SLS isn’t normally used for castings because of the textured surface finish. SLA printers like the Form 1 & 2 are much better because of the surface finish.
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Do you mean Nylon 6?
Nylon 6? Personally I was thinking wax would be ideal.
For dental use, any cartable material would help, as long as it’s not flexible… to avoid distorsion.
New Balance is looking to ramp up quickly to production of its dog poo catching 3d printed lattice midsole footwear the solution is
a Form Cell solution implemented with FUSE 1+ machines employing an upgraded power laser source so colour is not a limitation, plus a greater vertical axis on the robot so increasing output density for floor space utilised, is Formlabs already there? FormFactory
Then there’s all the automated material handling and ancillaries such as bulk storage, vacuum conveying, material drying, monitoring and control, etc etc
All the back office stuff that’s not been introduced yet think of a Lego factory floor but quieter.
Form Cell allows lights out manufacturing. It can also expand from 1 machine to 20 machines as production load requires without having to scale labor. That’s the real benefit.
We’re currently printing in Nylon 11 and 12 but are actively working on expanding the materials library for Fuse 1 . That said, I agree with @FredB comment that SLA might prove superior in terms of feature resolution and surface finish as compared to SLS for casted parts.
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Just out of curiosity, what is your interest for an SLS machine as a dental professional ?
Well they use SLS tech to produce metal frameworks, crowns and bridges, directly sintering metal (CoCr)…thoses machines are really expensive for know, but start giving good results.
I think the surface quality would be better than my FDM printer which even that is acceptable for most engineering parts. I bought a Form 2 to print patterns for engineering castings, but because the castable resin is so soft, it has been difficult to impossible to use it for that purpose because parts are distorted from the shear forces (or knocks it off the build plate since the castable doesn’t adhere to the build plate as strongly as say the clear resin).
I guess it works fine for small parts like for dentistry and jewelry but not for engineering parts. When I saw there was castable resin I thought I was all set, but it should have displayed a disclaimer indicating that it might only work well for very small parts.
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I feel your pain @3DTOPO. The photo below shows a worm gear of 2" diameter in castable v.2 which spontaneously split in two after several weeks on the shelf suggesting large internal forces are in play. That and the difficulty of getting the correct investment and burn-out process to deal with larger items means we are back to wax.
That said, I’m still in love with the Form 2. It happily built a 14-piece mould to allow the wax equivalents to be produced with faithful geometric precision and accuracy. And for producing patterns for sand casting or masters for silicone moulds for investment casting, it is great. But the direct-to-investment route still eludes us.
So, did anyone see this video:
It covers Fuse 1 more than on the official presentation, in particular the finishing station, which seems to be quite big and complex. I might be able to make a push and by Fuse 1 but finishing station for another ten grand… Hmmm… I wonder if it is something that can be done as DIY after a lot of UV DIY curing chamber projects that we have seen…
Glad you enjoyed the video! It’s worth mentioning that Fuse Recover is still being developed and may change in the coming months. More information on Fuse Recover will be coming out soon.
When do we get information about the nylon pricing?
I’m also interested that how long it takes time for one full cycle. Something like 1 hr to warm up, 33 hr to drive if machine is full of parts? how long it takes to cooling out?
Nylon pricing hasn’t quite been finalized yet but we’ll be sure to make an announcement when it has been.
Full cycle time will be highly dependent on part geometry and volume but print times will be relatively similar to those on the Form 2. Heat up time will vary based on a few conditions like ambient temperature but is currently about an hour. Cool down time is approximately half of the print time.
Thank you for the information.
I use my Form 2 for prototyping and I think it’s awesome machine.
Now I try to figure out production cycle and costs if I someday use Fuse 1.
But maybe I need to wait few months to get that information 
I really hope that material costs are moderate.
I wonder if the unspoken issues of Z height dimensional consistency especially on full height builds is resolved with the FUSE1?
Any plans for Polypropylene or PEEK? Are you looking to partner with any materials suppliers?
We’re continuously evaluating different materials and suppliers for the Fuse 1 and will be producing new content and updates over the coming months!
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As follow-up question to item 6:
So if you print an object with a height of say 20mm, the print will stop and the amount of used material, that can be recycled is small. The remaining amount of material, that has not been deposited will be ”unsued”?