Replacement for Shapeways? They Declared Bankruptcy

[SlideWRX 875]

I was getting an error trying to get my design printed, turns out they just filed for bankruptcy this week.   What replacement options are there for those of us without 3d printers?

https://3dprintingindustry.com/news/shapeways-bankrupt-5m-rescue-bid-rejected-231387/

Quote

A regulatory filing by Shapeways with the SEC reads, “On July 2, 2024, after considering all strategic alternatives, Shapeways Holdings, Inc. (the “Company”) ceased operations and filed a voluntary petition for relief (the “Bankruptcy Filing”) under the provisions of Chapter 7 of Title 11 of the United States Code, 11 U.S.C. §101 et seq. (the “Bankruptcy Code”). The Bankruptcy Filing was filed in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware (the “Bankruptcy Court”). Each of the Company’s subsidiaries also ceased operations and filed voluntary petitions for bankruptcy relief.”

Maybe this is the impetus to purchase one, although the potential smell of them may force it to live out in the shed via extension cord.  I wouldn't mind much with proper ventilation, but my wife notices if I come inside too quickly after spray painting lexan... Just the bit of smell of paint wafting around and being pulled inside bothers her.

[BuggyDad 5277]

5 hours ago, SlideWRX said:

I was getting an error trying to get my design printed, turns out they just filed for bankruptcy this week.   What replacement options are there for those of us without 3d printers?

https://3dprintingindustry.com/news/shapeways-bankrupt-5m-rescue-bid-rejected-231387/

Maybe this is the impetus to purchase one, although the potential smell of them may force it to live out in the shed via extension cord.  I wouldn't mind much with proper ventilation, but my wife notices if I come inside too quickly after spray painting lexan... Just the bit of smell of paint wafting around and being pulled inside bothers her.

Oh. I never used them but I feel for any failing business and this one really had something going for it. Their business model was very different to other commercial printers and perhaps it just didn't work in the end. With Shapeways, designers sold their designs through Shapeways, taking some money for each sale; with all the other printers I've experienced, simply the customer uploads the design to buy a print. This, and probably more besides that I don't know about, meant they were very expensive. It's a shame though IMO that designers have lost their platform to do that. 

Where in the world are you? Lots of other businesses out there you can get to print a design you upload. Lots in the UK.

A word on the difference between home printing and commercial printing. It can be quite different. The commercial printers offer materials and printing methods you can't do at home that are much stronger. I use both. 

[JimBear 792]

I'd love to find someone in Germany or mainland Europe that could do printing. Shapeways is/was nice and all ... but the shipping costs could make a grown man cry. 

[Mad Ax 10024]

It's a shame, there were a lot of designers making print-on-demand parts for a whole load of Tamiyas.  In fact there were dozens of items in my "I'll buy that one day" list.  That said, I imagine people like Knight Customs, who had such a huge range of products, will find another outlet soon enough.

The reason I rarely hit the Buy button was the cost - the prints themselves weren't priced that high, but the ridunculous postage charges made a reasonable purchase into an expensive one.  Quite a few times I had a full cart, only to pull out when I realised how much it would cost to ship.  I may be wrong but I thought Shapeways used local printers to do the prints, so I shouldn't be paying other-side-of-the-world postage costs, especially when those costs were significantly more than I pay for much larger items that actually do come from the other side of the world.  It always felt like a stealth charge to me.

I really hope an alternative appears, though.  I have a small resin printer and a friend has an FDM printer, so between us we can print all sorts, but we can't do the really tough stuff that Shapeways could do, plus we can't get access to the print files to make the really awesome stuff that people like Knight Customs were making.

I guess we'll have to wait and see how many of the fantastic RC parts designers will move to another platform, set up as independents, offer print file licences, or just close up shop.

 

[Sgt.Speirs 1312]

1 hour ago, JimBear said:

I'd love to find someone in Germany or mainland Europe that could do printing. Shapeways is/was nice and all ... but the shipping costs could make a grown man cry. 

3Dbavaria.com is from my PoV a good alternative for 3D printing. You have a minimum order value of 50€ (in July only 25 €), but the prices for the parts themselves are more than fair.

[silvertriple 3978]

I.materialise.Com is a valid alternative to shapeways, with a marketplace, but the catch is to put files there, you need to print them first at your cost (which was not the case for shapeways).

weerg.com is another good option when it comes to print multiple times the same part as their price is decreasing with the order quantity of a given print.

Last, I really advise to use craftcloud3D.com when it comes to select printing services as it is a very practical price comparator...

[silvertriple 3978]

2 hours ago, JimBear said:

I'd love to find someone in Germany or mainland Europe that could do printing. Shapeways is/was nice and all ... but the shipping costs could make a grown man cry. 

specially considering they were printing in Europe... If you have the file, there was no reason to use Shapeways : their shipping cost were crazy, but that was also the case of the printing costs... 

(weerg (italy), materialise (belgium) are both located and printing in Europe)

[SlideWRX 875]

Yeah I assumed their shipping was the profit center - always 2-3 times as much as it should have been, especially for small prints.

3 hours ago, silvertriple said:

I.materialise.Com is a valid alternative to shapeways, with a marketplace, but the catch is to put files there, you need to print them first at your cost (which was not the case for shapeways).

weerg.com is another good option when it comes to print multiple times the same part as their price is decreasing with the order quantity of a given print.

Last, I really advise to use craftcloud3D.com when it comes to select printing services as it is a very practical price comparator...

Thanks! just used craftcloud to find a printer. 

[silvertriple 3978]

1 hour ago, SlideWRX said:

Yeah I assumed their shipping was the profit center - always 2-3 times as much as it should have been, especially for small prints.

Thanks! just used craftcloud to find a printer. 

It was not, really... All the cost comparison I did with Shapeways and others brought cost just on the printing being between 2 and 6 times more expensive, and that even without any considerations for the shipping (and that for the same technology and materials)... The marketplace was a very good idea, but once you compare the printing cost, that was quite bad... To the point it was better to sell files and indicate proper printer to the users...

[urban warrior 407]

I am personally not really that sad about it. Not because I would applaude for someone failing. That's always bad. It's just that shapeways never really was an alternative for me getting 3D printed parts. If it wasn't for the exorbitant prices of things that would have interested me. It's more the quality it seemed to have in the early years. I never had parts ordered there. But modelling buddies from my sci-fi modelling forum ordered some parts there. And a lot of them deteriorated in surface detailing quite fast if not protected with primer, paint and laquer. And if you wanted "the good stuff" you had to pay "some good bucks".

I have to kick myself in the pants quite seriously to get my own two printers running more frequently.

[ad456 444]

That’s frustrating in one way as I was planning a purchase in the next wee while.
 

The shipping prices were pretty fierce but I usually just made batches of orders to spread it. I will miss them a wee bit, hopefully someone digs them out as there’s some really good stuff on there. 
 

Edit:- just read the full story and there’s no coming back. 

Edited July 5 by ad456

[BuggyDad 5277]

1 hour ago, silvertriple said:

It was not, really... All the cost comparison I did with Shapeways and others brought cost just on the printing being between 2 and 6 times more expensive, and that even without any considerations for the shipping (and that for the same technology and materials)... The marketplace was a very good idea, but once you compare the printing cost, that was quite bad... To the point it was better to sell files and indicate proper printer to the users...

Yeah, same here. I only had a quick look but I recall the premium being much more than just the postage difference, even though the postage was a lot. I guess it could be right that the designer should make say 100% on part cost, because design is where all the "value add" is, however, what it does in practice is tip the balance to "just not worth it", so I suspect sales numbers killed to nearly nothing. Plus, myself I prefer to design my own stuff anyway, it's part of the point of 3d printing for me, coming up with the design myself. In my case, I was maybe even uploading my own designs and finding it silly money, I can't remember, it was a while ago.

I do think the idea of a platform through which designers can sell parts via a printer without handing out their CAD files a sensible one though. It allows a little profit and protects their IP, and so it should, but ultimately the end price still needs to be competitive enough to generate sales. So I still like the principle and you wouldn't think the extra work/IT on top of an existing upload-to-print service would be that much, I imagine?

[Kowalski86 3983]

I'd like to see more 3d designers move to MiniFactory, or other outlets where I can download a file and print-off as many parts as I want. Works out better for something I'll be running regularly.

[silvertriple 3978]

12 hours ago, BuggyDad said:

I do think the idea of a platform through which designers can sell parts via a printer without handing out their CAD files a sensible one though. It allows a little profit and protects their IP, and so it should, but ultimately the end price still needs to be competitive enough to generate sales. So I still like the principle and you wouldn't think the extra work/IT on top of an existing upload-to-print service would be that much, I imagine?

yes, but it came at a cost, as Shapeways was the most expensive printer out there... Ultimately, I opted to sell files (for those I sell) on cults3D, because at the end, the cost will be less for the end user, which is really the target to allow those old cars to run...

[BuggyDad 5277]

1 hour ago, silvertriple said:

yes, but it came at a cost, as Shapeways was the most expensive printer out there... Ultimately, I opted to sell files (for those I sell) on cults3D, because at the end, the cost will be less for the end user, which is really the target to allow those old cars to run...

I wonder how it would stack up if a printer who is genuinely price competitive in the first place tried the business model - it wouldn't need to be shapeways prices. As a designer you'd take a lot less as your cut from shapeways for one print than selling the stl file, from which the customer can make unlimited prints and could share the file. 

When you sell through shapeways, does the designer have any input into the pricing? 

[Collin 2038]

On 7/5/2024 at 9:05 AM, JimBear said:

I'd love to find someone in Germany or mainland Europe that could do printing. Shapeways is/was nice and all ... but the shipping costs could make a grown man cry. 

3D Bavaria is top notch. Did a LOT of stuf there.

[Collin 2038]

@Tizer How is going? : (

[silvertriple 3978]

2 hours ago, BuggyDad said:

When you sell through shapeways, does the designer have any input into the pricing? 

Yes, you had : it was up to you to indicate the fix price to add to the print price... In fine, price to the customer was printing price plus a fixed markup added by the designer. That said, even if you kept that markup light, the price were not competitive versus price of files + online printing service chosen wisely. For exemple, I never considered putting any of the chassis I made there, because printing price was total madness for bigger parts...

[chris.alex 1046]

@SlideWRX Yesterday I was reading one or two DT02 threads and discovered your great hex conversion parts. I wanted to order two pairs straight away, but Shapeways seems to have gone bankrupt recently. Orders no longer work. Have you found an alternative?

 

[SlideWRX 875]

Nope. I only sold about 10 anyway, partly due to the high printing & shipping costs of Shapeways.

[chris.alex 1046]

18 hours ago, SlideWRX said:

Nope. I only sold about 10 anyway, partly due to the high printing & shipping costs of Shapeways.

Oh, that's a real shame. I hope, not entirely unselfishly, that you will find a new way to print your DT02 parts.

[SlideWRX 875]

Since I only sold a few over years, I decided to make it available.  Check out my hex conversion thread.