The Fuse X1 is reported to deliver same-day production-quality parts at 50 percent lower cost and three times the throughput of competing systems.
SOMERVILLE, Mass.—An industrial large-format selective laser sintering (SLS) 3D printing ecosystem introduced by Formlabs is designed to make high-throughput additive manufacturing more accessible to manufacturers, engineering teams, product developers, and service bureaus.
Formlabs, a supplier of professional SLA and SLS 3D printing systems, said in a company release that the Fuse X1 ecosystem includes the Fuse X1 printer and modular Build Unit, Fuse Sift X1 for powder recovery, Fuse X1 Vacuum Conveyor for automated powder transport, and a new high-capacity configuration for Fuse Blast for media blasting and polishing.
According to the June release, early access customers across automotive and consumer products, including Tesla, Radio Flyer, and Autotiv Manufacturing, have already used Fuse X1 to accelerate product development and scale production to print more than 30,000 parts in just a few months. The new system is reported to unlock reliable and scalable decentralized manufacturing while reducing costs for a wide variety of uses, including drone manufacturing.
“Since the beginning, Formlabs has worked to build the tools that make it possible for anyone to bring their ideas to life,” said Max Lobovsky, co-founder and CEO of Formlabs, in the release. “With Fuse X1, we’re bringing industrial-scale SLS printing to a much broader market, making it competitive with traditional mass manufacturing. Customers no longer need to spend half a million dollars or dedicate an entire facility to manufacturing production-grade parts quickly and reliably.”
Fuse X1 is reported to deliver production-quality parts in under 24 hours with up to 50 percent lower cost per part and three times the throughput of comparable industrial powder bed fusion systems. The ecosystem combines large-format printing, AI-powered reliability features, automated powder handling, and an intuitive workflow in a compact system that fits through a standard door. It is said to install in approximately one hour, and operates on standard single-phase power without specialized HVAC requirements.
One of its key specifications is a 330 × 330 × 565-mm build volume, with greater than 30 percent packing density. It also occupies less than half the floor space of legacy industrial SLS and MJF printers, according to Formlabs.
With Fuse X1, Formlabs is also introducing Adaptive Thermal Control and AI-Powered Print Intelligence™, two SLS technologies that the company described as “first-of-their-kind.”
“Adaptive Thermal Control unlocks unlimited packing freedom in large-format SLS for the first time with a new thermal architecture designed to maintain stable print conditions across the build chamber,” the release stated. “It collects and processes 700 times more thermal data per second than the Fuse 1+ 30W, driving 13 independent thermal zones that deliver, maintain, and sinter powder at an incredibly precise and stable temperature from the first layer to the last, giving customers unlimited freedom and exceptional part quality.”
While the maximum recommended packing density for MJF 3D printers is approximately 10 percent to 15 percent, Fuse X1 is said to achieve greater than 30 percent volume packing density to fit more parts per build and achieve what the company called unprecedented throughput.
“Print Intelligence is an AI-powered failure prevention system that uses computer vision to monitor every layer with real-time thermal imaging to detect anomalies before your build fails,” the release stated. “Print Intelligence detects part defects in real time and selectively removes the affected part from the following layers, saving materials and time.”
Tesla is reported to have adopted the Fuse X1 to accelerate product development and to produce end-use parts and tooling for its manufacturing line, benefiting from the printer’s sheer build volume and throughput.
“With the increased throughput and decreased costs, Fuse X1 has completely changed our perspective on what kinds of projects our lab can support versus what we would have traditionally moved to an injection mold,” said Cody Jepson, engineering technician for additive manufacturing at Tesla Giga NV, in the release.
Radio Flyer, the iconic American toy and electric bike brand, reportedly reduced prototype lead times for its Flyer Loop cargo e-bike frame.
“With Fuse X1, we can now print an entire Flyer Loop cargo e-bike overnight and be gluing it together the next day,” said Radio Flyer Product Development Engineer Agostino LoBello, in the release. “So we went from two months to two weeks to a couple of days. I can iterate three times as often with nine times less labor.”
Autotiv Manufacturing, which operates more than 200 printers and delivers 10,000 printed parts across the country each week, expects to achieve a return on investment five times faster than comparable SLS systems, the release said.
“Thanks to about half the upfront cost and about double the throughput, you can get a return on investment extremely quickly,” said Autotiv CEO Evan LaBelle, in the release.
In the four months prior to the announcement, Formlabs customers printed more than 30,000 parts on Fuse X1 units, the company said.