The FAQ

Three ways, in order of speed: (1) Upload a file through the appointment form and you get a quote within two business hours. (2) Email the file to [email protected]. (3) Call the shop at (628) 214-7390 during business hours and we can walk through it together.

Whichever route you pick, you get a ticket number immediately and a real engineer reviews the file before anything is printed.

For most parts, yes. We accept STL, STEP, STP, and OBJ files. If you only have a physical part, a sketch, or a photo of something you want to reproduce, we offer reverse engineering and design services. Our CAD team can model a part from scratch at $95 per hour.

One part. We run single-unit orders every week for maintenance, repair, and one-off design work. Volume pricing kicks in at 10 units and scales up through 5,000+.

Yes, and we encourage it. Tours are free and take about thirty minutes. We are at 2150 Market Street, Suite 340, San Francisco. Book a slot or call (628) 214-7390.

Six main sectors: aerospace, medical devices, automotive, consumer products, robotics, and industrial. Full breakdown on the Industries page. If your project does not fit any of those, tell us about it anyway — we turn down projects we cannot do well, but we do not turn down projects just because they are unusual.

Yes. Roughly a third of our customers are individual engineers, makers, and founders running pre-launch prototypes. We do not have a minimum revenue requirement or a business account gate. Anyone can order.

Yes. Any school, university lab, or registered nonprofit gets 10% off every order. Just mention it in your message when you upload a file, and we apply the discount to the quote automatically.

On every order that involves proprietary customer IP, yes. We can sign your NDA or use our standard mutual template. Send us yours first, or mention it in your initial message and we will send ours. Files must not be uploaded until the NDA is signed on both sides.

Thirty-two grades across six families: rigid plastics, flexible, engineering, high-temperature, resins, and specialty. The full catalog with properties and price per gram is on the Materials page.

It depends on three things: load direction, operating temperature, and environmental exposure. For most general-purpose parts, PETG or Nylon PA12 handle the job. If the part sees constant flex, go TPU 95A. If it sits near heat above 90 °C, ABS, ASA, or PA12-CF are better. If you are not sure, mention the application in your message and we will recommend two or three options with pricing for each.

No. We run FDM, SLA, and SLS only. For metal parts, we can help you spec the geometry and refer you to a partner shop we trust, but the print itself is done elsewhere.

Yes. PLA comes in over twenty colors off the shelf. PETG in twelve. ABS and ASA in eight. Nylon PA12 ships in natural grey and can be dyed for an additional $3 per part. Full custom paint matching is available for $45 setup plus $12 per part.

We offer food-contact-rated PETG and biocompatible resin (ISO 10993 tested). Both come with full material certificates. Regulatory compliance for the final product is the customer's responsibility — we supply the documentation, you close the compliance file.

Sometimes. We accept customer-supplied filament if it is 1.75 mm, sealed on the spool, and accompanied by a datasheet. There is a $60 qualification fee to verify it prints cleanly on our machines before we run production.

Every spool lives in a sealed dry box with desiccant at 15–20% relative humidity. Nylon and TPU are dried for a minimum of four hours before every print. This is why our parts do not have the moisture defects that plague home-shop prints.

Because hiding them wastes everybody's time. Most shops make you fill out a form and wait two days just to find out the price is out of your budget. We publish our rates on the Pricing page so you can self-filter before you reach out.

Yes. The number in your quote is the number you pay. The only exception is if the finished part weighs more than 5% over the quoted estimate — in that case we contact you before shipping and you approve the adjustment or we hold the part.

No. There is no setup fee on any order under 200 units. Above that, material prep is already priced into the per-gram material rate. No surprise line items.

Visa, Mastercard, Amex, and Discover. ACH transfer for orders above $500. Net-30 terms for business accounts after three completed orders. We do not accept cryptocurrency, personal checks, or wire transfers under $500.

Yes, and they apply automatically. The tiers: 10–49 units −8%, 50–199 −22%, 200–999 −38%, 1,000–4,999 −52%, above 5,000 units custom. Full pricing ladder on the Production Runs page.

No. Quotes are free, revisions are free, and change your mind on material or quantity as many times as you want before you approve. We do not bill for the quoting process.

Twelve hours on our Rush tier for FDM and SLA parts under 200 grams. Rush carries a 2.1× multiplier. Standard is 48 hours, Fast is 24 hours. Rush availability depends on the current queue, so we confirm at quote time.

Files received and approved before 2:00 pm Pacific Time on a business day qualify for next-day shipping on the Standard tier. Anything after that moves to the following business day unless you upgrade to Fast or Rush.

Primarily domestic. International orders are quoted case by case and require the customer to handle customs, duties, and import compliance. Email us with the destination country and part details and we will tell you honestly if it is feasible. Full policy in the Shipping Policy.

Yes. Local pickup is free at 2150 Market Street, Suite 340, San Francisco during shop hours. Choose "Pickup" at order time and we email you when the part is ready.

Foam wrap on every part, rigid cardboard box, paper void fill, sealed with a QC sticker initialed by the technician who inspected it. No bubble wrap, no polystyrene, no plastic air pillows. Everything in our packaging is recyclable curbside.

Send photos to [email protected] within 30 days of delivery. We ship a replacement at no cost, no questions asked. Full conditions in the Refund Policy.

Standard tolerance is ±0.3 mm or ±0.5% for FDM, ±0.1 mm for SLA, and ±0.15 mm for SLS. On critical features with a dedicated setup we can reach ±0.05 mm in SLA. Tell us which features matter — we do not need to hold tight tolerance on the whole part.

Every order passes four QC gates: visual inspection, dimensional check with calipers, photograph from three angles, and final sign-off by the technician who printed it. Full CMM reports are available as an add-on for $65 per part. Details on the How It Works page.

We reprint it at our cost before anything ships. If a batch consistently misses tolerance, we stop production, notify you, and reprint the affected units at no charge. Our overall rework rate in 2025 was 0.4%.

Yes, on every order. The CoC lists the material lot number, machine ID, print parameters, inspection results, and the technician who signed off. Delivered as a PDF and printed copy in the box.

We are not AS9100 or ISO 13485 certified ourselves. We support customers who are — we supply the traceability and inspection documentation they need to include our parts in their own certification. Honest answer over marketing claim.

STL, STEP, STP, and OBJ. Up to 500 MB per file, up to 50 files per order. For engineering parts we recommend STEP or STP because the geometry is parametric and easier to review. STL is fine for organic shapes and simple parts.

No. Files live on encrypted local servers in a locked room at our shop. No cloud storage, no third-party backups, no remote access. Your geometry never leaves the building.

By default, files are deleted 90 days after your last order. If you want them stored longer for repeat orders, tell us and we keep them. You can request deletion at any time by emailing [email protected].

Only with written permission. Case studies on our site are anonymized and the numbers come from customers who agreed to share them. If you say no, we do not mention your part anywhere. Ever.

Only the people who need to work on the order: the application engineer who reviews it, the slicing engineer who prepares it, and the technician who prints it. Files are not accessible to the shipping team or to anyone outside the shop.

Ten units is the floor for production pricing. Below that, orders run through our functional parts pipeline at the standard rate. The geometry and quality do not change — only the price ladder does.

Yes. Blanket POs with monthly releases are available for ongoing supply. You lock the price for twelve months, we reserve material against your run, and you release a new quantity each month without a new quote. Contact [email protected] to set one up.

On every run above 100 units, yes. Full CMM report on the first good part off the line, sent to you for written approval before we run the rest. Mid-run sampling every 200 units. Details on the Production Runs page.

If the print has not started, yes — free of charge, we just re-slice. If the print has already begun, we can stop it and restart with the revised file, but the partial print time is billed. We quote the difference before doing anything.

Email [email protected] with your order number and photographs of the issue. Adrian reviews every complaint personally and responds within one business day. Full process in the Refund Policy.