Rapid manufacturing helps build rapid-manufacturing machine

January 10, 2008

Manufacturer of 3D printing machines Stratasys Inc. in Eden Prairie, Minn., says it uses rapid manufacturing to build 32 components for its new fuseddeposition- modeling production machine — the FDM 900mc.

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The company says the machine’s touchscreen bezel — one of the 32 parts — would have cost about $100,000 for traditional tooling and required about a sixweek wait. In contrast, rapid manufacturing builds parts on-demand directly from 3D CAD files.

A collection of components shows parts for the FDM 900mc machine that were built using rapid manufacturing. The large-format 3D printer has a build envelope of 3 × 2 × 3 ft.