Rue-d-Etropal 3D print British outline locos & stock incl DMUs etc

[natterjack]

Does anybody have any experience of these models currently produced to order by Shapeways?

 

The  range of British outline is quite extensive and it would appear that whilst not generally listed, many can be printed at 1/120 scale.

 

Not wishing to be critical, I think  better reference material could have been used for some of the items I might be interested in. That said, most errors can be corrected if the basic model print is sound.

 

http://www.rue-d-etropal.com/3D-printing/3d_printed_sg-trains1.htm

[Blandford1969]

The only thing which put me off is that the price on the page is one thing, you put it in the basket it goes up, you go to pay and then its even higher

[njee20]

Simon is active on here, so I suspect he'll be along. He has a very extensive catalogue. My nervousness has always been that because of the sheer breadth of his catalogue he hasn't ever tested most prints. Consider them 'scratch aids' rather than proper kits and you'll be ok I'd suggest. He is looking at ways to make the files available for home printing.

[natterjack]

21 hours ago, njee20 said:

He is looking at ways to make the files available for home printing.

I got that impression from the website  but wasn't sure.

[natterjack]

22 hours ago, Blandford1969 said:

The only thing which put me off is that the price on the page is one thing, you put it in the basket it goes up, you go to pay and then its even higher

I've commented elsewhere about the high prices of Shapeways and the increasing availability of better cost alternatives. The suggestion that print files may be made available for purchase is indeed interesting, especially so if they were to be in an editable format.

[Blefuscu]

I wouldn't blame him if he didn't offer the print files. I don't know of any format that isn't editable. My feeling is - while that is of great benefit to the consumer, you know eventually your work, or some variation of it, is going to end up appearing elsewhere. I've seen an interesting business model in the miniatures world where you sign up to patreon to get a model subscription. I'd bet you need to be generating a serious volume of work to sustain peoples interest though. 

 

I've done some radio control parts through Shapeways but I wouldn't touch them now. Before I had my own printer I had a 1/14th scale road barrier printed in China for about twenty quid, and Shapeways were quoting $109 for the cheapest material.

[PhilH]

9 minutes ago, Blefuscu said:

I wouldn't blame him if he didn't offer the print files. I don't know of any format that isn't editable. My feeling is - while that is of great benefit to the consumer, you know eventually your work, or some variation of it, is going to end up appearing elsewhere. I've seen an interesting business model in the miniatures world where you sign up to patreon to get a model subscription. I'd bet you need to be generating a serious volume of work to sustain peoples interest though. 

 

I've done some radio control parts through Shapeways but I wouldn't touch them now. Before I had my own printer I had a 1/14th scale road barrier printed in China for about twenty quid, and Shapeways were quoting $109 for the cheapest material.

Wouldn't it be fair to say that between the first two sentences of your post and the last sentence of your post a designer is bandjaxxed. What I mean by that is if they don't want to put their STL files out in the market for others to adapt etc., and the ready-made price of their designs are too expensive via such as Shapeways then it would appear that there aren't many avenues left to bring their designs to the marketplace. Indeed with the proliferation of ever increasing in quality home printing I do wonder about the future of companies such as Shapeways.

 

As you say Patreon is one route but  from a consumers point of view it would appear to get the design you want you have to pay for a lot you don't want. 

[MarkC]

FWIW I baulk at the 'additional costs' if ordering from Shapeways; however, I did buy a Clayton railcar body from Simon a year or two ago; only because there was a great "Black Friday Deal" running, which brought the costs down.

 

The print itself was/is really good though, which was a relief. Simon had obviously put a lot of work into the design. Chapeau, sir. Chapeau.

 

Mark

[Blefuscu]

5 hours ago, PhilH said:

Wouldn't it be fair to say that between the first two sentences of your post and the last sentence of your post a designer is bandjaxxed. What I mean by that is if they don't want to put their STL files out in the market for others to adapt etc., and the ready-made price of their designs are too expensive via such as Shapeways then it would appear that there aren't many avenues left to bring their designs to the marketplace. Indeed with the proliferation of ever increasing in quality home printing I do wonder about the future of companies such as Shapeways.

 

As you say Patreon is one route but  from a consumers point of view it would appear to get the design you want you have to pay for a lot you don't want. 

 

 

As a semi-designer, I'd say, with a little bitterness, yes. Definitely bandjaxxed. The third route is to print them yourself but I've found myself hampered by Etsy and postage charges. I guess it is a bit of fun for me and I don't have much time to put into it. Maybe if I drove the sales harder, did all the social media, I could make some sort of return. Ultimately I decided to move my designs onto cults3D. I get a few quid from them now and again, which usually covers the cost of the resin.

 

I think the subscription/patreon thing is a different market. At least, the one or two I looked at were licensed for 'commercial' printing, for people to sell on ebay. I'm still a little perplexed by the way this works, as the competition seems high and they are selling them for a lot less than I would get out of bed for, but that seems to be the principle. Hmmm.. perhaps this is the machine that will ultimately replace the consumer arm of shapeways. I'm pretty sure a lot of there business is commercial prototyping though, isn't it? (at least, with their prices I assume as much) .  Maybe that has more longevity?

 

[natterjack]

15 minutes ago, Blefuscu said:

Maybe that has more longevity?

Hmm. In the medium to longer term I see 'small scale' 3D printing progressing  as a domestic interest for the enthusiast and as a somewhat localised community/geographic business resource. I am already seeing post and packaging costs beginning to exceed those of the production I am outsourcing. If I'm right, the writing would be on the wall for the present Shapeways model. The trick for any designer is to work out how to safely market files into this environment.

 

In the context of model railways there is very little that could be successfully copyrighted beyond something like a patented mechanism- after all nearly all source material is in the public domain. The issue is one that has faced creative artists since the year dot.

 

 

[letterspider]

Home printing will be a thing. You will download the stl file but it will be watermarked with a unique key like an NFT is. Each time you print the file you will need to be online as the key will be updated on a public ledger (like the Bitcoin blockchain) until you reach your limit of permissible prints. 

I suppose you could even sell or gift your unused remaining prints.

Designers could also offer limited runs of a design, or early bird prices in order to attract customers the same way manufacturer's do.

What I don't see is what will happen if your print fails. It would still be charged....

 

Edited November 14, 2023 by letterspider

[PhilH]

As you don't print from the STL file how will the watermark transfer from the STL file to the gcode or whatever file format your printer works on? Surely once you slice the file and it's converted to another format you can then save the file in that format and use it as many times as you want?

Edited November 14, 2023 by PhilH

[letterspider]

I think you may be forced to work with online servers if you want to print the high res file, as opposed to something very crude

[PhilH]

1 hour ago, letterspider said:

I think you may be forced to work with online servers if you want to print the high res file, as opposed to something very crude

As I said before you don't print from the STL file that is just a carrier for the information which you then have to slice to be able to get that information into your printers. If a designer makes a high res stl file then that's what is downloaded, and of course apart from one's own designs files are downloaded from the Internet so they are from online servers anyway. 

 

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by very crude. I have an FDM printer and two resin printers and the results I'm getting especially off the resin printers could not in anyway shape or form to be described as crude. I'm intrigued to know how exactly an online server would slice an STL file any better than the slicing program I use on my imac. I have printed a great variety of objects ranging from fantasy figures to 4 mm scale loco lamps to training aids for the British Army, the detail on them is high so I cannot understand why you would describe the results as very crude.

 

Also can you point me in the direction of the online servers that you refer to? An STL file is an STL file. A download is a download.  I don't understand your point about 'using online servers'. For what purpose? Are they an online slicing service or what are they? If they are online slicers I would like to see if they offer a slicing service superior to the program I have or indeed what services they do have.

Edited November 15, 2023 by PhilH

[natterjack]

My thumbs-up are to encourage this topic to come to some sort of resolution as to how designers can even hope to be recompensed for multiple use of files (stl at present). We are in similar 'royalties territory' to the issues recently interrupting Hollywood and those yet to be fully resolved in the music business, audio books etc.

[AMJ]

I can imagine that if I had a 3D printer and got the file to print off an item that morally you should pay for each time that you decide to print a copy.  

 

Arguably just like music downloads you could have printed out an item and have it in multiple paint schemes and you do body swaps onto your mechanism.  This is comparable to music on laptop, mobile, and car where you can only listen to one at a time.

[Dunalastair]

On 14/11/2023 at 15:11, Blefuscu said:

 

I've done some radio control parts through Shapeways but I wouldn't touch them now. Before I had my own printer I had a 1/14th scale road barrier printed in China for about twenty quid, and Shapeways were quoting $109 for the cheapest material.

 

 

Likewise, it is a while since I bought from Shapeways myself due to cost (especially shipping) and my own Shapeways shop does not see much traffic these days. I had not realised that there were Chinese print suppliers - have you a pointer / URL, please?

[natterjack]

41 minutes ago, Dunalastair said:

I had not realised that there were Chinese print suppliers - have you a pointer / URL, please?

3D print producers are even advertising their services on ebay; there are already a plethora of options to Shapeways and probably one or two local to you, wherever you may be. My tip is to go to those with the gear best suited to your needs- just as you would for a 2D printing service.

[Dunalastair]

38 minutes ago, natterjack said:

3D print producers are even advertising their services on ebay; there are already a plethora of options to Shapeways and probably one or two local to you, wherever you may be. My tip is to go to those with the gear best suited to your needs- just as you would for a 2D printing service.

 

I have looked at UK suppliers (a while ago) but between minimum orders and non-automatic systems for turning an STL into a quote (and understanding design rules) they did not really offer an alternative to Shapeways then.

[natterjack]

Sorry, but that is certainly not my experience- PM me if you want a pointer or two.

 

To give you an example, I have in the past few weeks commissioned prints to my drawings for bespoke TT120 wheels  and quartering assembly jigs for a total cost of @£30 and that included test samples- so my next order for the wheels alone will be less than a tenner including P&P. This particular printer advertises in the model railway press and has helped me out over the past 4 or 5 years. I doubt the resulting working relationship would be so easily achieved with Shapeways.

[Blefuscu]

23 hours ago, Dunalastair said:

 

Likewise, it is a while since I bought from Shapeways myself due to cost (especially shipping) and my own Shapeways shop does not see much traffic these days. I had not realised that there were Chinese print suppliers - have you a pointer / URL, please?

Apologies, I hadn't been keeping up with this thread. This is the supplier I was using;

 

https://3d.jlcpcb.com/?source=JLCPCB-top-productbar

 

I used to use them for pcbs, which is how I discovered they do 3d printing. A word of warning, however, the integrity of the stl files has to meet their design standards. (Manifold geometry, wall thickness, etc)

 

A lot of the stuff I have seen around (thingyverse, cults3d etc) would be rejected... they do, however, explain why, and where, the model fails.

[spsmiler]

 

On 15/11/2023 at 15:44, AMJ said:

I can imagine that if I had a 3D printer and got the file to print off an item that morally you should pay for each time that you decide to print a copy.  

 

With print at home buildings you can print as many copies as you like - and this means that if kit bashing and you get it wrong you can just reprint and start again. If every print attracted a reuse fee then the attraction of buying that print download would be minimal.

[andrewshimmin]

I'd love to know if anyone makes any progress on this. There are a few things from Rue d'Etropal which I'd love to have (3mm scale) but the Shapeways costs, and then the horror stories about additional costs, really put me off.

[natterjack]

5 hours ago, andrewshimmin said:

I'd love to know if anyone makes any progress on this. There are a few things from Rue d'Etropal which I'd love to have (3mm scale) but the Shapeways costs, and then the horror stories about additional costs, really put me off.

Likewise.

[The Great Bear]

On 15/11/2023 at 15:54, Dunalastair said:

 

Likewise, it is a while since I bought from Shapeways myself due to cost (especially shipping) and my own Shapeways shop does not see much traffic these days. I had not realised that there were Chinese print suppliers - have you a pointer / URL, please?

I used 3dcompare.com a few years ago, the print came from China. Maybe now it doesn't come from China, judging by shipping cost on quote I've just done. Facfox is something similar and definitiely is from China.