A warning for contract printers:
At @NextFab we have a 3D System Projet HD 3500 Plus material jetting machine. We print contract jobs on it often, but rarely jobs with the volume or number of parts as a recent request for 400 test coupons. (I don’t know what they are for. We rarely do.) In order to maximize the printer time, I filled the available volume with parts. I quoted the job and got approval to run it. This is where we found some problems. First, the machine would fail to start with 400 bricks in the bed. Frustrating, but the workaround was cutting the job in two.
When I tried to quote 200 bricks, I got the exact same part volume as reported for 400 bricks. Uh oh. I soon discovered that Client Manager, the machine’s software, would stop counting parts at 100. You can see in the attached screenshots that the quoted part volume levels off after 100 pieces. Our service provider and 3DS are working on a software update to address this problem, but until then, right click on a submitted job and choose Properties to get accurate part and support weights.
All in all, we printed 400 parts and 18lbs. of material, but only charged for 4.5lbs.
Ouch!