys, maybe best to start a new thread for this.
I’ll very quickly respond here, although I’m not sure I completely understand. None of the materials have been removed. Especially for the examples you give, e.g. Woodfill, search has always been the only option to find it. Or is that not what you mean?
Having that said, we’re working on a BIG improvement of our material database we plan to put live in Q2. It will be a very comprehensive index where customers can search amongst all materials. I expect a lot from that. The goal is exactly what you mention, to make it easier for customers to search and find what they need between all the different (exotic) 3dp materials.
@Filemon I mentioned this before. The materials are still there but the customer can’t see them…
Previously the listings stated “General Purpose Plastics from £???” and “Other Materials from £???” (or something similar). The customer could then click on a hub and see all the materials you provide.
Now the listings states just certain materials such as ABS and PLA. Now when the customer clicks on a hub it only shows some of the materials (probably the ones you have classed as prototyping plastics?). For example my hub shows ABS and PLA but when you click on my hub Polycarbonate is shown but no others (such as PolyFlex, PolyWood, Taulman T-Glase etc).
Like I said, maybe this is because they are not classed as “Prototyping Plastics”. This was one of my arguments to change back to “General Purpose Plastics” that cover all FDM used materials (so they are all shown).
Hi Simon,
Before selecting a material, this is what I see (see attached). If I click “other”, I can still select all the ‘exotics’.
When I select a material group, e.g. “prototyping plastics”, the “other” group disappears but this has always been the case.
Depending on the variation you’re in, there’s 1 variation in which the customer needs to select a material before moving on. In that scenario it is indeed true that if you select a material group, the ‘other’ group has disappeared when you move to Hub selection. If a customer is searching for Woodfill for example, they would need to use the search in that case.
Does this answer the question?
Sorry yes I’m on a variation where the customer needs to select a material.
I like this layout but I believe it would be better for customers to see all the materials. Now if the Prototyping Plastics tab was GENERAL PURPOSE PLASTICS (FDM) it could cover and show all FDM materials that the hub offers. If the customer needs something specific they can still search using the advanced tab.
Hello guys, I’ve created another forum specifically for this topic as @filemon suggested. We can move our conversation over there for organization purposes if you like. As well, if you could please repost any evidence you have put here over there for future reference, and for anyone new jumping onto the topic!
didn’t get any orders in months 
seems like something is horrible wrong since the new material selector…