Smile Direct Club Bankruptcy | Stratasys & Desktop Metal Deal | Testing Lab | Tangled Filament

In this episode of Layer by Layer, we discuss the recent drama with 3D Print General and why you always need to exercise caution when dealing with "fickle gods". We also cover some 3D printing industry news involving Smile Direct Club's bankruptcy, as well as the failed deal between Stratasys & Desktop Metal. Lastly, we cover whats going on at Slant 3D with some updates on Tangled Filament and the possibility of a Slant 3D Testing Lab.
🔔 Don't forget to like and subscribe to Slant 3D for more mass production 3D printing content!
00:00 Understanding "Fickle Gods"
04:35 Smile Direct Club Goes Bankrupt
06:25 Stratasys & Desktop Metal Merger Falls Through
09:03 Building A Testing Lab
11:04 Selling Discounted “Transition” Filament
14:50 Selling Excess Filament From Production Jobs
17:02 Potential Shipping Delays For Tangled Filament
19:39 Print Settings for Tangled Filament
21:00 Quick Tip On Improving Surface Finish
22:01 Please Keep Us Honest
25:58 Etsy Integration & International Shipping
29:03 Rebuilding Our API
🔗 IMPORTANT LINKS 🔗
Get a Quote for Your Production Project: www.slant3d.com/
Slant 3D Etsy Plugin: www.slant3d.com/slant3d-etsy-...
Get Our STL's: www.angled.xyz/
Get Affordable High-Quality Filament: www.tangledfilament.com
Try Shapr3D (Use Code: Slant3d): www.shapr3d.com/download?utm_...
Our Favorite Products: www.amazon.com/shop/slant3d
About Slant 3D
🏭 High-Volume 3D Printing: Scalability Meets Flexibility
Slant 3D's Large-Scale 3D Print Farms utilize 1000's of FDM 3D printers working 24/7 to offer limitless scalability and unparalleled flexibility. Whether it's 100 or 100,000 parts, our system can handle it reliably, while still allowing for real-time design updates, ensuring products evolve with the times. This adaptability is key in today's fast-paced world.
🌿 Sustainable Manufacturing: Eco-Friendly Efficiency
Embrace a system that drastically reduces carbon emissions by eliminating carbon-intensive steps in the supply chain, such as global shipping and warehousing. Our approach minimizes this footprint, offering a more sustainable manufacturing option.
⚙️ Digital Warehouses: Parts On-Demand
Think of print farms as a "Digital Warehouse", meaning we can store your parts digitally on a server rather than physically on a shelf. parts are available on-demand, reducing the need for extensive physical inventory.
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[@anthonypolsinelli1179]

Hey @slant3d, for your left over spools, you should add a checkbox on your order page that says something along the lines of I'm okay with overbranded/recycled spools

[@dennisolsson3119]

The reused spools: brag about it! Have a sticker literally saying "Re-used spool saved from landfill now spooled with Tangled XYX".

[@BHBalast]

Great idea

[@Dalroth]

I'd rather my delivery be a day or two late and the employees health and happy than overworked and exhausted. Keep up the good work!

[@slant3d]

Thank you

[@kd7nyq]

I want that transition filament! That would be awesome! I want to recycle my own filament, and that's one of the big perks.

[@fellwind]

The term "fickle god", its more "tin pot dictator" and the obvious action is for the creators to get together and take their content elsewhere and/or bring class actions in court. Giving up and just bowing is how it continues. The audience is building on other platforms and creators need to encourage it by mirroring their content and streams. Twitch lost major viewership to Kick with its "you can't stream on more than one service" rules for example. Also, some of that strength data has been worked on by the 3d printed pew community. Hoffman Tactical did some great work on it. So has the CNC Kitchen channel. Doing it by brand rather than by type is a cool idea, perhaps also look at doing comparison of two batches by the same vendor?

[@jsmxwll]

i sand and paint many of my 3d prints. i also do a lot of prototypes that don't need to look good to begin with. so a cheap fugly pla would be great for folks like me.

[@Shemmiess]

you can call the in-between filament "slag" like they do in glass making

[@conradparker3761]

This^

[@pipdesignshop]

Love the idea of transitional filament on leftover spools. Perfect for functional items and less waste is a win win.

[@enterusernamefuck]

Selling transition rolls is great. Printed Solid does it and Refuel from 3D-Fuel is similar in the waste reducing aspect.

[@conniedave7628]

Transition is good. Other vendors call it "mystery color".

[@AwestrikeFearofGods]

I've done extensive testing on storage and shipment of moisture-sensitive materials. It's definitely nice that you're in Idaho, which should keep your filament and desiccant almost bone dry. If you get into shipping more hygroscopic filaments, note that standard polyethylene bags are somewhat permeable to water vapor. In the short term, a good helping of desiccant can handle the slow rate of moisture ingress, but eventually it gets saturated, as water vapor keeps getting through the bag. The solution is aluminized moisture barrier bags, which have two problems: 1) They're more expensive. 2) They require big-boy heat sealers and can be a bit tricky, since the aluminum conducts heat away so quickly. When there are gaps in the seal, the moisture barrier doesn't work quite as well. I'm not sure which type of bags you use, but in my opinion standard bags are fine for PLA, which is highly tolerant of moisture. This keeps packaging costs down.

[@Nifty-Stuff]

LOVING the idea of leftover spools of transition filament that decreases waste and cost. WIN-WIN-WIN-WIN = WOWOW!!!

[@KellyBC]

I see what you are saying about overbranding with stickers on your spools. I think the transition filament on those spools is a great idea. If you could get those down to $5-$7 per kg then that would be a great impulse buy to add to a order. If it were me, I would only allow those transition filament rolls to be added to a proper order just to deal with packaging and shipping more efficiently. Great video. I am going to have to check on that video about the infill testing, that is very close to some research I have been doing recently.

[@syranth8912]

Mystery Flavor Filament!!! My favorite flavor of sucker as a kid was the transition between flavors that was sold as Mystery Flavor!

[@AerialWaviator]

Brilliant idea (11:04) .. to reclaim value in transitional filament. Could call it "fickle fulfilment" respooled, as a play on the fickle gods that control our destinies. ;) This has a great sustainability and up-cycling story by repurposing what would be waste. It shouldn't be considered as an inferrer product, just tangled filament with a diverse coloring and spooling. Communication to set expectations all that should be needed. All the ideas around improving efficiency and material quality are great. This inspires innovation across the industry.

[@BramCohen]

It would be nice if you'd explain the chemistry of what's going on with the recommended high temperature of your PLA. If it's caused by your PLA being longer chain than usual then that's great, but if there's some other ingredient added there are questions of whether they have any toxicity issues or reduce strength like almost all other ingredients do.

[@patricktierney4392]

I've posted before that I would be happy to buy these changeover mystery colors, that still holds true.

[@seanhibbler9782]

It would be really interesting to see if the higher temperatures that new high speed printers effects the strength as compared to more traditional printer temps

[@Liberty4Ever]

CNC Kitchen did some good materials testing on FDM parts but there is plenty of work left to do. Comparisons of different filaments from popular manufacturers (including some high volume Amazon sellers that aren't well known names) would be great. It would also be very good to repeat the tests at different extrusion temperatures and print speeds to determine the optimal physical characteristics for each brand & type of filament, not only so you are providing accurate data about a material's best performance but also to help users know how to print each brand and type of filament to achieve the best mechanical results. The tests should be optimized to evaluate FDM mechanical properties, so measure tensile strength pulling on the strands of filament but also have tests that test inter layer strength. It would probably be good to evaluate inter layer strength as pull strength as well as shear strength. Etc. It would also be useful to evaluate stringing so we'd know which filaments are most/least prone to that problem (and report print settings to best avoid it) as well as a subjective evaluation of surface finish and appearance. The latter is nearly free data because no additional parts need to be printed. Merely make a quick observation and maybe take a standardized picture for a comparison database.

[@JohnLattanzio98]

Love to see the plans of infill testing!

[@AwestrikeFearofGods]

19:42 Do you run brass or steel nozzles? The higher-than-typical nozzle temperatures might be partially explained by thermal conductivity, so it would be helpful to know which nozzle material these recommended temperatures apply to. Thanks!

[@ge2719]

12:30 maybe make a new sticker design that half covers the old logo and has a bit that says "this filament spool was a reused empty spool from: " and then people know its a reused spool.

[@davidedwards9157]

For the number of "test" parts I print for an old engineer who doesn't really 'get' that 3D printing (at least FDM) can't really do 'press fit' vs 'sliding fit', at least not with the tolerances you'd use for machined metal. 'Cheap' (even if ugly) is huge for me. (I'll use the 'pretty' filament when tolerances are dialed in and it's time to hand off a box of 'finished' parts.)

[@MannyCo]

Hi. I run a 3d design and product innovation class for middle and high school students. I've been using lots of clips of your videos with my students. You have lots great content that helps my students with the design and manufacturing part of producing items. We do lots of prototyping and don't mind transitional coloring of filaments. We burn through a lot of filament just testing designs and don't mind the color as it's not the finished item. Your transition filament would be great for educational usage. Who would i get in touch with to get more info?

[@beauregardslim1914]

Some filament vendors have a "recycled black" where they take only plastic from their production, mix it with extra black dye, and sell it for less.

[@StumblingBumblingIdiot]

Love that in between filament stuff as it works great for prototypes and it's cheaper! Even works good for anything you are gonna paint.

[@artiem5262]

got my filament, in pre-punctured bags! Try puttng a piece of heavy paper (kraft paper) between spools in the box and you should be good. Good stuff!

[@slant3d]

Way ahead of you. Thanks for lettingus know: www.tangledfilament.com/post/problem-1-vacuum-sealed-bags-getting-punctured-in-shipping

[@davorinrusevljan6440]

Really like your iffy spool, rainbow color idea

[@genemaster74]

G'day m8....love the Slant 3D News....one of the only places i know that does a regular news bit, both within Slant 3D as well as outside. Too bad you cant do this regularly and git some news from around the world. Cheers from A M8 Downunder🙃

[@slant3d]

We run it every week on Sunday. If there is news in the industry we try to cover it. But the 3D Printing world doens not move very fast

[@Lionnnn.n]

I'd love to buy your transition filament!

[@gus452000]

Big congrats on hitting 50K subs.

[@slant3d]

Thank you!

[@McRootbeer]

Any idea how much tangled slag filament would be?

[@alaingrignon]

Hoping that you can address the non-international shipping of the pre-ordered filament in the next video. I’m in Canada and got an email saying my order was cancelled because “something” happened and you couldn’t ship the 3 spools internationally. I’m a big supporter of you guys but would like to know more about why this happened and will it be fixed if I preorder again? Thanks.

[@DudeRandom21]

Exactly this, I came scrolling through the comments wondering if I was the only one who felt a bit miffed that this wasn't addressed. I'm wondering when we will actually be able to order tangled filament in Canada.

[@glensmith766]

OMFG, I DGAF what the spool looks like! Re-use those suckers! "Chintzy and gross"? This is why we have so much waste packaging - the "unboxing experience" (spit). I want a product that performs the function it is intended for. A filament spools intended function is to hold the filament from the supplier until it is used in my printer. It is NOT a piece of wall art, I'm not going to hang it and put it on display. I'll send you back my empty spools if you just promise to reuse them, put a sticker on there with the correct plastic type and print temps and SEND THEM BACK OUT!

[@alaingrignon]

For the reuse of old spools, why not just fill it to the brim as you suggested in another video. That would mean that old 1kg spool now holds 1.5kg so would make it obviously different filament from the original.

[@everettcass7904]

I would love functional filament that would otherwise go to waste!!!

[@JohnLattanzio98]

Question about transition filament: when you say it is "garbage" or "junk" filament, is that because it looks bad or because it prints worse? I don't mind an ugly color, as long as it prints just like any other filament.

[@slant3d]

Inconsistent and unpredicatable color. But that is why we could spool it for sale as just "material"

[@Gtmz53fxt56zxc]

Love your news episodes, very insightful at the first glance in few words the news format about the industry people were crawling for. by the way Sean Aranda the 3d General guy used to publish videos in this format like “3d news of such month” etc. I wonder if you can also take up that niche with your blog, you have a talent to narrate and react to news. Transition filament at a discount is a thing and myself buy such,so you are good to go

[@thewebmachine]

So, I got my 3 spools of filament just now. Not sure where the best place to give feedback is (you don't mention where to reach out), so I am posting here. Upon opening the box, I found all 3 bags slacked because the spools rubbed together in transit and wore holes into the bag around the center spindle. I'll have to toss all 3 into the dryer before using it since it's been humid here. That said, perhaps use thicker bag material -OR- put a piece of cardboard between the spools for multi-spool shipments to prevent the uneven surfaces of the spools from rubbing together.

[@slant3d]

Thanks for letting us know. We're so sorry about that. We got this report a few times. Here is what we think the problem is and our plan to fix it going forward: www.tangledfilament.com/post/problem-1-vacuum-sealed-bags-getting-punctured-in-shipping Thanks again so much for the feedback

[@thewebmachine]

@@slant3d Thanks for the link! While the change in box size might help, we are chasing dimes here - would adding two 9x9 pieces of cardboard between the spools be cheaper than the different box size? That should be enough to keep the bags intact during transit.

[@mpart_woodlathe-stuff]

"Pied" filament ? And "Boutique" perhaps ?

[@creativitybyph]

I would love a couple of 100kg of transition filament 😊

[@bjornv9686]

About the double listing.. TIL.. that the countries added to the shipping list..is what controls who can actually see the listing. I believe you do not need to redirect one listing to another if you create a shipping profile "from US" to "to US". Then your original listing.. setup as you want, but do not add US in your shipping profile.

[@slant3d]

That is also possible. Really good point.

[@Liberty4Ever]

Great idea to use the recycled spools for random color switchover structural filament, but you missed a profit opportunity. You could have charged $1 extra for the reused spools and itemize it as a carbon offset fee and/or environmental surcharge. 🙂

[@Dalroth]

That defeats the purpose of driving costs down.

[@mpiercebgtek]

Have you thought about selling filament without a spool and a reusable spool. I throw out a lot of spools

[@nigelhungerford-symes5059]

Paint a distinctive Slant3D edge on the spools.

[@ZeeengMicro]

If Tangled goes well, do you have any plan to go worldwide? Like Europe and Asia?

[@hagopminassian1778]

Thank you @slant3d for the amazing videos, is it possible to share those production failures as an educational video in the future?

[@Etrehumain123]

In terms & conditions it's written that they can delete your channel anytime without any explanation. It is written, and we all left it on read.

[@DaveEtchells]

Tangential to this convo, but the big problem with Rumble for me as a user is their *crappy* user interface/experience. I’d use it to follow creators over there, but it feels like such a PITA to do so. If they’d just implement a better UI, I think their viewership would go up tenfold.

[@Noxoreos]

How about you don't use spools at all, like BambuLab Refill Filament? You could create and offer your own spool design to print it out by the customer and put the refill spools on it.

[@gg48gg]

A) The name Tangled is problematic. It is associated with a problem (negative connotation) and when searching the web for the name, the results discuss how to untangle filament. What was the thought process behind this name? Perhaps a new name could be associated with a positive aspect like low cost, larger quantity, etc. and also unique enough to be findable in a web search. B) I like the idea of the discounted purge filament on re-used spools. Both for the benefit of consumer cost saving and lower waste and higher profit for Slant. Win win situation. C) I ordered black. I'll be needing some red and blue as well. It would be wonderful at some point in the future to be able to subscribe to one of each color, black red and blue.

[@slant3d]

But its funny.

[@B0A2]

It is funny

[@stevethompson210]

I agree, it is a witty name but it doesn’t serve you the best.

[@icrofts]

I liked the 3d print general channel. I think what doomed him was having a shot of a gun handle being printed in the intro.

[@andreas.grundler]

The name of the channel alone stopped me from looking at the content. A channel name like 3D Printing General makes you think of guns, and that's not what I'm interested in.

[@scunthorpe5513]

​​@@andreas.grundlerhe never posted about guns except for one time. And that one time was a journalistic showcase of a 3d printed gun company. He has a second channel dedicated to firearms called 3d pew general. He keeps his 3d printing content separate from the gun content.

[@andreas.grundler]

@@scunthorpe5513 It doesn't matter. As I said, the channel name alone put me off. The name of the channel determines the effect on people who don't know the content yet. For example, what do you think of when you hear Teaching Tech, CNC Kitchen, Makers Muse or 3d Printing Nerd ? Certainly not guns.

[@echotree.prints]

​@@andreas.grundlerWhen I think of the word General, I think of "in general" or "covering a general area"

[@andreas.grundler]

​@@echotree.prints My mother tongue is German. In German, the word "General" only has the meaning of a military rank.

[@DjUnikardo]

Hopefully in 2.0 it likes files with more dynamics lol

[@slant3d]

What are the issues you have been running into?

[@DjUnikardo]

@@slant3d Im trying to upload a file that fits into the print bed, and also under 50mb. And its infinite loading lol I think since the model has alot of geometry its straining the API

[@slant3d]

Shoot us a message at [e-mail]. And we will print and ship it to you for free for the beg report. And our team can take a look at the model and see what is causing the hang.

[@terryliu5771]

I work for a test lab that has a tensile machine up to 500lbs. Would be interested in partnering with you to run the tensile test on the different infill. Let me know if you are interested. Quanta Labs in Silicon Valley