Michael Wulf
Hi everyone! Since we have built around 50 FEDs over the last year, Lex asked me to write a brief review of using HUBS as 3D printing service:
Due to the global supply chain problems everyone is facing at the moment, the Kepecs Lab at Washington University in St. Louis found itself to build and assemble 2 batches of 25 FED3 devices each in-house.
To reduce the costs for the 3D-printed parts, we decided to source all enclosure parts (basically all parts except the nosepiece and the clear lid) from HUBS. HUBS acts like a network for different manufacturers and offers very similar printing services compared to Shapeways. Since HUBS and Shapeways list HP’s MultiJet Fusion printers for printing PA12 nylon, we expected very similar results of the printed parts but at a much lower cost (date checked 2022-08-02). Interestingly, the lead time including shipping using HUBS seems to be 14 days shorter at the moment as well.
The main difference between HUBS and Shapeways regarding the 3D printed parts seems to be how well the parts are cleaned they got printed. For the parts ordered from HUBS, all flat parts and surfaces are clean and similarly smooth compared to the results from Shapeways. Only the tunnel inside the main FED housing component had in almost all cases a lot of uncured nylon powder in it. Without manual cleaning this segment of the enclosure, the delivery of pellets would at least not be reliable or even completely impossible. To circumvent that, we used nylon pipe cleaners (similar to these at Amazon) and compressed air to remove as much uncured material as possible. Even though this is an additional manual process, it only takes few minutes per device and is definitely doable. Another minor difference we have noticed is that the side door seems to snap or break a little bit easier than they do when printed by Shapeways. But we only have just a few FEDs with parts printed by Shapeways to compare to.
Given the price difference of ~$115 at Shapeways to ~$80 at HUBS (when we ordered the parts in 2022-04 it was ~$55 when ordering parts for 25 units), we are very happy with the overall quality and service provided by HUBS and would order there again.
Please find attached some image of our assembled units and feel free to reach out to us if you have questions about using HUBS or the assemble process.
