It is not the first time that I complain about this. For a while I believed it was solved with the arrival of the new price calculation system. But it keeps coming back, sometimes the margin between what 3DHubs calculates and what my slicer (Z-Suite) calculates is not that much and I let it slide. But in cases like this (picture) I just can’t.
I hate to tell my clients that the price is more than they expected, it looks as if I am the one asking freely for more money when what I am doing is correcting the calculation done by the platform. I also checked the same piece with other slicers like Meshmixer to make sure it is not my slicer’s fault, and it is far closer to its calculation than to the one shown on the order page.
I’m asking you to kindly fix this problem, I know you are a responsive platform that takes our matters seriously, and I have always been more than satisfied with your service. Please give it a look.
Cheers,
Lucía
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interesting…i think 3dhubs use cura engine to calculate volume
Hi Lucika,
Netfabb is giving you the volume of the solid part.
3D Hubs calculate the volume of the sliced part (actual volume of plastic used), with 20% infill.
That explain the difference seen in your screenshot.
After double checking in Cura, I found the same volume as the platform for a 20% infill print of this part.
Cura gives a filament length, not a volume.
You can multiply this length by the cross section of your filament to get the volume.
Hope that helps !
Thanks for the answer Victor.
I apologise for not knowing that. But I still don’t see why, for some pieces, both calculations match while for other pieces they are completely different, It doesn’t make sense to me sometimes…
I understand the concept volume, but maybe infill should be a different setting because it is not always the same (I tend to use high density for prototype models). Or maybe it could be easier to calculate by real volume and set a reduced price accordingly.
In my case it would be great to be able to set infill at 50% for example, maybe there is an option to change it in my printer settings? I will check this out, I remember something about it.
What actually matters the most to me while printing is the printing time, as I work just beside the printer and I have to cope with the noise. And of course the material used, in grams. My slicer is very accurate in that, maybe that could be another option to show a price to the customer, but it requires to take infill as a real factor.
Thanks anyway, now I will explain to my customers the increase is because of the infill, though I would appreciate being able to set it in advance.
Cheers, Lucía
I was having similar frustrations. I ended up just raising my price per cm3 to account for this so at least the customer would know up front a more accurate price. You can also go to your printer settings on 3DHubs.com and change the settings to look at the actual volume of the part instead of the sliced volume. Of course, support material isn’t included anyway in the calculations, so I do have to explain that added material and time, but most customers are completely fine once you let them know.
The attached screenshot shows how to change the settings under “Edit your Printers”. Once you add the extra pricing detail for sliced volume, you can then delete the pricing detail for object volume. I’m still debating whether I want to go this route on my setup or not.
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Thanks, maybe I can try that 
I’ve been having this problem as well. 3DH gives the customer a quote at 20%, and then when I ask them if they want 100% (which they do), they get mad that the price skyrockets. It’s not my fault, and I wasted tons of rolls (of filament) on this flaw. Up until December, I was under the impression that it was defaulted at 100%… but I was only getting paid for 20% (poor educating on 3D Hubs’ part). So I lost a good amount of money.
They need to add a drop-down of the infill options, so both the customer and I can adjust it easily. It’s common sense.
what do you mean my “cross section” I know what a cross-section is, but are you saying the radius of the cross section or what?
