Update II: 3D Printing Service Closure

In an effort to keep everyone up to date as much as possible, here's another update.

First the bad news: we received a shipment of filament from our supplier late last week. Upon inspection of the batch numbers, it was from the same contaminated batch that bricked the suite the first time out. Needless to say, we were exceptionally cautious about feeding it through our hot ends and so have left it in the boxes. Efforts to contact the supplier were slightly hampered by Green Cloaks E1 at the weekend. However, I've received an email in the last hour from our guy over at the filament manufacturer apologising and promising to get us a new, non-contaminated batch sent today. That means our bulk black should be here Monday. In the mean time, I've got a UK supplier I'm going to call to see if I can get some filament from them posted to us for tomorrow. That way, I can get black printing before the weekend and the re-opening of the service. Otherwise, we are printing happily in every colour that's not black.

And then there's the good news: we've been adding capacity as we go during the closure; tweaking bits and pieces. We've made some modifications and tweaks to our existing printers to vastly improve their foot print and with good quality filament, we'll be able to increase their speed too. That means even more capacity than we were expecting before the extra frames come online.

Thank you again to everyone for your support during this difficult run. We've been working hard to make best use of the time given to us by this closure. When we open again, we should have enough capacity to start development again and bring you shiny new things.

Mike Harratt
MD, Blastersmiths UK

Update: 3D Printing Service Closure

I just thought I'd post a quick update on how things are progressing at this end with regards to our printer services. We've managed to restore 50% of capacity at this stage and it's remaining stable. We're currently awaiting parts for the other 50% and that should come back on stream week beginning 25th April. In short, in terms of capacity we're on track to re-open on 1st May as previously predicted. I'm also going to return the Rapidstrike wiring kits to the site since we've got our main printer for those back and can produce those  very, very quickly. Given that colour for those doesn't matter, they're the first thing to return to the website.

We are, however, still stuck in terms of black filament. It was black that knocked us off line in the first place. We're down to our last half kilo of known good filament and our reserve supplier can't supply enough to feed the beast as it were. Our original supplier is still over-hauling their machinery and processes to prevent a repeat of this episode. That will take sometime, apparently. I've got kilo after kilo of orange and blue filament ready to go so if I contact you with regards to your order, you will very likely get an offer to change over to another colour free of charge. Of course, a full refund is still on offer if your order is delayed and hasn't been posted or we can delay your order until the black filament situation is resolved.

So yeah, that's how things are at this end. Thank you everyone for your messages of support. It means a lot to know we have such a great community behind us that'll stick by us even in the tough times. In return, we'll do everything we can to keep the communication channels open and keep people in the loop.

Thank you all again,

Mike Harratt
Managing Director
Blastersmiths UK

3D Printer Service Closure: 13th April - May 1st 2016

As of today, 13th April 2016, I am closing the Blastersmiths UK 3D printing service to new orders to retail clients until 1st May. Our resellers will still be able to order stuff but we will not be accepting website orders from the general public until the start of May.

I hate having to do these sorts of posts but it's for the best at the end of the day. We need some breathing room to fix some pretty serious problems that have occurred that have been out of our control. I've detailed why I'm taking this step but the tl;dr is I need to look out for my staff and to keep the promises we make to our clients who are good enough to trust us with their hard earned money.

I ordered on [date], when will I get my stuff?
Current orders will be processed in the order they were received but the lead times might be a little elastic and each individual client will be kept up to date via email as we go. If it looks like your lead time is going to breach, you will be the first to know. In all cases, the offer of a full refund is available, no questions asked, should you wish to take that option. The only caveat is that your order mustn’t been dispatched.

What the hell happened?!
3 things. First, we're in the process of replacing our old Prusa Mendel fleet with better printers that are more reliable, print faster and print the mirror finish that can be seen on our Stryfe tray expanders, among other printers. We're in the process of migrating as the old Mendels fail and become time sinks to repair. While those are being decommissioned, we're adding new MTW printers and working out the scaling bugs. That process is putting a lot of strain on our team who have to juggle printing actual orders with printing parts for printers and routine, preventative maintenance.

Second, we're getting hugged to death by orders - even when we're adding an average of a printer a month. We've received a large surge in the last couple of days and are already pushing at our 4 week lead time for printed parts in 75% of orders. With a migration in progress, it was going to be a stretch to cope even with adding extra capacity. With my team juggling that migration and adding extras, a brief closure is good for their sanity in the long run. :)

However, the straw that broke the camel's back was a filament supply problem. Our suppliers produced a batch of black that contained significant degrees of micro-contamination that accumulated in our hot ends and rendered 90% of our capacity inoperable in the space of a few hours. The process of clearing, repairing parts and sourcing new filament has taken a significant amount of our time (on the order of 2 weeks), obliterating our capacity in the process. With our team stretched as it is so we opted for some breathing room to give us time to sort this mess out. We have human beings at this end and their welfare is my first priority followed closely by keeping our promises to our customers.

With this brief closure, my team can focus on salvaging our current capacity and adding more while we work out the issue with our filament supply. We have enough known good filament in reserve to fill outstanding orders and an emergency alternative standing by if that doesn't cover everything. We've planned for this contingency for a long time and I'm sad to have to activate it.

On the bright side, once we're back on line we should have twice as many printers printing twice as fast.

Can I still order stuff while you're offline?
It's technically just the website that is closing so yes but your lead time will start on 1st May and will be six weeks - don't expect your stuff to leave us until mid-June. If you want to order stuff during the closure, drop us an email and we'll work via PayPal invoice. I hear you ask why can you take PayPal orders but not website ones? Well, we have some limited capacity available so we'll be able to cope with a lower order volume and closing the website should stop us getting hugged to death. This way we can balance keeping a core element of the business alive while being able to recover from quite a serious set of knock backs.

What about your other lines?
Tactical gear, embroidery work, springs and motors are not affected. However, please note that the part shipping rule still applies. We've got enough going on here in the office without needing to track half-deliveries. The more we do that, the more risk of something going wrong and we hate to disappoint our clients.

If you've any questions or enquiries then please don't hesitate to drop us an email and we'll have a chat. :)

Thank you to all our clients, partners and friends in the community,

Mike Harratt
Managing Director, Blastersmiths UK