Since using the Fuse One Plus,
we have learned more and more about the capabilities of
this machine to produce very actually accurate parts,
with some parts and some of our customer parts having very,
very fine details and sometimes actual
mechanical properties within the design
that this machine,
and not just one machine,
but both our machines now can consistently
produce from batch to batch,
day to day,
week to week on all our customer project work.
Fuse Works is a practical,
engineering-led 3D printing company which
originated from a simple design problem.
As with all 3D print bureaus or 3D print suppliers,
we need to and we do like to offer a fast turnaround.
This is really important to our customers from the initial concept,
design or prototype,
that we can actually give them their product,
even if it's just the initial concept,
in their hands the next day for their own
design review or design iteration changes.
As the demand grew,
so did our capability and also the realisation that we
needed to increase our capacity in the form of 3D printers.
From this,
we decided after an initial investigation
to invest in Formlabs 3D printers,
and this quickly led to us researching the UK market and
suppliers of such equipment as where we come across SolidPrint 3D.
After making the initial contact with SolidPrint 3D,
we soon increased our capacity in the form
of 3D printers with the Formlabs Fuse One.
It was actually the Fuse One production suite
which included the Fuse Sift and the Fuse Blast,
and also at the time the Form 3 SLA printer.
However,
we never actually used the Form 3 printer.
It was delivered,
but we were at a local engineering show or the Mac show,
and Formlabs on the show released the Form 4 SLA printer.
So we quickly called David,
got him to take away the Form 3 that you guys had just delivered,
and we swapped it out for the Form 4 with the increased
capability and capacity as a SLA 3D printer.
Since we made the initial purchase,
the level of support we have received
from SolidPrint 3D has been great,
both in the form of after-sales support and
also ongoing technical or application support.
This has been very beneficial when we have been taking on
projects where we need quick support that we can phone someone up,
UK-based,
simply for the same time zone,
to ensure that we can progressively
resolve any issues or any queries,
and most importantly is complete our customer projects.
When using a Fuse 1 Plus,
what's really important to us is not only a good
quality part in the form of dimensional accuracy,
and also stability
or rigidity, but also the finish in the parts.
The finish of the Fuse 1 is exceptionally good in the way of
surface finish from a range of very small parts that we produce,
in the form of electrical connectors,
through to larger parts,
more rigid,
kind of engineering grade style parts,
which have a range of different features,
and that's actually part of a motor housing,
so it's under good strains and stretches
daily with the parts that it holds.
Another application,
and it's really good with the Fuse 1,
it's not only making parts that you can assemble,
or individual parts,
but parts that actually have
individual functionality within the one 3D printed part,
so there is no assembly or sub-assembly once printed.
This is printed and given a good clip and a
location of a part to satisfy our customers' needs.
We selected the nylon 12 material because it
was a commonly used material with the Fuse 1,
and it had a good engineering grade and a durable
material that would suit most customer applications.
With regards to the Fuse Sift,
this is a vital bit of equipment,
obviously from breaking down from when the parts
of the canister comes from the actual printer.
We load it into the Fuse Sift,
and it's quite intuitive in the form that
it tells us when it's the right temperature,
or safe enough that we can actually break it down.
And very quickly,
by the Sift,
which is using a certain amount of vibration to
vibrate all the powder down into the Sift itself,
and that Sift sits side by side with the Fresh Powder Hopper,
and these together when used at a ratio from 70% of sifted material,
30% of fresh material,
to give us the fresh material when it's ready to produce and
load to the machine for the next build that we're going to run.
With regards to the Fuse Blast,
this has been a great addition or a part
of the production clip for the Fuse 1,
quite simply because it allows us to load the
machine after cleaning it up from the Fuse Sift,
or cleaning the parts once they've been finished on the Fuse Sift,
loading it into the machine and basically pressing go.
This allows us to come back to,
more often than not,
very clean and finished parts from time to time.
When you have very small and deep recess holes,
we do need to clean those out as well.
But still,
this is a great time saver,
allowing us to utilise our time on other parts of the business.
What is the Fuse Blast?
We hope or we plan that with our continued rate of growth,
that we will be able to hopefully look to purchase another machine,
if we have enough project work at the end of this financial year.
As well as buying another machine,
something that we're also,
we've got our ear to the ground,
is looking to see if Formlabs come up
with a slightly bigger volume machine.
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