faqs

The reasons for using a 3D printer is that you can create a 3D model of your Computer Aided Design without the need for tooling or specialist programming skills. You can choose from a variety of materials, and different resolutions to suit your application.

With the increased use of CAD many designers are either having a small scaled model made before production tooling is ordered to ensure the integrity of the design, or full size models to show their customers, to ensure they are going to be happy with the size, shape and form of a new design.

3D printing machines are optimised for speed, relative low cost and ease of use which makes them suitable for visualising designs during the conceptual stages of your design when properties such as mechanical strength is less important.

Colour can be introduced to a model in 2 ways, you can colour or render your model in CAD and export a VRML model, or you can send us an STL file and a document to show us the colours which we can then apply in our software.

This is dependent on the size of your model, which technology that has been chosen to 3D print your model, and how much post processing there is on the model after  printing, and our workload at the time of ordering. Typically you can expect a model to be despatched 3 to 4 days working from receipt of order for our Standard service. If your model is more urgent then please let us know, and when we quote and we may be able to prioritise your model, it could take as little as 24 hours to ship.

Our preferred file format is STL, which stands for "Standard Triangulation Language", but the following monochrome file formats can also be accepted:

• *.3DS - 3D Studio
• *.OBJ - Wavefront
• *PLY Stanford polygon file

If you only have .Step or iges files we can bring them into a CAD program and do a conversion for you, but this takes extra time and slow down the quoting process.

For colour printing the following formats are accepted:

• *.PLY Stanford polygon file Basic colours only
• VRML Virtual Reality Modeling Language Texture map and colour, GIS, FEA and colour assemblies
• *.3DS 3D Studio Full colour and texture mapped geometry

If you have any queries regarding file formats please contact us at info@3dcreationlab.co.uk> or call 07957 862657 and talk to Brian.

You can pay by credit card or Debit card through our Sage pay gateway or if you are a business customer we can open a business account for you after your first order has been processed on a pro-forma basis. After this you will be invoiced after each job.

It is dependant on where your model is the manufacturing process. If we have started to produce the model or we have started repairing your mesh then cancellation may incur a charge. If we have not carried out any processing then cancellation may be possible, please email info@3dcreationlab.co.uk as soon as possible if you need to cancel and we will let you know whether it will be possible.

We now have a new service to help people who don't have CAD, we can convert 2D drawings or sketches to printable 3D CAD files. This will allow us to calculate the price for your model we need to import your file into our specialist 3D printing software.

Unfortunately there is no way of calculating the actual price without doing this, so we cant give firm cost without a 3D digital model, but we can help you decide if 3D printing is appropriate, so please send a jpeg or enquire to brian@3dcreationlab.co.uk or call me personally on my mobile 07957862657. We look forward to helping you get your 3D design printed.

Yes you can. Please ensure that your payment address is the one registered to the credit card you are paying with.

If you are inside the European Union (EU) and you are an individual unfortunately you will have to pay value added tax (or VAT) on top of the prices shown on this page, the current rate of VAT is 20%. If you are a business within the EU (excluding the UK) and you are VAT registered you will qualify for zero rate VAT as long as you can supply a valid VAT registration number including the country code.

The following countries are within the EU: (take a deep breath!):

Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, except the Faroe Islands and Greenland, Estonia, Finland, France, including Monaco, Germany, except Busingen and the Isle of Heligoland, Greece, Hungary, The Republic of Ireland, Italy, except the communes of Livigno and Campione d’Italia and the Italian waters of Lake Lugano, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, including the Azores and Madeira, Slovakia, Spain, including the Balearic Islands but excluding Ceuta and Melilla, Slovenia, Sweden, United Kingdom and the Isle of Man.

The following countries although in the EU are considered to be outside of the EU fiscal area and therefore are exempt from VAT: (not quite so big a breath!)

The Aland Islands, Andorra, The Canary Islands, The Channel Islands, The overseas departments of France (Guadeloupe, Martinique, Réunion, St. Pierre and Miquelon, and French Guiana), Gibraltar, Mount Athos, San Marino, The Vatican City

Outside of the EU there is no VAT charge, but your local customs may charge you additional fees that are specific to your area. The shipping company will collect this when they deliver your goods to you.

During the 3D printing process the part being printed needs to be supported. In Z Corp it is supported by removable powder, in Objet it is removed by a jet wash and in Dimension technology it is dissolved.

We have nine 3D printing machines, 3 technologies with a forth just waiting to be ommissioned. As you have correctly anticipated the costs are calculated in a formula derived from entering the STL file into the printer software, the output gives us the volume of material used in the print, the time to print and we add any post printing costs to that calculation to establish a sales cost, we add time to fix the mesh before printing, also packing and carriage and then send you a quote. The limitations for a single build is the volume of the build envelope, the largest one being 500mm x 400mm x 200mm, but having said that we have printed 1000mm sculptures and glued them together and 700mm x 600mm plinth covers and again joined them by using adhesive. All the models can be painted if required but we do have colour printers that can print any coloured image on the model, as shown on our website.