The New "Bags" of Powder

Got my first 10kg “bag” of SLS powder and I am just curious about your thoughts or tips and tricks so far…

The thought of it didn’t bother me but now that it is here I’m just wandering how to best get it into the Sift without making a mess.

Figured I’d cut the corner off the bag, cut the top off of an old jug of powder and use it as a funnel…

However, from experience, using the jug is super “clean” as you use the lid to cut the seal then flip it over with barely any surrounding “air contact” involved. So I am foreseeing a lot more contamination issues with micro hair and dust making its way into the Sift with this new way of packaging…

Again, the whole thing wouldn’t bother me if this meant less plastic waste and the cheaper way to package…leading to cheaper powder for the consumer…but its costing us the same amount and adding a bigger pain in the rear end. Also, with a higher failure rate do to added contamination possibilities into the fresh powder hopper…

The old super easy and nearly zero chance of contamination into the Sift way

The new way… :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

Again…not something I thought was going to be a big deal but to those who print very large parts…and know how “one super tiny micro hair” can ruin it…will know what I’m talking about.

I may have to shave my body or at least my arm hair now just to be sure :rofl: but really if you are going to make packaging easy on yourselves and cheaper but add more hassle on our end… you could have at least shared some of that cost saving with us…the users.

Hi @LEADNAV !

Thanks for sharing your experience and insights! With the transition to the 10kg bags, you can use the Fuse Sift Funnel. This funnel is a drop-in attachment that replaces the powder inlet on the Fuse Sift, making it much easier and cleaner to transfer powder from the 10kg bags. It’s designed to help maintain a clean workstation and minimize the chance of contamination during loading.

You can check out the funnel here. It should help with the issues you’re facing and make the process a lot smoother!

Let me know if you have any other questions or need further help.

2 Likes

Just ordered it…hard to tell in photo but is there a doc on this and/or I’m assuming this has some sort of mesh built in?

I was actually just informed that we will be including one in your next powder order. Sorry for the confusion! I will also ask about if there is a mesh.

1 Like

You can actually print this Sift funnel yourself. Formlabs shares the STL for this. This means that the component can also be viewed in detail. The funnel is printed with a grid structure so that no larger parts can fall through.

Printable parts for Formlabs devices

2 Likes

Appreciate the link to it. (Once again the handful of SLS users on this forum pulled through) :+1:

With this print taking up the entire build chamber though I’d gladly order one for $20 versus printing it myself $$.

Standing by for it and looks like my Blast has started to ship so will see how that all goes :crossed_fingers:

2 Likes

I was told by my service tech a few months ago that they were switching to the bags (and here they are), but to hold onto a few jugs for saving used material if you have overflow in the used hopper. We ebb and flow on packing densities and we use the jugs to store excess powder. Been quite handy to drop it into the sifter when we have really high packing densities and we’re low on recycled powder. It’s a thing on PA12 and I know it’s probably not an issue with GF.

Hang on to them jugs…

2 Likes

You are right. The original packaging was much better. I would understand if a bigger new pack would be cheaper, but it’s the other way around. In our country, the new 10 kg package is more expensive than the original 6 kg package. As a result, Formlabs literally screwed with customers. He made the experience of using the printer worse and made money from it. It’s disgusting.

Yea it bothered me…then it didn’t bother me once I got the Sift grate installed…then it now bothers me again….

You can’t ever really get an entire 10kg into the Sift at once so I am left carefully trying to pour a bag into the grate, the grate overflowing occasionally dumping my fresh powder out into the Sift area with old powder… then trying to “pinch off the bag” to not over flow the hopper. Then the huge dust cloud as I try to roll up the remainder of what’s in the bag while trying to get the air out of the bag… WAY MESSIER in my opinion and higher chance of contamination into the fresh powder hopper…

I was definitely a fan of the jugs. Super clean n easy but hey… who knows.