Kabuto Models; Details for your layout!

[cteno4]

That's awesome sauce Toni! Kudos!

 

Jeff

[ToniBabelony]

Thanks!

 

And in the meantime, Kabuto Models has released another little detail that should be on any contemporary Japanese layout. The corner mirror: http://shpws.me/IKZO Framed for protection, a feature that will also slowly be adopted by older models to protect the important parts from transport and handling damage.

[ToniBabelony]

Upon request, a bulk pack of 40 torii!

 

Myōjin-style torii (40x), small (N-gauge)

 

These can be seen in the thousands at the Fushimi Inari-taisha and elsewhere in Japan. As this is a very very popular style, this is a must-have on every layout!

[cteno4]

Such a deal!

 

Jeff

[Darklighter]

I don't need torii right now, but how about versions without base plate?

[ToniBabelony]

I don't need torii right now, but how about versions without base plate?

 

Versions without base plates can not guarantee stability, as the baseplates are part of the overall structure and support the thin poles and beams. The baseplates can however be hidden below the surface by filling up the surrounding area around the base. Next to that, the baseplate is intended to be hidden anyway, as it is not part of the visible structure. The geometry of the torii I have made is as explained in various religious shinto documents. Making the base plate visible would disrupt the harmonic geometry.

 

P.s. DMM.make is suffering major delays for acrylic print orders, which is quite frustrating to say the least. I wanted to bring some new samples to the JMNA this weekend to show off, but I guess that has to wait until the JAM... 

Edited July 3, 2015 by Toni Babelony

[cteno4]

The base plates can be trimmed off pretty easily. The base plates are very thin so does not require much scenic material to build up and cover them if you use them. You could also trim the base plates off and then np just glue the footings directly onto a small, flat pin head and trim the pin down to 5-10mm and just poke them into your scenery if you use foam scenery base.

 

Toni, did you look into doing the small indent around the footing right at the base plate to aid in trimming if needed? Nice to have a little guide for the knife blade.

 

One thing is that the ultra fine detail acrylic at shapeways is pretty brittle stuff compared to moulded stryene and abs. It gives a little then just snap, not like stryene that give a little then begins to stress bend and then snaps! It also does not undeform well like you can do with stryene by bending some in the opposite direction of the deformation. I'm going to play with some heat to see what that does. At times spindler parts can get deformed a tad in printing or shipping (when wrapped up in bubble wrap too tightly) so some correction at times is needed.

 

Jeff

[cteno4]

Btw toriis came out all nice and straight from shapeways! Just the connectors connecting all the base plates together we're a bit curled, but I think this was just due to the tight bubble wrapping for shipping. I think it would be a lot better to just put in sort of a loose Baggie and use styrofoam peanuts than the bubble wrap they do. Going to write shapeways about it, but I expect they have tried a million different ways! Hard as folks do all sorts of different shapes and constructions with these!

 

Toni's new design on the street mirrors also looks like it might help as well.

 

Jeff

Edited July 3, 2015 by cteno4

[velotrain]

Going to write shapeways about it, but I expect they have tried a million different ways!

 

I expect they tried one way and stuck with it.  My experience with them is that they're resistant to change and have no interest in improving anything.

[katoftw]

3D printing is pretty brittle in fine form shape.  It is powder glued together.  I wouldn't expect 100% clean and unbroken products in the small sizes within this thread.  In saying that, it they are packaging poorly, then well that it another story.

[ToniBabelony]

The products Kabuto Models are offering are mainly UV cured acrylic polymer compound, so no powder involved.

 

As for the intentional snapping of the connection beams; the newest updated products (Torii and Mirrors) have revised box frames that should cleanly snap off and improve stability. No need for knife cutting.

 

As for packing at Shapeways, 3D printing is already a very fragile subject, so I'm sure they do their best to pack it as securely as possible. Otherwise they wouldn't have a no-good-we-print-again policy. It also has to do with how the designer made his/her products and is willing to improve them for transport purposes.

[cteno4]

I've found shapeways to be pretty responsive and trying to advance the whole 3d printing idea. Issues I've had with printing have been dealt with in advance by them!

 

What specific issues have you had with their printing service Charles? The issue on the search is not their issue, but the issue of the sellers not key wording thier products, shapeways can't really do anything about that.

 

Like toni said the parts are tiny many times and odd shaped and structured so very difficult to judge exactly which packing method would work best. also tough to do for an inexpensive price (which they offer w.in the us).

 

Jeff

[velotrain]

I can't recall everything I've mentioned to them over the years, and gave up caring long ago, but my basic issue is with their wild west, caveat emptor attitude.

 

They could easily insure that every product is at least test printed before it is offered for sale.  Instead, I see a rendering and a comment "I think this should work".

 

They could also make sure that there is some sort of description - and a photo of the actual printed product.

 

In general, they could make some effort to work with designers to provide a better consumer interface.

 

I have no problem with their customer service once an order is placed, but they seem to have a hands-off attitude toward the quality of what's offered on their site.

 

The site and functionality have not changed over time, despite their business probably growing tenfold - or more likely several hundred-fold since I first went there.

 

Perhaps it's not that Shapeways is bad per se - rather that it could be so much better, but they just don't seem to care.  YMMV

[cteno4]

Yes it is cavet emptor as they are not selling their own products, just allowing folks to make public and have potential access to what they create. It's up to you to decide if it looks of some quality, been printed, photos, etc. if shapeways were to try to evaluate all the products it would add quite a bit to the bottom line. If you don't like that model then best to just steer clear of this kind of more experimental approach and go for the standard production companies. But then of course you will have much more limited options. You can't have it all!

 

So far I've had good luck with the stuff I've found there, but I've looked at it a bit before jumping in on any. There are plenty of folks like toni dong great stuff there.

 

It's easy to armchair quarterback businesses like this, but I think they have tons of experience that we just can't appreciate or know. I know when I was doing commercial educational CD-ROMs we would have impassioned suggestions for design etc, from seasoned testers with loads of experience that were rejected as there were very strong reasons they did not see that shot the ideas down.

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

Edited July 4, 2015 by cteno4

[ToniBabelony]

IMO it's very unfair to shoot down the messenger (in this case Shapeways). They only do printing and not the designing.

 

The designs are done by the makers who upload their designs on the website. After that, the design is automatically checked if it is fit for certain types of materials and suggestions are made (usually regarding structural integrity) for improvement if needed.After ordering, the design is checked manually and again suggestions are made for improvement for the designer by human checks.

 

I have had this multiple times already and although it meant I missed out on some orders, it is a great way of learning. Not only how to improve your own skills, but also to create designs that are perfect for printing and need no further improvement. These checks (automated and manual) are a great effort of Shapeways, as of course they can't test-print everything on their own behalf. Test printing ANY design is possible, but that is totally the responsibility of the designer. If it is successful, it helps pushing the border of that printing technique, if not, try again.

 

Criticising Shapeways for bad design is like calling to a paper printer to tell them a book they printed was a bad read. To further elaborate on 'bad design', you can view this from different perspectives.

 

One is from the perspective of the printer, which is a design that is impossible to print. Material thickness, instability, no balance or structural integrity, etc. The other is the perspective of the user/customer, who might consider the ordered product not according to their wishes. This can be fragility, not prototypical, not too high detail, size, etc. Those are all issues the designer has to keep in mind when creating the product. If you do so, you can create products that are good in every way. Printability (material thickness), transportable stability (protective and supporting frames) and user friendliness (easy snap-off and good looking) are my motto.

 

I -Kabuto Models- want to make good products and not gimmicks, as this is essential for customer satisfaction and the most joy possible when building your diorama/layout. It can never be 100% perfect, but I'm trying to get damn close to it. Of course, I agree, photos of test prints and/or final products are big selling points, which is why I have everything in BETA which hasn't been printed yet.

 

P.s. DMM.make just notified me my final Sneltram project is being printed. FINALLY! When this one is good, I will order multiple orders of revised and new designs and try to make photos of them as soon as they arrive. I'm very very excited about this item, as it has a new drive system for two powered bogies, as well as a perfect fit motor holder, which will be used in future planned models as well.

Edited July 4, 2015 by Toni Babelony

[velotrain]

 if shapeways were to try to evaluate all the products it would add quite a bit to the bottom line.

 

Evaluate?  Where did that come from?

 

It would be easy to automate not allowing a product to be offered for sale until a test print had at least been done.

 

Yes it's up to the potential purchaser to be careful, but I'm just saying they don't need to be so lazy.

 

They could get their hands a little dirty and still make large profits.

[ToniBabelony]

Charles, I don't think you agree with Shapeways' way of operating, which is fine. You made your point, we know it by now, Jeff and me tried to explain why and how they operate this way, so please stop ranting about this in this topic. This topic is not the place for this discussion.

[velotrain]

IMO it's very unfair to shoot down the messenger (in this case Shapeways). They only do printing and not the designing.

..........

 

Criticising Shapeways for bad design is like calling to a paper printer to tell them a book they printed was a bad read. To further elaborate on 'bad design', you can view this from different perspectives.

 

Toni - I'm not shooting down the messenger, just saying that the messenger shouldn't be ignorant of what they're carrying.

 

As I said before, I think they're fine after something has been ordered, but wished they did a better job of policing what gets posted for sale in the first place.  I do think some of that can be done in an automated manner that won't derail their business model.

 

I don't know why you think I'm criticizing Shapeways for bad design.  "Bad design" can be interpreted in many ways, but I wasn't knowingly attributing any to them - except perhaps for the site itself. 

 

What I think they could do is try to control the "integrity" of what is put up for sale on the site, so it's not all on the consumer.

 

Obviously, designers like yourself who are interested in offering quality products and developing long-term customers will do a good job, and I'm not even saying that there are "bad designers" trying to rip people off.  However, Shapeways might take an active roll with designers who provide renderings for products that simply can't be printed as they're shown.

[ToniBabelony]

As I have explained, Shapeways does automated checks and after that even manual checks and not everything gets released for ordering. This also shifts a part of the responsibility of the design on Shapeways and not only on the designer.

 

I don't know what issues you had with Shapeways before, since you don't care to explain it, so that makes me don't care, even if I could. This way we can't go into these issues and see if these have been resolved. You make it sound like Shapeways is a conservative block of granite that only wants to make profit and doesn't care about it customers and creators, although care for their products (customer satisfaction) is the core of their existence, like many other similar companies.

 

Anyway, I'm done in this discussion regarding Shapeways and the way they handle their things. Please don't continue in this topic any more. If you do care to continue, please open up a new topic for this.

[cteno4]

Yes I think if you want to continue this Charles start a new thread on shapeways, this thread is about Toni's offerings, not shapeways. If you have specific examples of issues with things you have purchased there, post them there with it, so far I've not seen you post any specific examples of problems with shapeways products.

 

TonI has creates dome very nice products here that I have in hand and are really nice! I'll get Picts of the tanks and waste bins up soon here.

 

Jeff

[velotrain]

Sorry, Toni - I'll never utter the S-word again.

[Darklighter]

 Shapeways is offering free shipping on any order through July 12!

[ToniBabelony]

Thanks for notifying me! This certainly removes a big financial barrier, as this money can either be saved or be used for one or two extra orders. Especially world wide sending fees are getting expensive pretty quickly, so this is a great opportunity for everybody!

[katoftw]

Thanks for the update.  Off I go...

[katoftw]

Silly question.  Any reason the small gates are scaled to 1.7M and not 2.0M in height?