Yes, I understand where you’re coming from.
Even though we’ve had very few issues with our Fuse1+, I can absolutely understand the frustration when systems don’t work as advertised or experience frequent outages.
Nevertheless, I’d like to suggest that, at least here in the forum, we make a distinction between users who work at Formlabs and want to help, and the company’s decisions.
For example, the fact that technicians respond to problems here in the forum is not a requirement from Formlabs. But it helps anyone who is then searching for this specific issue in the forum. I strongly suspect, however, that this has declined significantly lately. And I don’t think this is productive.
Regarding the Fuse users, I actually know significantly more users directly than here in the forum. I know of 2 makerspaces at universities, 4 companies with their own prototype production, 3 resellers with active sample part production, and 2 printing service providers.
Virtually none of them even know about the Formlabs forum. But their mindset is such that when there are problems, they turn to support—not a forum.
I haven’t been able to get any of my contacts excited about being active here on the forum. Most of them just have 1–2 employees working on the Fuse systems. I don’t need to ask them to spend their time here on the forum on top of their regular work.
Of all these contacts, I’m only aware of one service provider who once had issues with firmware for PA12-GF. That was about 1 1/2 years ago.
Otherwise, I’m aware of very few instances of errors among all these users.
I would therefore describe it as a very far-fetched claim that Formlabs claims to have more users than there actually are. Nevertheless, admittedly, at the end of the day it is a marketing statement, and these, as is so often the case, should be taken with a grain of salt.
To address the issue of reliability: I have very good contacts with a major industrial service provider near me. They now print over 30 tons a year using PA12 alone. All of this is done exclusively with EOS systems. Each machine, including all accessories, costs between 300,000 and 500,000 euros. During a conversation about six months ago regarding the success rate of SLS printing, he laughed at our problems.
Since the Fuse1 is so small in this context, we don’t even really know what thermal development zones are. That’s why all service providers need additional software packages from third-party manufacturers in addition to their EOS systems.
Just imagine the outcry here if no software came with the Fuse. These guys are running €300,000 printers, and then they have to go out and buy software just to be able to print properly.
For example, they also have to sort out a lot more defective powder after each print. These systems don’t produce surface armor like our Fuse, but certain areas—depending on the build chamber and packing density—do produce something similar. It was on the recommendation of their technician that we shouldn’t try to reuse this in the sift as well. And lo and behold, our parts became a bit tougher, less brittle, and we no longer had any orange peel, if any at all.
One key piece of advice I can wholeheartedly agree with is this: if you want X parts and simply want to pay for X parts without any hassle, then you outsource production—you don’t do it yourself.
Long story short, I won’t deny that different users can have different problems. Your issues are real, and of course I hope you experience as little frustration as possible. That’s why I’m sharing our experience with the Fuse with everyone.
But please don’t be mad at me if I still have to say in the end that there simply isn’t a machine that runs 100% problem-free, and I’m firmly convinced that everyone here in the forum really just wants to help first and foremost, and isn’t directly responsible for Formlabs’ business decisions.
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