It will be a few weeks until it is due to arrive. I took the cheapest steel option they had, they call it “polished bronzed-silver steel”. That’s going to be an interesting material to check out. It’s been years since I ordered anything from Shapeways, and I have never ordered anything but plastics from them before. This is going to be a first for all of us to explore.
If it’s going to be a few weeks there won’t be time 
.
There are only effectively 12 days left when you take out the holidays and non delivery days, and then you’ve got to make it and write the whole thing up.
I would quickly try to grab a substitute from somewhere or there is a good chance you won’t be able to finish, and that would be a shame.
This was shipped December 24th. Below is a full list if all the tracking events during it’s 1 week transit:
December 24, 2020 - Pre-Shipment Info Sent to USPS, USPS Awaiting Item
December 30, 2020, 6:10 am - Out for Delivery
Fingers crossed it arrives today for you! 
Uh, I’ve spent 3 hours trying to make the printer start correctly. It worked perfect all last week. Now it prints 2mm up in the air, and won’t respond to manual adjustment. But otherwise works fine.
As I mentioned in the other thread, this is done, I’ll be posting everything tonight. My family life is very demanding tonight, the posts might come slow.
I did throw together a YouTube video, the link will be posted as soon as the upload is complete.
A quick application of solder paste using the tip of an exacto knife…
Held over a heat gun to reflow…
And bingo.
Then a few wires.
The metal was 4% too small, so I spent about an hour with a Dremel removing material from the inside.
(This is not a one-day build, I fell behind with BLF updates 
)
Upload complete! Check out the quick video to see what metal 3D prints are really like!
After Dremeling about 0.5mm off the diameter of the MCPCB it installed nice.
As you can see the negative wire is both designed to make contact with the metal 3D print for Ground, as well as make the press-fit easier and more secure.
Then I designed and printed a plastic isolator with a bump to press the positive wire against the battery.
Spoiler alert: It performs more reliably than the button on some Chinese flashlights. 
Testing 1-2-3…
Then I printed the rest in plastic just tonight, that was 4 hours of work to get the printer going for some reason.
Beamshots!
Neat and pretty!
Very nice and special flashlight! 3D printing metals has so much potential for flashlights, it is great that you have that going
I agree entirely with you, I even argued for a 3d printed category last year and a no holds barred this year - but sadly it wasn’t included in this competition.
This was discussed beforehand, and the rules stayed the same afterwards. No outsourcing is allowed.
I was under the impression Josh was waiting for sheet to turn up, not a shapeways part (I thought that had been abandoned due to price).
Great that you managed to finish your build, Joshk.
This is a special format for a flashlight. It looks very nice. I like the 3D printed metal finish. 
The floody beam with a slight hotspot is nice, too.
That is clearly stated in the rules……
Thanks guys, I think it turned out cool too.
The rules were the inspiration. The main argument was that it had never been done before, and people were scared it would be impossible to judge if any work was really done. Well, now BLF has a build thread where they can test their fears. Is it really impossible to judge this? I think it’s clear what I did. Just as clear as any other OL build thread.
So cheers to overly conservative rules, this one is for you.
