3D Printing
Two different jobs with two different bills. If you already have a model, you are paying for material, machine time and the labour to finish the part. If you do not, you are paying for the design work first, and that is quoted on its own.
What 3D Printing covers
- 3D Printing -- You Have the File
Send the model and we print it. STL, OBJ, 3MF and STEP all arrive regularly -- STEP is the most useful, because it keeps real dimensions and can actually be adjusted. Priced on material used, machine time, and the labour to remove supports and finish the part. Note that print time follows part height and layer count as much as volume, so a tall thin part can take longer than a short fat one. Files often need repair before they will run -- holes in the mesh, inverted normals, or a millimetres-versus-inches mix-up -- and we tell you before we print.
- 3D Printing -- We Design the File
CAD modelling from a description, a drawing, a measured part or a 3D scan, then a printability review before anything goes on a machine. That means working out what the part mates to and what load it sees, measuring it, modelling it parametrically so it can be revised, then checking wall thickness, clearances, orientation and support strategy. The real deliverable is the iteration loop -- test print, check the fit, revise -- which is why it is quoted separately from printing.