Formlabs’ long-awaited benchtop selective laser sintering 3D printer is finally here.
The culmination of seven years of development first unveiled back in 2017, the desktop stereolithography leader has today announced the availability of its Fuse 1 system in a bid to make SLS additive manufacturing more accessible.
Stepping outside of the SLA arena for the first time, where the company has an estimated 70,000 systems installed worldwide, the new machine, available from today, is a compact system featuring patent pending Surface Armor technology, a modular build chamber to enable continuous printing, and the capability to print with up to 70% reused powder with a material refresh rate of 30%. The news also comes with the addition of a post-processing station called FuseSift and Nylon 12 powder, promising a “straightforward end-to-end workflow.”
Formlabs CEO and co-founder Max Lobovsky hinted in a recent interview on the Additive Insight podcast that the machine’s launch was imminent and described how the company had “set out to do with SLS, the same thing [it] did to SLA” by making it “far cheaper and far easier to use.”
Speaking in a press release regarding today’s announcement, Lobovsky said: “SLS 3D printing shouldn’t be solely for those with big budgets, it needs to be accessible so all companies —from startup to big manufacturer — can benefit from the design freedom and high productivity SLS 3D printing provides.”
Elaborating on the developments the machine - now slightly bigger than those early iterations - has undergone since that 2017 teaser, Ian Ferguson, Lead Engineer at Formlabs told TCT: “We were optimistic, we thought we could wrap it up in a year [...] but the main things we wanted to focus on is making a reliable, functional machine and at the time, we were close but we weren't there and it turned out, there was a lot more engineering to really get it over that last hump. There were a variety of elements in the machine that couldn't just be iterated on to get to the level we needed but had to kind of be tossed out and re-engineered from the ground up.”
In addition to fine-tuning thermal control and building a robust powder system, one of the machine’s key features is the aforementioned Surface Armor technology which has been engineered to combat the common “orange peel” surface texture problem found in SLS, namely when using re-used powder.
“Surface Armour is our approach to limit and reduce this effect,” Ferguson explained. “How it works is not so complicated, it's basically creating a thermal barrier around the print and the thermal barrier protects the surface. By using a laser and applying the right power in the right spots, you can actually prevent this surface defect from forming and it works even when you use lots of used powder. So, basically, by doing this, we can dial it in just right and we can prevent orange feeling from basically happening anywhere on our printed parts."
Aimed at engineers, designers and manufacturers at all levels for applications ranging from product development to end-use production, Formlabs believes this machine will expand the market for industrial 3D printing by opening it up to a new set of customers. Ferguson says the Fuse 1 is already in use by a large number of customers across industrial design, product design and automotive, including Partial Hand Solutions, a manufacturer of customised prosthetic fingers which has been using the Fuse 1 in beta to replace long, traditional manufacturing workflows.
“We previously used an outsourced injection-moulding workflow to deliver prosthetic fingers to patients young and old, helping them improve mobility and increase functionality; but this process was extremely slow and did not allow for the personalisation needed for each patient,” said Matthew Mikosz, founder of Partial Hand Solutions. “Fuse 1 gives us the design freedom needed to truly customise our prosthetics and the high productivity and throughput necessary to quickly get this solution to our patients.”
Launching with PA12 as its primary material, Ferguson shared that Formlabs is already working on PA11 and TPU due to the demand for these powders in the SLS world but he also added that they're thinking ahead to additional materials that may benefit from a more accessible platform.
"We're excited because we think at a lower price point, people might be more interested in trying and using different materials than they might if you have a half million dollar machine; you need to go and focus just on your highest value, most consistently use materials," Ferguson added. "So we're definitely interested to see what having a lower cost SLS product on the market does to the sort of general material landscape."
On the accompanying FuseSift post-processing system, Ferguson shared how Formlabs wanted to ensure that it could provide not just core 3D printing functionality but all of the parts of the puzzle that need to be in place in order to produce a finished part, similar to what it did in SLA with its Form Wash and Cure systems.
"The printer is an extremely important piece of that puzzle but that whole experience needs to be fulfilled in order for a customer to actually get to that part," Ferguson said. "From day one, we always wanted to produce a really good post-processing system that would take your printed cake with all of your parts in it and allow you to process that easily. It's also really important on an SLS printer to have a really good powder management system. There's a lot of powder coming in and out of the printer and you need to be able to store that and and refresh it and mix it and blend it in order to be efficient. So it was always our goal to have a really good user experience there."
The Fuse 1 does arrive at a steeper price point than originally planned, with prices starting at 18,499 USD for the machine or 31,845 USD for the complete setup, but Formlabs tells TCT this price is reflected in the strong support services the company has developed in those intervening years, meaning customers will get "more involvement from Formlabs" and a more reliable and robust product.
"To hit our reliability and quality goals we ended up having to re-engineer some things and some of those things added cost," Ferguson said. "We still view costs as a really important metric around accessibility of products and look to reduce price over time but this is where it needs to be today for us to support it."
Years in the making - the Fuse 1 origins date back to the shipping of the Form 1+ - Formlabs is confident the machine will be worth the wait for those customers who have been eager to jump into SLS printing in a more accessible way. Not least at Formlabs' HQ where the technology has been used to print parts that are on board the Fuse 1 itself.
"We now have a [SLS] printer inside our office that really works," Ferguson concludes. "We love SLA technology and it's really great for lots of applications but for a lot of product design things, I'm a mechanical engineer, I want things that are as robust as possible, and you can't go wrong with SLS. So we use it all the time internally on our prototyping and development. [...] Actually inside the printer, it's shipping with parts it prints itself. [...] And because of all that, I know it's going to do well outside. Again, we've already been getting it to customers, I mean, we tried to be as patient as possible, especially because we already launched it, but we really wanted it to be in customer hands, know that they're using it, that they're using it successfully, that we can mass produce it [...]. So I think people are going to be both really impressed by how ready the product is, and I also think they're going to be really really happy when they get it because we're happy using it."
Note: Edited 4pm BST to include additional comments from Formlabs.
Want to discuss? Join the conversation on the Additive Manufacturing Global Community Discord.
Get your FREE print subscription to TCT Magazine.
