3D printing questions, answered by the shop that prints the parts

STL, STEP (.step / .stp), OBJ, and 3MF are all supported directly. Unlike many competitors, we do not require STL-only — native CAD files work fine. Maximum upload size is 100 MB per file.

More on the 3D printing service.

Yes. Send a sample, a sketch with dimensions, or a reference photo and we will model it. Photo-to-CAD and reverse-engineering from samples are part of our CAD design service. Typical turnaround is 2–3 days from sample to printable file. Read about the CAD service →

Yes. Production runs over 50 parts go through first-article review — you approve one real part in your hands before the full batch prints. Read the mass production process →

Yes when it is computed from the sliced model rather than a form. Our engine prices each part on both material volume and machine time and charges whichever is higher, then applies your quality and infill choices, a $5 setup fee, and a $20 order minimum. That is why volume × the $/cm³ rate alone lands under the real number. What you see at upload is what you pay.

More on the online 3D printing guide.

Yes — free local pickup is available at our shop at 7950 Silverton Ave Ste 205, San Diego, CA 92126 (Miramar / Mira Mesa area). Select Local Pickup at checkout and we email you as soon as the order is ready.

More on the 3D printing service.

Up to 340 × 320 × 340 mm in a single piece on our large-format printers (standard printers are 256 × 256 × 256 mm). Bigger parts are still printable: we split them along a designed seam and join the pieces with fitted dowels for a flat $25 per unit, and our CAD team advises on the best split line during quote review — printing in one piece whenever possible avoids the weak joints that come with bonded assemblies.

More on the 3D printing service.

At TAKT 3D, PLA prints start at $0.035/cm³ with a $5.00 setup fee and a $20 order minimum. A palm-sized 20 cm³ prototype prices at about $4 per part in PLA, so a one-off order lands on the $20 minimum; a 180 cm³ part runs about $25. Carbon-fiber nylon (PA6-CF) is 3.5× that, about $0.12/cm³. See the full material table on the pricing page for exact rates.

More on the pricing page.

Volume (cm³) is what actually drives print time and filament consumption on an FDM printer. Weight only matters indirectly — a hollow 25% infill part weighs far less than its bounding box, but it still takes nearly the same machine time. Pricing per cm³ of model volume is accurate and predictable; pricing per gram punishes dense materials.

More on the pricing page.

Yes — our minimum order is $20 (pre-tax). No quantity minimum, so you can order a single small part and simply meet the dollar floor. Most real jobs clear this easily.

More on the pricing page.

Yes. Every quote on /quote auto-applies the bulk tier based on total units across all parts in the cart. You don't need to ask — the number you see already includes the discount.

More on the pricing page.

Shipping is a line item separate from the parts price. Local pickup from our San Diego shop is free. UPS Ground starts at $15 (3–5 business days) and UPS 2-Day at $24.99; the exact rate is calculated at checkout from your address and package size. Tax is applied to the taxable subtotal at 7.75%.

More on the pricing page.

Expedited (3 business days) is +30% (minimum $35) on the parts subtotal. Rush (1–2 business days) is +60% (minimum $60). The minimum is what you pay on small orders — the percentage only exceeds it above roughly a $100 subtotal. Both assume we have material and bed capacity; for large rush orders, call us to confirm.

More on the pricing page.

Standard turnaround is 5–7 business days, and most orders beat it. Production runs are scheduled by size: roughly 10 business days up to 250 parts, 15 up to 1,000, and 20 beyond that. Rush (1–2 business days) is +60% with a $60 minimum; expedited (3-day) is +30% with a $35 minimum. Because we run a multi-printer farm, you rarely wait in queue.

More on the 3D printing service.

Standard prototype orders are ready in 5–7 business days, and rush service turns them in 1–2. Free local pickup is available at our shop (7950 Silverton Ave Ste 205, San Diego, CA 92126). Upload your STL, get the instant price, and we email you as soon as parts are ready.

More on the rapid prototyping service.

We schedule production runs by size rather than quoting one number: up to 250 parts is roughly 10 business days, up to 1,000 is 15, and beyond that 20. Total print volume counts as much as part count — a few large parts can take longer than a few hundred small ones. We confirm the exact date with you before the run starts, and most finish sooner. Because we run a large in-house farm in San Diego and do not queue behind offshore bottlenecks, production rarely slips.

More on the production runs.

Standard turnaround is 5–7 business days; rush (1–2 business days) is available at +60% ($60 minimum). Local pickup is free at our shop at 7950 Silverton Ave Ste 205, San Diego, CA 92126 — Miramar / Mira Mesa, right off the 805. We keep all three CF materials stocked, so there's no filament lead time. Nationwide shipping goes UPS Ground from $15, with the exact rate calculated at checkout.

More on the carbon fiber service.

Yes. We ship every order via UPS Ground from $15, with faster methods quoted at checkout. San Diego customers can arrange free local pickup instead.

More on the online 3D printing guide.

PLA for prototypes and visual models. PETG for durable enclosures and chemical resistance. ASA for UV-exposed outdoor parts. PC for clear, impact-tough housings. TPU for flexible, rubber-like parts. PET-CF or PA6-CF for stiff, load-bearing, heat-resistant production parts. Our full material guide at /materials includes heat-deflection temperatures and tensile strengths for every option.

More on the 3D printing service.

PLA-CF ($0.07/cm³) for stiff, matte, cosmetic or low-heat parts — it tops out at 55°C. PET-CF ($0.07/cm³) for functional parts that see moisture or moderate heat — 65 MPa and 78°C HDT. PA6-CF ($0.123/cm³) when you need production-grade numbers — 130 MPa and 180°C HDT. Not sure? Upload the part and tell us what it does; we'll recommend the cheapest material that clears your requirements.

More on the carbon fiber service.

PA6-CF prints at 130 MPa tensile strength — roughly 3× standard PLA and stronger than many cast aluminum alloys in tension. Just as important is stiffness: the carbon fill roughly doubles rigidity versus the base polymer, which is why CF parts feel like a different class of object. For stiffness-driven designs, it's a genuine machined-aluminum alternative.

More on the carbon fiber service.

It depends entirely on the base polymer: PLA-CF deflects at 55°C, PET-CF at 78°C, and PA6-CF at 180°C. That last number is the difference-maker — we've reprinted customers' drone motor mounts in PA6-CF after motor heatsoak softened the same design in PET-CF. If your part lives near motors, engines, or electronics, start with the nylon.

More on the carbon fiber service.

Yes — when the material matches the load. PA6-CF reaches 130 MPa tensile with a 180°C heat-deflection temperature, and handles bolt torque and daily assembly cycles. For structural brackets and tooling we spec PA6-CF, PAHT-CF or PPS-CF; for enclosures and housings PETG or ABS. Material selection is part of DFM review on every quote.

For functional parts, enclosures, fixtures, and fit checks — almost always yes: it's the fastest and cheapest way to a strong part, with the widest material range. For jewelry-grade surface finish or microscopic detail, SLA resin is the better tool; our FDM vs SLA guide on the blog breaks down exactly when each wins.

More on the rapid prototyping service.

Yes — sketches, napkin drawings, reference photos, and physical parts are all fair game. For simple geometry we work from calipers plus a few reference photos. For complex organic shapes we pair the CAD work with our 3D scanning service. First-draft models are typically ready in 48 hours.

More on the CAD design service.

CAD design is $125 per hour. Most projects run as an upfront retainer — you buy a block of hours and we start work, so you see the model develop rather than waiting on a black box. For well-scoped jobs we will instead quote a flat project fee, scoped from that same $125/hour rate so the two never drift apart. A simple single part is typically 2 to 4 hours; full product development with drawings runs $2,000 and up. Projects are paid 100% upfront and are non-refundable — applied in full to work performed. We agree the scope and the number in a free 15-minute consultation before anything is billed.

More on the CAD design service.

Every project ships with STEP (neutral CAD), IGES, and mesh exports (STL, OBJ, 3MF). Native source files are included on request — Fusion 360 (.f3d), SolidWorks (.sldprt), or Onshape URLs. Technical drawings ship as PDF and DXF.

More on the CAD design service.

Yes. For accurate geometry we run the part through our 3D scanning service, then rebuild it as a fully parametric CAD model you can edit. For simpler parts, calipers plus reference photos work fine. Either way, you get a clean, editable CAD file — not just a frozen mesh.

More on the CAD design service.

Most scanning shops hand off a raw STL mesh that is hard to edit. We go further — we rebuild the geometry as a clean, parametric CAD model in Fusion 360 or SolidWorks and deliver a STEP file with an editable feature tree. Your engineering team can actually modify, dimension, and drawing-revise it. Raw mesh formats (STL, OBJ, PLY) are also included if you need them.

More on the 3D scanning service.

3D scanning is $125 per hour — the same rate as our CAD design work — with a one-hour minimum in the shop. A small part is typically 1 to 2 hours, so $125 to $250. Full reverse engineering to a parametric CAD file runs $350 to $1,500 depending on complexity and how much feature-tree reconstruction is needed. On-site scanning across the San Diego metro adds $500 per on-site day to cover travel, setup, and equipment transport, with a two-hour minimum. Projects are paid 100% upfront and are non-refundable — applied in full to work performed. Contact us with the part details for an exact quote.

More on the 3D scanning service.

Consultation is $125 per hour, the same rate as our CAD design and 3D scanning work. The first 15 minutes are free so we can both decide whether there is a project here. Scheduled paid sessions have a one-hour minimum and are billed in 30-minute increments after that. Sessions are paid 100% upfront and are non-refundable — applied in full to work performed.

More on the consultation service.

For runs up to a few thousand parts, 3D printing is usually cheaper than injection molding once you factor in tooling, and for complex or carbon-fiber parts with expensive tools the crossover can stretch toward 10,000. A typical injection mold costs $10,000–$100,000 and takes 6–16 weeks to cut; with additive manufacturing you pay per part with no tool to amortize. Beyond the crossover, injection molding wins on unit cost.

More on the production runs.

No — we have no MOQ. You can order 1 part or 10,000+ and pay the same per-unit rate on repeat orders. This is the core advantage of additive manufacturing for small-batch and made-to-order businesses.

More on the production runs.

Every printer in our San Diego farm runs from the same calibrated slicer profile, so part 1 and part 1,000 come out dimensionally identical to within ±0.2 mm. We pull QC samples at set intervals during long runs to catch any drift before it compounds. For production runs over 50 parts we print a first article for client sign-off before starting the full batch.

More on the production runs.

Yes. Our multi-printer farm runs 24/7 and nests parts across the build plate for maximum throughput. A 1,000-part run is scheduled at 15 business days, and part size moves that as much as part count does — a run of small parts nests across the farm and often finishes early, while large parts occupy a machine start to finish. We have produced single projects over 10,000 units.

More on the production runs.

Bridge production means running 3D printed parts during the 12–16 weeks between design-lock and first injection-molded parts off the tool. It keeps launch dates on schedule so you can ship real product to early customers, hit retail windows, or run beta programs while your mold is still being cut.

More on the production runs.

Yes, and pickup is free — but the shop is not in Kearny Mesa itself. We are about 12 minutes north at 7950 Silverton Ave Ste 205, San Diego, CA 92126, in the Miramar / Mira Mesa area. Pickup is by arrangement during our pickup window (Monday–Friday, 10:00 AM – 3:00 PM PT): call (844) 907-3568 before you head over so your parts are staged and someone is at the door.

More on the Kearny Mesa page.

No — and we would rather say so than send you to the wrong block. The shop is at 7950 Silverton Ave Ste 205, San Diego, CA 92126, in the Miramar / Mira Mesa area south of MCAS Miramar, about 12 minutes north of Kearny Mesa via I-805. Kearny Mesa is one of the areas we serve, not where we sit. See /contact for a map.

More on the Kearny Mesa page.

Yes — we ship UPS Ground anywhere in San Diego County from $15. UPS 2-Day Express is $24.99 if you need it faster. You can also drive down for free pickup; it's about 35 minutes via I-5.

More on the Carlsbad page.

Only if you're there anyway or doing rush pickup. For most jobs, shipping UPS Ground beats burning 70 minutes of round-trip drive time. Rush orders sometimes justify the drive.

More on the Carlsbad page.

No. We are not AS9100-certified. For flight-hardware or airworthiness-qualified programs we refer customers to our CNC and metal-AM partner network. TAKT 3D covers the aerospace work that happens around the aircraft — tooling, fixtures, UAV structure, ground-support hardware, and R&D.

More on the aerospace page.

No. We are not FDA-registered and do not produce patient-contacting devices, surgical guides, sterilizable implants, or Class II medical devices. We support medtech engineering teams with device enclosures, prototypes, and reference models.

More on the medical page.

We publish our $/cm³ rates openly at /pricing instead of gating them behind an upload, the rate carries no marketplace markup on top of a partner shop, local pickup is free, and you talk to the operator rather than a support queue.

More on the pricing page.

Metal 3D printing (DMLS), HP MJF, PolyJet, Carbon DLS, SLA resin, ULTEM 9085/1010 PEI, CNC machining, sheet metal fabrication, injection molding, and urethane casting. We are FDM-only. For any of those, a marketplace or a specialty shop is the right call — tell us what you need and we will point you somewhere useful.