Hello all,
I’d like to offer my perspective of the Formlabs SLS concept and experience after two years running the Fuse1 and a Sift. If you are here looking into the fuse/sift this post is meant for you, because when I was looking in the 2021-22 timeframe there were basically zero reviews! As many of you know Formlabs has a very polished media/online presence related to these machines so I was seeking real world experience to back up the image they present.
The Fuse1 and Sift have been excellent for me. 0 print failures excluding power outages (fixed by installing the UPS I should have installed from the start) and powder clumping in the spring from high humidity. My volume is not as high as some other users, but I have not had a print stoppage due to a mechanical issue with the machine over thousands of hours print time. I’ve since learned to better control humidity which fixed the clumping issue. You will need to change out filters every 1000 hours or so (don’t recall the exact figure) but these are affordable and readily available.
The parts I get out of these printers are really great, lightyears ahead of anything I could do with FDM, and SLS lets me integrate design elements that are impossible with FDM. I am very happy with the print quality. My parts do not require super tight tolerances so I don’t have much to offer there, but I will say that some of my models are broken in two for nesting/packing density purposes and I can make parts on either of my two Fuses and they fit together perfectly.
Powder handling is excellent with this equipment. There is virtually no way to spill powder if you are cautious and use everything as intended (I have not yet added powder to the sift from the 10kg bags, i’ll update once I’ve had a chance to do that). I do not notice any nylon dust buildup outside the sifts internal workspace/hood, and a little on the top of the Fuse near the powder hopper (easily cleaned with the vac). Really impressive and well thought out. That said, proper PPE is still a must and should not be overlooked.
I don’t have a blast yet but it is on my radar, if it’s anything like the other machines it will be amazing and a huge time saver as I sometimes print up to 1700 parts in a chamber!
Service is absolutely outstanding. Problems I’ve encountered have been resolved quickly and efficiently. In my personal experience they will go above and beyond and to the ends of the earth to resolve the issue, even if a solution is not available in the short term. I can’t say enough good things about the service people, they are awesome.
Hope this is helpful for those of you looking into these machines. I am not a large corporation with a massive R&D budget and tons of employees, my requirement is for the machines to be efficient and produce quality parts with minimal down time. Formlabs has delivered on this requirement for me.
Quick hints that I think are helpful:
- Control humidity per Formlabs recommendations
- Install a UPS so you don’t lose a print half way to 50 hours due to power outage/brownout! The recommended UPS will give you 40min of print time, so you have 40min to connect the UPS to a backup power source for prolonged outages.
- Plan to glass bead blast your parts, this is 1000% necessary.
- Packing density in the 25% range will keep your used/fresh powder in balance at a 30% refresh rate for PA12, in my experience.
- Check out member Leadnavs posts on using Rit Dye, super helpful.
- I’ve installed a cyclonic dust capture system between the sift and vac, which has prolonged the life of my vac bags. (not sure what formlabs has to say about this but I saw a post from Germany (I think) where someone mentioned seeing these installed in a formlabs facility there). I did add a ground to this apparatus and connected it to the ground on the industrial vac.
- Consider adding an extra optical cassette so you can always have one cleaned ready to go. I wipe down the cassette and IR sensor/cone before every print.