Finally I am going to order Mel's Miniatures, I want to order Assault Frigate Mark I Type V to replace AF Mk II
You can choose different qualities for printing, cheapest one is White Natural Versatile Plastic and the most expensive one is Smooth Fine Plastic Detail.
Price difference between them is huge (20 vs 60) and I was wondering how the quality differs?
White Natural Versatile Plastic requires some preparation before painting and the detail isn't great. Smooth fine detail plastic looks way better in detail texture but is a bit more fragile and much more expensive. If you've got the money, SFDP is the way to go but sometimes it's just too much.
6 hours ago, Atromix said:bit more fragile and much more expensive.
Yup it is 3x more but thanks to @melminiatures image I can see the difference. I wanted a few more ships but with SFDP I guess I'll just go with one.
Aye, unfortunately Shapeways recently bumped up the price (well, tweaked the pricing algorithm) so the fine detail has become pretty harsh in a lot of cases. It's a great quality of material though.
How about a Geonosian Corvette, or Geonosian Dreadnaught?
I'd recommended Fine Ultra Smooth for X-wing Miniature fighters, and Armada Small ships. Corvettes, ect. the Capital ship sizes in Armada and the Large base Falcon sized ships in X-wing arent bad in the White Plastic, if you are on a budget.
I did get my Terminus' (Termini? Terminuses?) the other day in White Natural Versatile, only managed a quick peek in the box so far so haven't unwrapped them or anything but they do look like they'll be usable in that material. Will report back when I've had a chance to have a go at them and can compare to the Smooth Fine Detail that I'd previously ordered on my Harrowers.
Also looks like @melminiatures is looking into other material options:
This would be awesome. I just considered a larger order, and then the price doubled. Some recent photos of ships and squadrons in various qualities would really help to choose the appropriate balance of price and level of detail.
Personally I am completely unsure which min quality I should use when ordering the ISD I conversion set... fine detail just feels way too expensive right now...
I was about to order a series of Dreadnoughts. Then FFG announced the mystical two ships being developed and now I don't want to risk being in conflict with an "official" model 
3 hours ago, Norell said:I was about to order a series of Dreadnoughts. Then FFG announced the mystical two ships being developed and now I don't want to risk being in conflict with an "official" model
Thats the other thing on my wishlist 
On 7/4/2019 at 4:18 PM, Norell said:order a series of Dreadnoughts. Then FFG announced the mystical two ships being developed
I was waiting for the same thing, Assault Frigate Mk1 and Dreadnought and yet nada
anyway I will go with Assault Frigate MkI V. I was thinking about MkI VI as well but SFDP is 60 euros for V and 180 euros for VI. That is a crazy difference for two same ships ( VI has a v configuration).
Wow I ordered a Mk1 VI in SFDP in 2016 for £33.
Now it's £165..
12 hours ago, Momonip said:Wow I ordered a Mk1 VI in SFDP in 2016 for £33.
Now it's £165..
All I can say is that it's not my fault 
That's Shapeways....
7 hours ago, melminiatures said:All I can say is that it's not my fault
Yeah 😞
What's the quality of the material used for the ones on your Etsy site? How does it compare with SFDP or PVP?
I made a twitter thread with pictures and comments of the materials:
The material is Accura Xtreme 200
You don't happen to have a picture of a Venator in Accura 200 do you? Thanks
I cant tell between PA12 and premium quality which is better and more detailed?
Here the most complete and thecnical answer you will get regarding shapeways materials. I have gathered all these information last year from technical data sheet, some youtube video and alot of research.
White Verstile Plastic (PA 2200): grain size 56 micron(0.056mm), layer height 100 micron, laser focus somewhere between 16 to 39 micron + extra forming from heat dispertion in the powder & fish eye distortion from the laser lens.
Prenium White versatile: same as above but they smooth it in a tumbler.
Personal experience: Details of 0.2mm(average Armada ship plating details) will barely appear on this material and The porous surface is a wash killer...
PA 12 used on Multi jet Fusion: work with a combination of liquid and powder. Grains size 60 microns, layer height 80 microns, X-Y resolution 47 microns. Technically this material should give good details resolution, but its base on powder witch mean less accurate so my guess is this material should print 0.1mm details but remain the porous finish problem. Note I have no experience with this material.
Fine Detail plastic: Resin based hard to tell what setting they use but these kinds of printer can achieve at best 31 microns in X-Y and 16 to 32 micron layers.
Personal experience: Really good details, paint well, the only downside it's kinda brittle.
Accura Resin SLA printer: +/- 45 microns X-Y, layer height could range from 10 microns to 200 microns or more depending on setting.
Personal experience: I never ordered something made with this stuff from Shapeways but the printer I own (MSLA) and the resins I use are really close to this technology. And I can achieve details down to 50 microns so this material should give great details. The only downside is that the supported surfaces require sanding.
so can you explain this is smaller words i do not know all the technical details haha
@stev Think of 3D printing like a microscopic Minecraft world where the object is formed of tiny cubes (Voxel). The size of these cubes is determined by the printer resolution and layer height as well as material (resins base have a better surface finish.)
If these voxels are too big, the printed object will loose accuracy on details witch minimum is usually three to 4 time the printer accuracy.
I added two pictures to show the scale of the details on FFG Armada miniatures.
I hope this will help understand the above technical informations.
ok so for price i am thinking PA 12 then
On 6/9/2019 at 8:12 AM, melminiatures said:
Yeah I ordered a ton of stuff last year. Was so happy! Than I recently primed my ships, finally. The print job on one side of the model was garbage. Especially for what I paid for. Top quality. Not every ship was bad. But my 4 Hammerheads and ship pictured above has one side that is total crap. Furious to be honest. Going to contact them see if they can do anything.
I am very pleased with my Dreadnaught, Assault Frigate Mk I & Bulk Cruiser from Mels in White Natural.
The smaller Corellian gunship though would likely look better if i choose a better quality finish.
A big shout out to Mels for making fan favourites available! Thanks
If you haven't got time , ability or motivation to paint will any of the models look good?