I’ve been running the Blast the last three months and thought I would offer my views on the machine. My experience seems to mirror what others have posted about the machine, so some of this will seem familiar if you are researching this equipment.
1- I cant imagine ever going back to manual blasting. You throw the parts in, select the cycle you want (they are customizable as well) and hit start. 20-30 min later I have cleaned out parts that look semi polished (even though I do not have the polishing attachment). I’m running standard PSI settings.
2- The recommended Eastwood scroll compressor is a must have. Its oddly quiet and supplies the required air for most cycles. If you push it with higher PSI and longer run times it will not keep up, but I’ve not really needed to use higher PSI with my models. It does gobble water out of the air so the dryer accessory and regular tank emptying seem to be necessary.
3- I’m using the recommended glass beads from Grainger and these seem to do the trick, and I have not had to top off the media yet. I would go with the polishing media but I am concerned the larger size of the polishing media will not clean out certain areas of my models. The Blast does a pretty good job of separating powder and broken down media from serviceable media.
4- I do have an issue, as I’ve seen others have, of a residue on the parts after the first several hours of run time. Support indicates this could be broken down media and recommended lowering the pressure (I am using standard pressure settings) Since I further post process my parts I’ve not really worried much about this, but it does happen. I worry going to a lower PSI setting will not adequately clean powder but I have not tested this theory.
Would I recommend the Fuse Blast to others? Yes, 100%. So far it’s indispensable for my workflow, a must have.
Couldn’t agree more! 100% recommend the system, whether you use the polishing upgrade or not. I can’t believe I ever manually blasted parts; the Blast has been a complete game-changer.
The Eastwood compressor is fantastic, but I’ve also noticed it fills up with water fast, even using the Eastwood CFS with the desiccant upgrade. FYI in case you ever decide to buy the polisher upgrade (which typically is run at 60psi) the compressor still keeps up well! It only needs to pause once per cycle for me and only for a couple minutes (15min blast, 5min rinse).
I personally find the polisher clears out tight areas pretty well, but definitely not as effectively as glass. My biggest pain with the polisher is the media getting stuck in gaps, which can be a challenging problem to fix if your design requires fine detail.
That glass breakdown problem was such a headache that the polisher nuances were worth it for me. I would have been fine with the bit of residue since it can be cleaned off to a degree, but my parts would never dye the same once that residue got embedded into the surface. Once that glass media breaks down it can be very difficult to entirely clear out of the system, even if you completely empty the Blast and refresh the glass. I would recommend trying to come up with a full media change-over interval based on blasting hours.
My models are quite large 140mmx200mm truncated cones that are nested for packing density purposes. I find a complete chamber of these constitutes 2-3 loads in the blast tumbler. Larger models like mine will fall out of the tumbler if I try to pack too many in. Not a huge issue, as ive found it better to separate some parts from others to avoid them damaging each other anyway. Just something to factor in if you plan to run this machine.
These are small issues when compared against standing endlessly at a blast cabinet!
I too, could not see operating without the Blast now that I have one.
I too, had serious white residue issues with Grainger glass beads within two weeks of owning it and did a whole thread about it with Formlabs Support claiming this to be “very rare and the only case they have ever seen of it”…in which they requested I send them the liner to inspect with nothing heard other than receiving a replacement liner and switching to their plastic beads.
See how bad that white residue got here within only a dozen cycles
After switching to their plastic beads I have never seen that residue happen again.
I did have to increase the gap distance in some of our parts to prevent the larger plastic bead from getting stuck in cracks but I can tell you that I run “pocketed parts”….think knife sheaths…and the polishing bead has no issue getting into all the tight enclosed spaces.
I run a standard “Pre Blast” on the parts. Then I inspect these pockets before running a short polishing cycle on them. If needed, I will hand blast each cavity out quickly before that polishing cycle.
I post process them in Rit Dye (graphite color) and what is awesome is that the slight polish makes the part a little less acceptable to grease, stains, etc… it “slicks the surface” a bit over the rough texture.
Also after Dye’n them and letting them dry, if they have any dye blotches on them a quick polish run in the blast cleans them up perfectly.
What I also love is that I can print and post process a batch of parts, plastic bag em and put em on the shelf and if it has been awhile or they happened to get a “mark on them” in storage, traveling to an event, and/or someone sends me back a return “rarely”…. I can simply throw em back in the blast for a very short polishing cycle and they come out looking like new.
I may explore redesigning some of my parts for the plastic beads, though some aspects of the design will be tough to make compatible with the larger media.
I did decide to experiment with lower pressures and longer blasting duration and so far this is a promising direction for those who are using the glass beads. My residue issue is nowhere near as severe as what @leadnav experienced, and maybe this will cure it.
This is completely unrelated to the blast specifically, but is it normal for the regulator to hum/whine sometimes?
I’m generally very satisfied with the Blast. Unfortunately, it’s often not ideal for my use case, as I mainly work with large and heavy parts. When I put them into the drum, they end up damaging each other’s edges and corners, even when I reduce the speed. So I have to resort to manual blasting again – which is quite inconvenient with the Blast, as the drum constantly gets in the way while working.