We had a chat with Fused Form, a 3D printer manufacturer from Colombia.
The company has been in existence for some five years, producing Prusa-style desktop 3D printers for the local region at first, then expanding throughout South America and even to Spain and Switzerland.
Their current product line up includes four machines of different sizes. Each is a filament-extrusion system that include features amenable for light production use. Here are the notable features:
- Assembled and (optionally) enclosed units to capture heat for more reliable 3D prints
- Open materials machine with 1.75mm filaments accepted
- Able to 3D print in PLA, ABS, PETG, HIPS, ASA, TPU and PVA (and likely more)
- Interchangable nozzles of different sizes: 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6 and 0.8mm for increasing fine detail or increasing print speed
- Solid aluminum frame for vibration reduction
- Filament-out sensor to pause prints when material is consumed
- Automatic power outage handling; print is paused and can be resumed when power is restored, and no UPS is required
When combined these features make these machines look like a device that could be suitable for light manufacturing, particularly the filament out detection and power outage handling.
Company representatives said the machine is well known for its ability to successfully complete long-duration prints, especially at larger sizes, which can be problematic on many machines. The day we spoke, they had just completed an 8-hour large print, for example. This could be a machine that might be able to be used 24 x 7.
There are currently four different models:
- The MINILAB, with build volume 200 x 200 x 240mm, USD$840
- The FF STD, with build volume 240 x 200 x 320mm, USD$1,600
- The FF 300, with build volume 360 x 300 x 320mm, USD$2,500
- The FF 600, with build volume 500 x 500 x 600mm, USD$7,000
And now you can see their key value proposition: build volume. All of these machines have significant sizes, even the so-called “MINILAB”, which has a build volume equivalent to many competing standard sized units.
The FF 600 in particular is quite a large device. It’s not as large as a BigRep or 3D Platform machine, but it’s at least halfway there, and is substantially less expensive. Fused Form says they have the best price per volume ratio in the industry. I’m not sure that’s true, but they certainly offer big 3D printers at reasonable pricing.
Currently the main method to buy their equipment is directly from the company. That’s not optimal, and so they are seeking North America resellers to market their equipment. It could be an interesting complementary product for a reseller that sells smaller equipment.
Via Fused Form
