4 ms·

I work as a design engineer and regularly have parts I'm designing RPed so this looks really exciting and I look forward to something like this being available

I work as a design engineer and regularly have parts I'm designing RPed so this looks really exciting and I look forward to something like this being available in the UK. One of the things that we would usually do is have the RP firm finish our parts for us, painting and polishing, perhaps applying an overlay for the graphics on a screen or even vac casting to make a small batch of parts. I think it would be really important for you to allow people to request these services through the site as well. I notice that you mentioned on the site that you will eventually supply laser and water-jet cutting as well. I think it would be good to also source machined components though the site. We are increasingly finding that having parts prototyped in china is about half the price of having them produced here in the UK. For example a few months back I was looking to have a 400-300-200mm part prototyped that had been designed for injection molded. I cant remember the exact figures but our Chinese suppler quoted half the price for machining the component out of a solid block of plastic using a 5-axis milling machine than the local RP firm was quoting for an SLS. I hope you will allow oversees suppler to bid though the site as they are very competitive and very responsive!

steveklabnik 17y ago
Hi Sam. There's actually no reason that you couldn't use this in the UK if you wanted to; shipping costs would just end up being a bit higher. Eventually, I'm sure we'll have some international sellers on our system to help out with that as well, but baby steps! We've talked to a few industrial design firms, and they agree with you on the finishing aspect. The issue is that unlike uploading a file, there are a _lot_ of ways that those kinds of things can be done. Imagine filling out a form on how you'd like finishing to go! So we've sort of come to a middle option. After you're quoted, but before you've accepted, there's a commenting feature that allows you to have a dialogue with the seller, so that you could ask for these kinds of things, and they could adjust their quote. We'll be looking into how to make that process easier in the future, to be sure. As you've said, it's pretty important. I'm assuming by 'machined' components you mean subtractive processes like CNC? That'll be even farther down the support list, but yes, we'll get there at some point. The relative number of types of machines that do 3D printing and laser cutting are tiny compared to the number of CNC machines, so we figured that it would be a good beachead to start with. We don't have any bias against having international sellers. As far as your 5x difference goes, there aren't that many SLS machines in the UK, but lots of milling machines in China. Add in the whole £ vs 元 thing, and I can certainly see how China'd come out cheaper. However, you have a lot of turn around time, and I've heard of some people having intellectual property concerns, unfounded or not. The best thing about the Internet is that it levels the playing field for everyone!

steveklabnik 17y ago

Hi Sam. There's actually no reason that you couldn't use this in the UK if you wanted to; shipping costs would just end up being a bit higher. Eventually, I'm sure we'll have some international sellers on our system to help out with that as well, but baby steps! We've talked to a few industrial design firms, and they agree with you on the finishing aspect. The issue is that unlike uploading a file, there are a _lot_ of ways that those kinds of things can be done. Imagine filling out a form on how you'd like finishing to go! So we've sort of come to a middle option. After you're quoted, but before you've accepted, there's a commenting feature that allows you to have a dialogue with the seller, so that you could ask for these kinds of things, and they could adjust their quote. We'll be looking into how to make that process easier in the future, to be sure. As you've said, it's pretty important. I'm assuming by 'machined' components you mean subtractive processes like CNC? That'll be even farther down the support list, but yes, we'll get there at some point. The relative number of types of machines that do 3D printing and laser cutting are tiny compared to the number of CNC machines, so we figured that it would be a good beachead to start with. We don't have any bias against having international sellers. As far as your 5x difference goes, there aren't that many SLS machines in the UK, but lots of milling machines in China. Add in the whole £ vs 元 thing, and I can certainly see how China'd come out cheaper. However, you have a lot of turn around time, and I've heard of some people having intellectual property concerns, unfounded or not. The best thing about the Internet is that it levels the playing field for everyone!