Raphael here again. It’s great to see that you have all ordered a LOT of FXD. Glad you’re excited about it 😉

Wanted to update you on a few of the issues in we’ve seen in this launch and where we are on fixing them.

Max Bounding Box per part vs Max Bounding Box per model
As many of you noticed, there was a bug in how we calculated the printability of FXD based on max bounding box (BB). While we were correctly checking min BB per part, max BB was checking both on per part and per model. This means that models where the overall oriented bounds are larger than the materials max BB were not printable, and substantially decreased the number of models which were printable in this material.

Last week we fixed this issue, and any newly uploaded model will now correctly check max BB per part. If you have models which should be printable but are currently not for this reason, reuploading them will fix that. We’re working on a potential solution to back process existing models and recalculate printability, but this will be a few weeks because we want to be careful to create a solution that addresses the maximum number of people’s needs while not decreasing existing model’s printability.

Original Bounding Box is Printable, Oriented Bounding Box is not
In the past we have only checked max BB printability on oriented bounding box, on the assumption that oriented bounds are always smaller than original bounds. However, as some of you have noticed, there are certain rare cases where because oriented bounds optimizes for bounding box volume, not fit into a machine, the original BB is printable, but the oriented BB is not, and thus the model itself is incorrectly not printable. We’re working to fix this, but like the Max BB per part vs Max BB per model issue above, will take some time to ensure that we don’t negatively impact printability of any existing models.

Not all models are visible in FXD in the CSV
There was a bug which was discovered after FXD launch which prevented all models from appearing in FXD in the CSV. This has been fixed, and you can now use the CSV to update pricing and for-sale status of all FXD models.

As always, post any questions or concerns here, and reach out to service@shapeways.com if you need help.

Best,
Raphael

Hey Daniel,

I’m not sure exactly how large that kind of coke bottle is, but I think it’s between 8 and 12 inches. That would make it 6-9mm tall at 1/35 scale. The astronauts in the photo above are about 12mm tall, so this size is definitely doable from a detail perspective, although you’ll need to sprue multiple bottles together to meet the minimum bounding box requirement.

We don’t offer this material in any colors, however it dyes very well, so if you’d like a tinted green part all you need is some RIT dye.

Best,
Raphael

Items that only had FD enabled are no longer for sale. The designer was notified of the change, and will need to enable the product in another material to continue to sell it.

Best,
Raphael

Thanks for flagging, and sorry for the inconvenience.

We just updated this particular model manually so you can now print in FXD. For your context, we implemented a fix on Friday that seems to have resolved most issues, but there are a few edge cases we’re working through. Thanks so much for your patience – I’m sure this is frustrating and appreciate all the feedback to help us improve.

Same as my reply below, but just so you get it in your inbox 🙂

To provide some more context, FUD is stronger than FD and FXD is stronger than FUD. Strength really depends on the model design. Designs that wouldn’t survive in FUD might be manufacturable in FXD…if you really want to push the limits, though, I’d suggest trying Print It Anyway. Hope that helps!

To provide some more context, FUD is stronger than FD and FXD is stronger than FUD. Strength really depends on the model design. Designs that wouldn’t survive in FUD might be manufacturable in FXD…if you really want to push the limits, though, I’d suggest trying Print It Anyway. Hope that helps!