Fuse 1 General Reliability and Media Blaster Recommendation

General Discussion
1

Afternoon all,

Due to recent price reduction of Fuse 1, looking to perhaps shop for one. Anyone here consistently printing with Fuse 1 (not 1+) with nylon 12 can tell me possibly:

  1. What is the real world, part in hand part reliability and accuracy you experience with Nylon 12? Can you consistently print solid or long/ thin wall things near full build volume without warping if you do some basic orienting as of today?
  2. The fuse blast is not cost effective for me, what blasting solution do you use/ recommend? I am based in the US if that matters.
  3. Does 30% refresh generate actually useable parts or should one really be printing at like 50% refresh for nylon 12?

Thanks in advance!

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2

Hi eaglechen, to answer your questions:

  1. There is a learning curve where you may find unreliable or inaccurate parts but that is remedied as quickly as you can learn from your design mistakes. The same thing goes for solid or long/ thin wall things. As long as you adhere to the Formlabs design specifications you should be fine [Design specifications for 3D models (Fuse 1 generation)].
  2. While I do strongly recommend the FUSE Blast; I was using a “Harbor Freight Style” blasting cabinet and “Harbor Freight Style” Media Tumbler with #7 Glass Beads and 18-40 Walnut respectively. However, FUSE Blast saves many hours of labor. What took me 4 hours to blast a complete build (contents of a full build volume) now can be done in 25 minutes. And with the claims found on the [Design specifications for the Fuse Blast Polishing System] guide it should improve the rest of my Post Processing procedure.
  3. Based on this guide, [Selecting the correct powder refresh rate] as well as my experience; I can safely state that 30% Refresh Rate is justified. I have amazing quality parts at that refresh rate. Also in accordance with that guide, you can vary your PRR (Powder Refresh Rate) according to your printing environment and system flow which will vary day by day. My rule of thumb is the higher your Packing Density, the lower your PRR to a minimum of 20%. This is purely to regulate how much my excess powder accumulates. In practice, I almost exclusively use the recommended PRR of 30% and will periodically switch to 25% and 20% If I detect that my Used Hopper is not falling below 4KG frequently enough.
    The other thing to note is you should keep FUSE1 and related machines very clean of powder and Laurolactam. By ensuring the system is regularly as clean as possible, you can avoid any printing issues that are not tied to hardware fails.

Hope this helps your decision making.

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