5 tips to reduce your 3D Printing costs

Posted By Capucine Lonjon on Jun 1, 2016 | 0 comments

Sculpteo is very much concerned with your projects and the amount of money you have to invest when 3D Printing. Additive manufacturing has a lot of advantages, including a lower price than traditional manufacturing, especially if you’re planning to 3D print small batches or do some rapid prototyping. But it is a perfect solution for any project, from solid objects to complex shapes, everything is 3D printable. On our online 3D printing service, we elaborated some special tools for you to reduce your 3D Printing costs. This article gives you the keys to make the most of our service with a cost-reducing objective.

1. Hollowing tool

When you build your 3D model, you may not think of 3D printing it at first. When you come to print it, you realize that your 3D design is not constructed in a way to be printed and you didn’t think of the 3D Printing costs it will engage. Your file has to be fixed. We created a special tool that allows you, when uploading your file, to hollow your model. Hollowing your part reduces incredibly the 3D Printing costs of your project. In fact, if you get rid of excess material, you won’t have to pay it. What’s more, the printing process is quicker! To ease your experience, you can directly estimate the price of your final part thanks to our algorithm which automatically calculates the price of your order. You have to be careful to leave a hole in your design so that once the part is printed, the dust can be taken out of your object.

2. Batch Control Tool (serial production)

Our Batch Control tool optimizes the space inside of our 3D printers and time of printing in order to decrease the final price of your series. If you intend to print more than 20 units in the same material, we give you the possibility to organize (yourself or automatically) your parts placement in our batch. Therefore, you can have significant economies of scale using our Batch Control Tool, and the price per unit ends up to be far lower. Your 3D Printing costs are once again reduced.

3. Economic Production Mode

At Sculpteo, we carefully take into consideration your productions’ set times limit. In order to satisfy your needs, we created an economic production option for Plastics. If you have enough leeway in your lead production, you can examine taking the economic production mode. If you choose this shipping option, you will receive your 3D objectsone week later and save up to 30%. However, the economic production mode is only available under 20 units. If on the contrary, you are in a rush or need a quick 3D production, you can select the express production mode and your part will be delivered in 48 hours.

4. Loyalty program

Being loyal to our 3D printing service can help you reducing the costs of your upcoming orders! Indeed, to thank you for your loyalty and build a trustful business relationship, you can benefit from the Loyalty Program. Based on the frequency and the number of orders, the Loyalty Program offers you a financial advantage when you order on Sculpteo’s website. The discount you’ll get will be available on your next order. We will send you automatically a special code that you can write when ordering your part as seen below. Those discounts are not exclusive. You will be able to benefit from all of these offers.

		3 orders	6 orders	15 orders
numbers of orders within a number of days	<100 days	Free shipping	Free shipping	Free shipping
	<200 days	–	12% Discount	12 % Discount
	< a year	–	–	16 % Discount

5. Student Reduction Program

We planned a special regime for students to encourage them using the 3D Printing technology in their projects. If you are a student, you can get a 20% discount. Send an email to [email protected] from an address ending in ‘.edu’ (or any other school / university address) to assess that you are a student. Please attach a copy of your student ID in the body with ‘Student Discount’ as the subject. We’ll send you a special code that you can enter when ordering your part (see above). You’ll need a code per order. You’ll have to send your student ID each time you need the discount.

Other factors influencing the 3D printing pricing

Optimization of your 3D files

Other options and tools can influence the overall cost of your 3D prints. We have several tools available on our website to improve your parts and help you to get the perfect 3D printed item. For example, the thickening tool is able to thicken your parts automatically where they are too thin, avoiding them to break once they’re out of the 3D printer. When you are CAD modeling, you are focused on the complex shape of your 3D model, or on its design, you don’t specifically pay attention to its future solidity. But the tools available on our online 3D printing service will help you to optimize your 3D file.

3D printing materials and surface finishes

During your order, you also have to choose among several 3D printing materials. When you’re changing the material, it can increase or reduce your 3D printing costs.

You can print your 3D model with a finish, or get it with a raw material look if you are just doing rapid prototyping. You have to find the finish that will suit your project. It will easily make your 3D printed items look like end products. Once again, you have to keep in mind that there are different post-processing techniques, and they don’t all have the same prices.

We hope that these advice and tips to reduce your 3D printing costs will help you with your upcoming orders. Thanks to them, you’re now able to make the most of additive manufacturing. As you can see a lot of options can influence the 3D printing pricing, you have to pay close attention to some of these informations, as the finishes and materials cost.

Thanks to Sculpteo and all these tips, you can access a professional 3D printing technology. Are you ready to try? Upload your 3D files right here.

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