What to expect with our models.

If you look around at the about page, you'll see that between the two owners, neither one of us claims to be a 3D printing expert. Its because we are not. Perfect results may be attainable, but we would rather focus on making sure that the designs are accurate and functional, than we would tinkering with printer settings to get a perfect print that would change on the next spool of filament. As such, if you have some constructive criticism of our products or printing methods, we'd love to hear it and are welcome to learning new and better ways to do things. 

The models are made of plastic, they are stronger than they look, but they will still break if excessive loads are applied to them. Impacts to and dropping of the models are the easiest way to break them, followed by attempting to tighten any of the plastic fasteners more than hand tight. They wont break for no reason, but they should be handled with care to ensure longevity. 

Since 3D printers lay down one layer at a time, layer lines, or "Z-banding" is common in printed models. Sometimes the lines are very pronounced, other times they are almost invisible. We try to print our items with an acceptably smoot finish, but sometimes material or program conditions lead to some excessive banding. This is considered normal and acceptable for our models.

Because of the complexity of our parts, it is necessary to use supports while 3D printing some parts, these supports only act to enable overhangs to be printed, and are removed in post-processing once the print is finished. Sometimes the contact points for these supports can get stuck to the main print and must be removed by cutting or breaking the support away from the attachment point. This can leave marks and visible flaws in some surfaces. The layer just above the support interface can also have some flaws, as most of the time a gap is required to be able to remove supports, so the next layer can sag and dip when printed, we consider this to be unfortunate, but acceptable. We try to minimize the contact of the supports to the prints, and are working on ways to make this process better, but there will always be a chance of some visible flaws in the print due to support interfaces and tools used to remove supports.

We print all of our dynamic (functioning) models in PETG. This material has a lot of positive qualities that make it ideal to print with, but it also has a tendency to string or blob, this leads to imperfections on the outer layers of the print that may show up as small holes or areas where it looks like there was a "skip" for a portion of a layer. If the flaw impacts function or is grossly unsightly, we will not sell the print. Small inclusions will be evaluated from a distance of 5 feet, if at 5 feet the flaw is not readily apparent to us, it will be shipped. 

Ringing or ghosting takes place when the outline of a feature is shown in the finish of the part adjacent to where the actual part is located. This is due to instability in the 3D printer. Eliminating ringing is possible, but most of the time it involves having to slow the print down, leading to longer print times, leading to longer lead times. We run our printers on the standard speed setting in an attempt to be time and cost effective, a single static reciprocating model is a 13 hour print, while the 11"x16" model has a combined print time of 72 hours. If ringing is severe or causes parts to not fit or function properly, we will not ship them, but normal ringing/ghosting is considered normal and acceptable.