Morning! Interesting that for the most part that this is the first time I have been made aware that Formlabs provides this service at all. As kind of a service bureau, couples of thoughts:
Let’s talk SLS first:
- Believe it or not, I was once again researching the Fuse 1 to do Nylon 12 for me. I was very tempted as the Fuse 1 pricing has been slashed to $10K; however, this print service, if it truly exists with the pricing, reliability and turnaround they promise, will single handedly destroy any notion for me to buy a machine. In reality, a 2-4 day turnaround is what I will need for anyways to setup a job, print, and post process SLS parts. Any additional time from shipping can be absorb client end from shipping to them anyways. In reality, this may even be faster and more versatile as Formlabs obviously has a larger scale than I ever will and can print all their SLS materials. Why pay $30K when I can have something better and not deal with having to actually print and post process?
- I do not see a realm where I can compete against a $400/ chamber of parts. I think for the example chamber you posted a professional service bureau would charge a couple thousand to make it. There is a recently newly added Formlabs webpage advertising powder volume discount, but based off my own experience with sales and everyone I seems to hear from in all reality getting a substantial enough discount worth anything would mean buying shipping containers full of this stuff. Honestly on the SLS side on things I wouldn’t be surprised if there are single digit companies that buy this much on this planet because at that point everyone is going to just buy an HP or EOS machine… they have more throughput and are faster.
- The print preparation for SLS has a relatively low learning curve. Honestly, doing this through Preform is basically an advanced and better autoquote system. If this service can truly deliver this pricing with reliable quality, I would recommend it to people over buying a machine and even ordering anything through me. However, I do think it remains to be seen whether this can deliver.
Now, some thoughts on this service and SLA:
- I know not enough Form 4’s have probably been made for them to build a print farm yet; however, I think it is perhaps telling that they do not offer this service with Form 4 despite how much faster it is. You can read about what I think about Form 4 here: My experience with the Form 4(B) so far/ Semi-Review from a Semi-Industrial User Perspective. Maybe I am incorrect, but it does not appear I can quote anything on Form 4. I certainly think Form 4 cannot standup to this kind of very demanding manufacturing environment yet.
- Based off the quoted SLA samples in your link, I can say for sure I cannot beat those prices is they are true. I am charging X2-4 on Form 4 stuff geometry and material dependent to make any money accounting for substaintial post-processing of SLA.
- If I can order reliable PU and biomed parts on demand I’ll sell my Form 4 tomorrow and use this service to avoid the work dealing with SLA parts.
Some closing thoughts:
- Now, I think it will remain to be seen how this rolls out. I have seen bad work from some “professional” service bureaus before, and this is promising a lot of capability and capacity. It is a BIG “if” this service can deliver good and reliable parts for now. I don’t know how big the print farm is, and how large Formlab’s supply of almost slave labor technician and materials are… these are literally almost only material cost. If turnarounds grow to 2-3 weeks with print failures in between then it becomes obviously not work it. I think the SLS side of this will be than the SLA side.
- Fortunately, I am lucky like you that this is my side hustle as well. My business has a for-profit service bureau side and a non-profit side providing parts for people in need summing to hopefully to zero. I would in reality probably recommend this service to my clients needing reliable manufacturing over printing at me if Formlabs can provide this well as an alternative to like Protolabs or Xometry. I would sell my machines and more so become a middle-man and consultants charging to mediate ordering parts; eventually this will mean my exit from the business side of it and focusing on non-profit, going from sum zero to spending my own money and reducing scale of work.
- Unfortunately service bureau work is turning slowly into who is already established with client base with big contracts, having a fleet of the biggest baddest machine, and economies of scaling out anyone. Believe it or not, this definitely holds true for SLA and perhaps for Formlab’s SLS product as well: I have quoted some things, and it really is not that much more expensive for me to order things off a $250K machine these days compared to printing it on a Formlabs and buying $200/cartridge of resin (that Form 4 will explode half the prints and force me to literally dump it in the trash). I really think running a service bureau with Formlabs as a niche to try to undercut big bureaus and make some money in niche models is an increasing pipe dream. Formlabs literally have a webpage about how they make “industrial” 3D printers: High-Precision, Blazing Fast SLA and SLS Industrial 3D Printers | Formlabs and other articles on how they can outprint a $500K 3D systems or HP, but this is just not true currently. When anybody order a $450 part from Protolabs made on a $500k SLA, it shows up in a week. When someone orders a only slightly cheaper $350 from me on the Form 4, the Form 4 explodes it twice and drag the timeline out 2 weeks… It appears Formlabs SLS is getting closer but Formlabs SLA is far, far from what is out there especially considering its pricing and performance.