ENGINEERING & DESIGN CONSULTATION
Talk to an Engineer First
$125/hour · First 15 Minutes Free · San Diego or Remote
An hour spent on wall thickness, material choice, and process fit routinely saves weeks of failed prints and a tooling revision. You talk to the people who run the machines and write the CAD — not a sales desk.
$125/hr
Consultation rate
First 15
Minutes free
1 hr
Minimum booking
Same week
Typical availability
WHY TAKT 3D
Why Teams Book Time With Us
Talk to the People Who Build It
You are not routed to a sales desk. You talk to the engineers who run the printers, write the CAD, and ship the parts — the ones who know what actually fails on the shop floor.
Design for Manufacture, Before You Commit
An hour spent on wall thickness, draft, and part orientation routinely saves weeks of failed prints and a tooling revision. We review your model against how it will really be made.
Material Selection That Survives the Application
Load, temperature, UV, chemical exposure, and finish all narrow the field. We match the material to the duty cycle instead of defaulting to whatever prints easily.
Process Strategy Across Volumes
FDM, SLA, or a bridge to injection molding — the right answer changes at 10 parts, 1,000 parts, and 100,000 parts. We map where the economics cross over for your part.
Vendor-Neutral, On Your Side
If the honest answer is that your part should be machined, cast, or bought off the shelf, we say so. A consultation you can trust is worth more than a job we should not take.
No Premium for Talking to Us
Consultation is billed at the same $125 per hour as our CAD and scanning work. Our judgement is not priced higher than our labor.
TECHNICAL SPECS
How Consultation Works
Real rates, real minimums, real terms — stated up front so nothing about the bill is a surprise.
- Rate
- $125/hr, billed in 30-minute increments
- Free intro
- First 15 minutes, no charge, no obligation
- Minimum booking
- 1 hour for a scheduled paid session
- Format
- Video call, phone, or in person at 7950 Silverton Ave
- What to bring
- CAD files, sketches, photos with a scale reference, or the physical part
- Deliverable
- Written summary of findings and recommendations after the session
- Payment terms
- 100% upfront, non-refundable — applied in full to work performed
- Service area
- San Diego in person, or remote anywhere in the US
APPLICATIONS
What We Scan
Design-for-Manufacture Review
Bring a model and we walk it against the process: wall thickness, draft, tolerance stack-up, support burden, and orientation. You leave knowing what will fail before you pay to find out.
Material & Process Selection
Match the material to the real duty cycle — load, heat, UV, chemicals, finish — and choose the process that fits your volume and timeline.
Scoping a Project Before You Commit
Not sure whether you need scanning, CAD, printing, or all three? An hour of scoping produces a concrete plan and a concrete number instead of a guess.
Second Opinion on an Existing Design
You have a model from another vendor or an in-house designer and want it pressure-tested by someone with no stake in defending it.
Production Troubleshooting
Parts warping, layers separating, dimensions drifting between batches? We diagnose the cause and tell you what to change.
Bridge-to-Tooling Planning
Plan the path from printed prototypes through bridge production to injection molding, including where the unit economics actually cross over.
PROCESS
How a Consultation Runs
Free 15-Minute Intro
Tell us what you are building and what is worrying you. No charge, no obligation. We say plainly whether we are the right shop for it.
Scope & Book
If it needs more than 15 minutes, we agree the scope and the hours up front. One-hour minimum at $125/hr, paid before the session.
The Session
Video, phone, or in the shop at 7950 Silverton Ave. Bring CAD, sketches, photos, or the part itself — we work from whatever you have.
Written Summary
You get our findings and recommendations in writing — material, process, design changes, next steps — so you can act on it or circulate it internally.
A consultation usually points at one of three next steps: CAD modeling and drawings, 3D scanning and reverse engineering, or straight to our in-house FDM farm. All three are billed at the same $125/hour rate.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a consultation cost?
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.
Is the first consultation really free?
Yes. The first 15 minutes carry no charge and no obligation. That is usually enough to understand what you are trying to build, tell you whether we are the right shop for it, and give you a rough number. If the conversation needs to go deeper — a real design review, a material study, a production plan — that is billable time and we will say so before the meter starts.
What should I bring to a consultation?
Whatever you have. A CAD file, a sketch on paper, photos with a ruler in frame, or the physical part itself. We work from all of it. If you have requirements — load, operating temperature, regulatory constraints, target cost, annual volume — bring those too; they usually drive the answer more than the geometry does.
Can we meet in person?
Yes. We are at 7950 Silverton Ave in San Diego and you are welcome in the shop, where you can see the machines and handle material samples. Video and phone work equally well, and most clients outside San Diego use those.
Do consultation hours count toward the project?
Consultation is billed separately from design and production work. It buys our engineering judgement, which has value whether or not you go on to place an order. If we scope a project during the session, the plan and the quote that come out of it are yours to take anywhere.
What do I get afterward?
A written summary of what we discussed and what we recommend — material, process, design changes, and next steps — so you have something concrete to act on or circulate internally rather than a set of half-remembered notes.
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