3D Printing with Shapeways

SyaPed

Hey all,

Does anyone have experience printing with Shapeways? I'm interested in prototyping 28mm wargame miniatures with them and their latest material looks ideal for it, https://www.shapeways.com/blog/archives/24432-introducing-our-newest-material-black-high-definition-acrylate.html

Their file upload size limit is just 60mb though, which isn't enough for detailed sculpts coming out of Zbrush. Unless maybe I can Decimate the hell out of it...
 

ZacD

You can decimate the hell out of a sculpt and still not see the lower detail in a 3d print just because of the limitations of 3D printing (as long as it's not a large print). 

Kbrom12

My fiance does small prints monthly; usually in their colored sandstone material. I've been impressed so far with their quality and I think you will be to.

sprunghunt

I have experience using shapeways. 

Even for very large prints the file size is adequate. You're not going to get that much detail out of most of their printing methods. The materials that do have that much detail would be very expensive to print at any large size. I would just use decimate master on something that's from zbrush. 

Here's something I've printed through them:



That's a high resolution material yet you can see the details aren't that sharp.

Meloncov

Hero Forge uses Shapeways to print, so if you look at reviews of them, you can get a very good idea of what 28 mm minis printed through Shapeways are gonna be like. Here's one review: http://ragingowlbear.blogspot.com/2015/02/hero-forge-miniatures-not-ready-for.html. (that's from before they added the new material, though).

SyaPed

Oh that'll be a good read, thanks Meloncov.

Post it when it's done Akaria!

BlakeP

An unsupported wall is one connected to other walls on less than two sides. Full Color Sandstone, the minimum unsupported wall is determined by our ability to successfully remove your product from the powder bed in the printer and clean it. Walls that are too thin will break in this process. То ensure the successful creation of your product, make sure the unsupported walls in your product are thicker than the minimum requirement. If they are not, try making them thicker, adding supports, or considering a material with a thinner minimum unsupported wall requirement.