Very excited to add this machine to my workflow! Also, hats off to the team that designed the packaging, very well thought out. The ramp is genius and made offloading the Blast a piece of cake while minimizing the potential for things to go sideways (literally!). This is for sure a job for 2-3 people.
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My coworker helped me unpack less than a month ago and we both said the same thing.
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Oooh, we’re so excited for your new favorite post-processing tool!
Thanks for sharing the packaging feedback - we’ll pass the kudos on to our designers and engineers 
Happy Blasting!
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Any tips/tricks running the machine? How well does it get into tight corners with the 200-300um media?
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I ordered media from 2 suppliers and both shipments were damaged so I ended up getting some crushed glass locally. Lots of fine glass powder made it through the sieve, the media is very aggressive and gets stuck in corners without removing powder.
Round glass beads is crucial. Sucks being in a rural spot and having to order mandatory supplies from a third party.
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If you do manual blasting, don’t forget to rinse the parts with compressed air. The powder / glass dust can linger and you don’t want someone handling parts and mindlessly rubbing their eye.
I already had to update our safety manual 
Be wary of broken-down glass media, especially if you’re dying parts. As @CARobertM said, definitely steer clear of crushed media (I’m also in a rural area and had success ordering round glass beads from Blast-It-All). Even with the proper spherical stuff, the media breaks down much quicker than you’d expect. Parts will never dye as desired when the glass breaks down and gets embedded in the part.
I can’t recommend the Polisher upgrade enough, unless you want the rough appearance or own too small a compressor. The difference is night and day, particularly with dyed parts polished before AND after dying. Not to mention the long-term media cost savings, I’ve been running the same plastic polishing media for 6 months, whereas using glass required almost weekly changeouts.
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The trouble is my models have some tight areas with threads, I don’t know if the polishing media will clean those areas adequately since that media is quite large. I have read the design guide that recommends a 2mm radius (IIRC) can you confirm this is warranted or do the plastic beads actually get into corners?
Unfortunately, I don’t typically print threads unless they’re very large so I can’t say for sure how that would clean out. However, I can give some context that may give you a better idea of whether the polisher suits your application. I’ll share an example part and my experiences in how it works with the Blast. I run the Blast before and after dying, for 15 minutes on Polishing, and 3 minutes on Rinsing at 60 and 20 psi respectively.
Corner Radius: I always fillet my internal corners as much as possible but often times this is well under 2mm. This 0.025" (0.6mm) radius clears out just fine.
Small Diameter Holes: For short length small holes, I have had success by using through holes. Some residual powder may be left over but not enough to prevent installing a thread-forming screw.
Tight Gaps: This is where I see the polishing media get stuck most often. If you have detailed features like text or ribs extra consideration does have to be taken. In my model shown below, sometimes media gets stuck in between the embossed letters. However, it doesn’t happen on every part, and any stuck beads can easily be picked out with fine tweezers.
Long Through Holes: Sometimes larger holes don’t get entirely cleaned out if they are particularly long. To prevent this, I use a very undersized drill and a low-speed low-torque driver to make a “pilot hole” through the powder. I’ve been following this practice even when using glass media.
Appearance Comparison: Below is a rough comparison of the finishes. Definitely not an apples-to-apples comparison, but you get the idea. Glass blasting leaves parts looking dry and rough, which may be desirable in some cases. In my application, the polished finish looks much better and almost resembles an injection molded part.
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@jmasterson this is incredibly helpful, thank you.
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