At a glance
| Best for | Testing fit, ergonomics and assembly before spending real money on tooling |
|---|---|
| Material | PETG — black as standard, white and other colours on request |
| Typical price | £12–£30 per iteration for most hand-sized parts |
| Lead time | Dispatched 2–3 working days; tell us if a deadline is tight |
| Minimum order | One — most prototype orders are single parts |
| Maximum part size | 256 × 256 × 256 mm in one piece; larger parts split and joined |
What we take on
- Fit and clearance checks against existing hardware
- Ergonomic mock-ups of handles, grips and housings
- Assembly rehearsals before parts are committed to tooling
- Enclosure concepts and physical models for design reviews
What to send
Prototyping works best when the print settings match the question you are trying to answer.
- The STL of the iteration you want made
- What you are testing — fit, strength, appearance or feel
- Whether draft quality is fine, or the surface matters for this round
How the price is worked out
Draft quality at 0.30 mm layers prints considerably faster and comes out noticeably cheaper, which is the right setting for early fit checks. Save fine quality for the round you show to other people. If you are ordering several iterations of the same part, send them together and pay the handling fee once.
Where this works well
- Checking whether parts physically fit together
- Feeling how something sits in the hand
- Catching the obvious mistake before it becomes an expensive one
Where it doesn’t
- Predicting how a moulded version will behave — different process, different properties
- Surface finish testing for a cosmetic end product
- Fatigue and long-term load testing
Getting more out of each round
The temptation is to change five things at once and print. When the result is wrong you then have no idea which change caused it. Change one dimension per iteration where you can, and where you cannot, print two or three variants in the same order — different clearances on the same part, say — and test them side by side. That costs a few pounds more and saves a week of posting parts back and forth.
Questions people ask about this
Can I get it faster than 2–3 days?
Sometimes. Ask before ordering rather than after — if the machines have a gap and the part is small, we can often bring it forward. We would rather say no than promise and miss.
Should I print at fine quality?
Not for early rounds. Fine quality takes roughly twice as long as draft for the same part and tells you nothing extra about whether something fits.
Ready for the next iteration?
Upload the current version and have it in your hands this week.