bhudson
September 13, 2018, 4:42pm
82
I am in the same boat, though I didn’t start as early. I helped write the knowledge base. When they introduced the rating system and the express orders, my approval rating tanked because of the customers ordering parts using the express system and then they couldn’t be printed, so I stopped using the express offering, so now I am no longer able to be a Hub. Seems like a catch 22, especially with their penalty system on cancelled orders.
Well, we were already getting penalized before. We were maybe “too nice”, so we almost never refuse orders. I would go as far as to redraw their models in order for them to print correctly, no extra charges. But still we got a lot of people who had to idea about 3d printing and expected production quality products, or who didn’t understand how near unprintable their objects were. We also had people complaining they ordered something from shapeways and complaining the results in resin weren’t exactly the same.
bhudson
September 13, 2018, 5:19pm
84
I was penalized for: Unprintable models - non-watertight, etc, that the customer didn’t want to pay to fix, weapons orders, orders where the part orientation wasn’t correct when uploaded and as a result didn’t fit on my printer, orders where the material selected on an express order wasn’t what the customer wanted, and orders where the customer placed the same order four or five times. Every time I asked for a review some of them were taken off, but I was never able to fully recover and my last review didn’t change anything.
I do 3d printing as a hobby and a side business and this is the end of it for me as the latter. I’ve helped print prosthetic parts, made models for a local company of their full-scale products and printed for numerous students for their end of term products. All of these were done through the ability to be local, last minute jobs printed in short time and picked up or delivered in person, sometimes on the same day. I’ve provided model tweaking, re-slicing and reprinting for no extra charge because it helped the customer. 3D Hubs helped me to help others, and took their cut for facilitating it.
4 Likes
Did anyone else just have their orders/hub dashboard just stop loading?
yeah, seems I am running into an API issue or something.
If only they were legally liable… I have 3 Form 2 printers, resins and accessories that I bought just because of 3dhubs.
Its not useless inventory. Its still useable materials. Should never rely on only one place for business.
1 Like
So people should have turned down business from 3dhubs because they didn’t have more places for business? Of course 3d hubs can do what they want and have no liability for what anyone decided to do based on the work they got from them, but people can still be upset, right?
cobnut
September 14, 2018, 1:00pm
94
… but 3DHubs never gave you any guarantees of work, did they?
I’ve sold quite a few unused and even part-used reels online (usually via eBay), and they sell pretty well.
1 Like
mx20100
September 14, 2018, 7:24am
95
Hey guys, since most of you know, 3DHubs will be moving fully to B2B (business to business) meaning only businesses will be able to have a Hub. I understand the decision to that movement, so I am here to ask what will happen with us (3D printing enthusiasts)? Where will we be able to go to list our printers, to be able to provide cheap enthusiast to customer 3D printing services? This decision that 3DHubs is taking is making me think of selling my printer due to not knowing what else to do with it.
there are several options from making your own website or creating for instance a special facebook page where you represent yourself, a nice website to search services and presentate yourself is https://www.3dseeker.com/ a bit like 3dhubs in the early days, also it would be great if you join this conversation
https://join.slack.com/t/3dfabhubs/shared_invite/enQtNDM0MTEwMDQxNTg3LTc3OTIxZmJhNzJlNzEzZjExMjU5OGFmYzBiYjg5ZmQyODI3ZTc5OTRiODU2YWFlY2E3YTYxYWI3N2Y3ZThhMzM
I think most of your questions are answered with a no. The only thing 3d hubs will provide is the access to this forum. Everything else will be gone.
Aspects of what you say tally with my experience - far too many potential customers didn’t have a clue about additive manufacturing, so needed to be led carefully (for which see “free consultancy”). Then go to a hobbyist who undercharged on the actual printing… CF a lot of time spent back & forth on ring design (unwearable, unprintable) that needed significant CAD rework.
Worst I had was a customer who hid a couple of parts inside a larger object to avoid the per-object charge, then later contacted me to complain it had been received damaged but had signed for it as undamaged (insured shipping service). They complained to 3DHubs, who offered to refund the customer in full, but me on the resin only. Dug my heels in on that; it was also a prime reason why I shut my hub down a while ago. This latest move is little more than an extension of that attitude towards the hubs.
I agree. Hubs used to make it easy for community members to locate and screen services. It seems they’ve taken the Google model to heart and are focused on maximizing returns from their most successful members. Not what I’d originally signed up for, nor what they pitched to everyone.
Jupiter
September 13, 2018, 11:37pm
100
No, the impression I had is that they were going to have both peer to peer and industrial divisions for projects that couldn’t be done any other way. What this is in the end is an example of how companies these days forget that their employees are the customers, and the customers no matter how small are significant. If you noticed most companies in manufacturing do no cater to anyone doing one offs or small projects. This kills innovation and the small inventor. Kills small business and that’s really the point of all this.
I am going to cancel my FormLabs Fuse1 pre-order due to the non-existent orders that has become the norm around here. I used to get at least an order a day, and often more.
That’s unfortunate, and although before you could still maybe hold on to some hope things would get better, now you can be sure they won’t. From Oct 1st most of us will be kicked out.
So it looks like they have disabled the ability to leave comments in any completed orders. So now a customer has no way to contact us for repeat orders or to ask questions. I have previous customers sometimes message me in an old order to ask questions before they place a new order with me. Sometimes they had some issues with their design and wanted feedback to modify it and then submit new order also.
I dont really care about these upcoming changes since change is inevitable. But dont mess with our repeat customers. Thats a good precentage of my business on here. Do a good job and they come back to you. You piss them off and they just stop using 3dhubs all together. Then we both lose.
1 Like
