Model Has Been Printed flag
Each model/material combo in the database should have a flag attached to it for whether the model has successfully been printed in that material or not.
That flag should be presented to site visitors so they can see if they are ordering untested models or not.
- The flag should start out false, an then be turned to true when the first printed version of the model is shipped.
- Give the Production team a way to turn the flag off for models that fail during printing.
- When/if a new copy of the file is uploaded, then the flag should be cleared across all materials.
Stony Smith
shared this idea
Hi all,
thanks again. It’s a good idea and we’ve been tossing it around for quite a while, but it’s a tough one if we want to solve it right. For now, there are other issues that take priority, but we’ll keep this one on our longer-term todo list.
I’m closing this issue for now so I can return you your votes.
Bart
17 comments
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MaxSMoke777
commented
Hey, take as much time as you like. But in the mean-time, I'll go spend my money elsewhere.
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stannum
commented
As per http://www.shapeways.com/forum/index.php?t=msg&&th=8339&goto=44365#msg_44365 the only missing thing is showing the flag to visitors.
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MaxSMoke777
commented
OMG, I COMPLETELY AGREE! I'm SO SICK of my printed, successful work being rejected after I ALREADY succeeded in printing it. And more then a few people need to get flagged just because their work is obviously unprintable.
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Paul King commented
oh, and agreed, update = new model = flag reset
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Does this need to be a 3 way flag?
1) to stop human errors
2) to let customers know the model had been printed before and that there *should* be no problems
3) to aid a grandfathering system -
As to the question of when the design rules change: This is tricky. But.. design rule changes (usually) happen to increase the printablility of an item, not because the printer itself changed.
If I have some model that prints just fine, but then breaks during cleaning.. I WANT the operations team to flag the model as "unprintable". If a model consistently breaks during shipping, same thing.. flag it as unprintable.
But.. if the model was printable before a rules change, then it should still be printable again, even though more strict design rules were implemented. This could be called "grandfathering of old models" - allow them to print because they were successful before, but NEW models have to pass the new rules.
This is entirely why I suggest that on ANY new file upload, the flag be cleared. That way it must pass the more stringent rules.
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My original suggestion was entirely to stop the "your model has been rejected" emails. Any notification(s) to the customer is purely secondary purpose as far as I'm concerned.
Just this morning, I again recieved such a notice. The order was accepted and paid for, then several weeks passed, and THEN the customer receives a rejection notice, causing another several week delay in recieving the product.
In this particular case.. there is on shell folded back in another. Meshlab measures the thickness at that spot as 0.01mm, but it is actually part of a larger volume and for some reason, MeshMedic didn't correct it. When printing the model the first time, the operator missed this spot, and the model printed just fine. But, on this (fourth) printing, the (human) operator found the error and rejected the model.
My point for this "model has printed" flag is ALL about reducing such human errors. It has NOTHING to do with sales & marketing efforts.
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@Community Management - the point I was trying to make... the models were printed, but then WSF became unavailable (the issue is in hand) for the models.
However the flag needs to be included in any systems for a 'model has been printed', not just so that customers know it has been printed, but also for any changes made to Shapeways internal systems so that the model is still available in a material that it has been previously been printed in. A double flag if you like. -
Adminbartv
(Admin, Shapeways)
commented
@Paul: true. I think though that as a separate issue we have to make sure that if we've printed an object once, we can guarantee printability in the future. [bart]
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Having a printable flag is most excellent in theory, but when the material rule & printer settings change, as recently with WSF, the model no longer becomes printable... what then?
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TurtlesAreCool commented
Regarding the clearing of the flag when a new version is uploaded: An alternative solution to maker-triggered reset (which relies on the honesty of the maker) would be to provide a threshold for the volume change between the old and new model, say 5%. If the volume changes by more than 5%, then the flag gets reset on all. Otherwise, if only a minor tweak is made, it is reasonably certain that not much has changed.
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woody64
commented
Yes I also would like to give this informations possible sellers.
Absolutly important would be that the information covers groups but that need not to be vsibible to th end customer.That means: if successfully printed in WSF then the flag has to be visible for all WSF materials.
In princible the end user should not get a mail "printing not possible" if the flag is set.
Maybe it's also worth discussing if printed X times is a usefull information. If printed 0 it's another information then 200 to the buyer.
Unfortunately you have also to consider new versions. Maybe it's necessary to let the designer decide if the counter has to be reset since it's a major change or not
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Giles Williams commented
Okay, I hadn't considered anyone needing that info kept private.
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Adminbartv
(Admin, Shapeways)
commented
@Giles: I think I'm with Stijn on this one. How would the number of times something has been printed actually help you?
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Stijn (Virtox) commented
I am for a printing flag, but regard the number of times printed as private shop information.
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Actually, a printing history for each model would be very useful. eg.
[-]History:
Model XXXX
has been printed successfully in WSF (2 times) and SS (1 time).
has failed to print in ALU. -
Adminbartv
(Admin, Shapeways)
commented
Yes, absolutely!
How about giving the flag three options for each material?
- never printed
- printed, but failed
- printed succesfullyAlso, printing succesfully in some materials would imply printability in others. For example, printing in WSF would imply printability in dyed SF.
