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With Print it Anyway, Push the limits of 3D Printing
Posted By Hannah Bensoussan on Aug 3, 2016 | 0 comments
We know that some of our users are passionate about 3D printing, want to make the most of the technology and to push its limits as far as possible. That’s why we are launching two new features: the Expert User status, and the Print it Anyway option.
What is an Expert user?
You’ve made 5 or more successful orders with us? Then you are an Expert user. We serve many users, some new to digital manufacturing and other who have many years experience working with these technologies. We created the Expert user status so that those of you who have experience with our services and understand the limits of our production techniques can be provided with an adapted service, and unlock exclusive advanced features. These features accelerate your orders and reduce iteration between you and our support teams.
What is Print it anyway?
When you’re placing an order, before checkout, our platform automatically realizes a solidity check of your part, to make sure it’s not too fragile and it won’t break during production or shipping. It shows you where the part needs to be made stronger, and we might prevent you from ordering if we consider we can’t make the part the way you want it while respecting our quality standards.
The Print it anyway feature gives you the option to go around this solidity check, and, even if your part may be fragile, Print it anyway. Because we consider you’re an expert when it comes to our services, we give you more leeway to experiment with the possibilities of the machines, and try and push the limits further. By choosing to use it, you take the risk of breakage, of course, but you also give yourself the opportunity to learn about what’s possible and how far you can go.
If the piece is damaged during production or post processing, you’ll receive all pieces that we could recover.
The design may still be rejected if it poses a significant risk of production failure. In this case, you’ll receive a full refund.
Why is it useful?
Without the Print it anyway feature, when you use our solidity check tool before checkout and your part is considered too fragile, you have three options:
- Change your object before printing, either by changing the material, the size or even the 3D file
- Use our “thickening” tool
- Call our support team and ask to print anyway.
This third option takes time, and sometimes needs several iterations. Thanks to the Print it Anyway feature, directly available at checkout for Expert Users, you won’t need to contact our support team in order to move forward with your order. We believe you’ve understood the solidity check warning, and we want you to have the freedom to take the risk.
Want to learn more about our tools to help with your 3D printing? Click here.
How does it work?
When you’ve placed 5 orders with us successfully (meaning: your parts respected the requirements and could be printed), you’re automatically granted the Expert user status, and will be notified by email. It will appear in your “My account” page.
Once you’re granted this status, the “Print it Anyway” check box will appear at the last step of your order, when you’ve uploaded your file and the solidity check has been made. You can choose to tick that box if you want to use this option
As a default setting, this box will be unchecked, and you’ll tick it on a per print basis. You can choose to have it checked as a default setting in order to produce all of your orders with this option: simply go to your preferences (in the “My account” page), you will then be able to tick the box “Always Print it anyway”, which will automatically select the Print it anyway feature, for each one of your order.
It is opt-in and you can change your mind at anytime here simply by unchecking this option in your preferences.
To know more, check out the Expert User and Print it anyway page.
If you’re already an Expert User, we hope you’ll appreciate this new feature! If you’re not one yet, get 3D printing: you only need 5 orders to be granted the Expert status!