Noob mistakes

Stan_Baldwin · 2016-02-03T08:43:10.000Z

I’ve had the experience of a lot of 3D printing noobs coming to my hub. We all hate it when someone that just signed up tries to order with a bad .stl file

here is a blog I wrote to cover my experience.

3Dscaleworks · 2016-02-03T10:11:19.000Z

Stan,

Goog blog, and your right, customers sometimes think everything is possiblle. So before accepting an order do a good scan of the object and give advice. Sometimes you have to teach customers to design in printable detail/-dimensions.

Cheers

AlexanderB · 2016-02-03T15:22:58.000Z

Very recogniseable, and I haven’t even started my hub yet. (At work I wask asked to print something every now and then, and some of the files were completely impossible.)

Luova3D · 2016-02-03T17:42:48.000Z

Personally I’m in this “business” that I can offer my help to these “noobs”. If the stl they send is bad, I will do what I can to make it printable. I don’t charge from that help. It’s awesome to help them and teach them what to do differently next time. So I for one don’t hate noob customers.

Stan_Baldwin · 2016-02-03T20:23:49.000Z

I have, and even worked with the customer to repair some bad spots. But sometimes you just can polish a turd.

Stan_Baldwin · 2016-02-03T20:24:50.000Z

Why don’t you charge for CAD time? It is time and labor for you to fix their mistakes.

Luova3D · 2016-02-04T08:19:21.000Z

If I needto revamp the model totally, I will set a price for that. The thing is that I’m not in this biz to get big profits. More of a hobby.

3DPrintandStuff · 2016-02-04T18:31:16.000Z

Good blog,

I had one customer that their first file upload it contained ~5 3D models for each part of one complete item. I just stated in the comments section that the single parts need have their own file, so please upload 5 STL files not just one. IMHO this was caused by the high costs of volume based pricing and the customer not willing to pay for or understanding the time put in by the hub to get a print of their design.

Snortimer · 2016-03-12T00:00:53.000Z

When this happens, I usually split the file into individual parts (my slicer lets me do this easily). If I think it’ll change the pricing, I upload the individual files to the order, and remove their original. I let them know what I did, and why.

The down side of this is that some Hubs will be skipped over because their bed sizes might be too small for the combo file, but could print the separate files.