Shapeways news??

[CNR5529]

I just got a second notice in the mail regarding the Shapeways bankruptcy, this time saying that "a dividend might possibly be paid" and that I need to submit a claim. Has anyone else recieved this second notice as well? Do unpaid royalties count towards claims?

[Lemosteam]

I still have not received a single notification from Shapeways.

[Erik aka Ngineer]

I just got a second notice in the mail regarding the Shapeways bankruptcy, this time saying that "a dividend might possibly be paid" and that I need to submit a claim. Has anyone else recieved this second notice as well? Do unpaid royalties count towards claims?

I got the same two letters. I guess the unpaid royalties would count as a claim, but I'm not from the US so I'm not sure how it works in the US legal system.

[Erik aka Ngineer]

I've been lurking on the forums here for a long time, I thought I'd answer some questions posed here, as I used to have a "shop" at Shapeways.

It is possible that the liquidation trustees may put a value on the designer contacts dataset for somebody who wants to take a shot at being an IP broker. We have no (easy) way of knowing that. Maybe the folks here with (formerly) active SW shops like John ( @Lemosteam ) can keep us up on this. He and the others are about to be on the receiving end of a flurry of lawyer mailings because they are known creditors.

The website is still up, but apparently the shops database is offline now.

Nobody really knows anything yet, not even former Shapeways employees. It's way too early for that. Shapeways had a plant in NYC and in The Netherlands, both are apparently separate entities, each handled by the bankruptcy court in their own country. I've heard the dutch SW company would like to go for a restart, if you read between the lines they blame the bad management in NYC for the poor results and they think they can be profitable.

In all seriousness, as basically a middle-man entity, Shapeways was going to go out of business eventually - best-case scenario, everyone would have their own 3-D printers and they would be rendered obsolete. We're not quite at that stage yet, but it's clear that their business model isn't sustainable.

I don't entirely agree with you. They started out as printing for consumers and businesses, but they seem to have judged that consumer sales were not profitable enough, or would go the way you predict with the advent of cheap good printers for home-use. They started focusing on business-to-business and lost sight of the consumer side of things. But I think they had way too many staff and were constantly aiming too high, whilst cutting costs on quality. And in the B2B side of things there's plenty of opportunity, but now also plenty of competition.

A significant difference between Shapeways and Thingverse or Cults is that with Shapeways the buyer doesn't have access to the STL files, so the designer keeps their intellectual property intact.  Though since I never uploaded a design to Shapeways or read the fine print, if I upload a file to them, who actually owns the file? The designer, or Shapeways?

The designer retains the IP.

I just assumed it was profit. They were a start up with around $10 million from investors to get going. Back around 2018 when they jacked everything up I read it was because the start up money was running out and they needed to turn around and start making a profit for the investors.

From what I gather, this was indeed the case. But their methods of turning the business profitable did not work out in the end.

Well, i have to imagine the original owners of shapeways were paid by the acquisition company and sailed happily off into the sunset. After that you are dealing with corporate structure who may or may not have any idea about how to run such an organization.

Not sure on what happened there, I think the acquisition company was just the fastest and easiest way to go public. Shapeways saw they needed cash since they consistently lost money, and that was the route to gain some investment.

https://i.materialise.com/en

Has anyone had any experience using these guys as an alternative to shapeways? I'm not so concerned with resin prints as I am quite content with my Sonic mini 8k, but am looking for a new supplier for metal prints, particularly one where I can set up a passive shop.

I have used them, just not for steel. The quality is equal to Shapeways, prices differ sometimes but generally are in the same ballpark. If you plan to sell there's a big "but". You can only sell something that you have ordered and was printed. I've tried some items that sold well on Shapeways, but I've only had one sale I believe. So the investment definitely wasn't worth it for me. Don't get me wrong, I do this for fun and to add to the hobby. It doesn't have to get me a profit, but I'm not throwing my money away just to enhance the hobby for others.

[brill27mcb]

There has been some recent news on the Netherlands part of Shapeways that I have not seen reported here. It looks like that portion of the business is being bought and re-established under a new name, Manuevo. Looks like it will not have the Shapeways name nor (to start with) the sales fulfillment front end, which are tied up in the U.S. proceedings.

https://jnsforum.com/community/topic/20592-shapeways-rises-from-the-ashes/

It's worth following the links to reddit.com discussion and 3printr.com article.

Rich K.

[JeffB]

Hey guys,

  With the closure of Shapeways came the news that the European division was going to be bought out by the employees and restarted under a new name(?) and management...

  Anyone hear any news on how that's progressing, if at all? 

  I only used them for gearboxes (Detail Plastic was an excellent medium for gearboxes) and home printing them on my SM8K has brought limited success.  Would love to be able to get stuff printed by the new company, if there is in fact one.

Jeff

[Chris333]

Found on FB:
https://www.techzine.eu/news/devices/123134/dutch-3d-printing-service-shapeways-makes-restart/

[Sumner]

... I only used them for gearboxes (Detail Plastic was an excellent medium for gearboxes) and home printing them on my SM8K has brought limited success.....

I've had some success with a $200 AnyCubic Photon M3 and Siraya Tech 'Build' Sonic Grey resin.




More info here....

https://1fatgmc.com/RailRoad/Locos-1/page-9.html

I don't have a lot of time on the gears so can't give you a long term report.  There have been a lot of downloads of them on thingiverse....

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6186837

.... but no feedback there also.

I give credit to the Siraya Tech 'Build' resin for success.  It is strong, gives great detail, can drill/tap it, and doesn't get brittle (at least so far).  I love it and use it for everything.  Maybe give it a try.

Sumner

[Chris333]

Jeff uses them for gearboxes, not gears.

[GGNInNScale]

Nice work, Sumner!  The reason that axle gears fail is that they are under tension when the shaft is inserted.  The issue is that a tight fit is needed to "lock" the gear on the axle, but not so tight that it fractures.  As I would teach my materials science students- materials like concrete and plastics do not like to be in tension, ever.  So we are kind between a rock and a hard place.  If you make the hole too large, it spins, too small, it cracks.  "Just right", and it will crack eventually.   Very few adhesives can tolerate long term exposure to oils, so this is a limit, too.  Plastic axles- wear problems on the bearing surfaces.  Rats...

[C855B]

... "Just right", and it will crack eventually. ...

And there you have the use case for 3D-printed MRR gears as a consumable. Annoying when it happens, but easily fixable when you don't have to depend on the manufacturer for replacements. I did the same thing with Atlas universals "donuts" - endless supply.

I'll have to look into that gear macro Sumner is using. I build my 3D prints in TurboCAD, but if there's another CAD/macro combination that shortcuts the tedium of building gears, I'll gladly learn it.

[Lemosteam]

Very old news. Manuevo restarted the printing machines but not the front end user interface. It is now just a print for hire quoting biz, likely for high volume customers.

I was in touch with them during the changeover. I doubt they will reintroduce the old sales model.

[ednadolski]

WRT replacing gears, I wonder if one could (within limits) change the gear ratios to produce better/smoother low-speed performance.   (This vis-a-vis that some models come OOTB with rather high top-end speeds, well in excess of any scale speeds.)

Granted that printed gears probably will not wear as well as Delrin or such (which can crack anyways), but otoh they can readily be replaced with new prints.  One plus there it that our models don't have to deal with the greater loads/stresses of larger scales.

Ed

[Jesse6669]

Manuevo has the same equipment so you get only as high resolution as FUD/FXD (or whatever it was called), which is fragile, has the wax support system/residue, and over time becomes rather brittle.  Plus shipping from Europe is at least $25-30 per package. 

I would be happy to farm out printing to someone here in the US, with a decent 4K or 8K printer, who can exercise reasonable care with small/fragile models, and use the resin I specify (or one that performs equally well).  But they are few/far between AFAIK.

Jesse

 

[C855B]

... I doubt they will reintroduce the old sales model.

Agreed, if they do in fact know what they're getting into. Equipment is definitely not the whole picture.

I've mentioned managing high-resolution 2D printing services roughly 4 decades ago. It's a terrible business model. Lots of staff overhead and waste in solving problems of the clients' making, especially with off-the-street customers. The "New Shapeways" limiting scope both geographically and to industrial customers is a big step toward breaking even, but I'll hazard my expert opinion it still doesn't solve the underlying issues.